Arsene may adopt a physical and tall side to counter the longer game from Stoke City. Alex Song could come in alongside Cesc Fabregas with Abou Diaby who is fresher than Nasri to play from the left

Yes I am still alive, I didn’t take my life after the dreadful end result on Wednesday, a day out with the kids stopped me writing yesterday but I come back with a somewhat strange feeling towards my beloved club.

Losing to class is acceptable. As much as it hurts you just put your hands up and say that you were not good enough on the day. Losing to luck is annoying, a sort of feeling sorry for yourself feeling. You cannot really blame yourself for lady luck not being on your side for the day. I don’t think you can count refereeing decisions as luck, especially last season.

Losing to complacency, arrogance or stupidity is another thing all together. Fulham away was arrogance, Hull City was complacency and the draw to Tottenham was just plain stupidity and that really gets my goat, big time.

I still feel very annoyed about what happened on Wednesday and am getting slightly fed up with the team having to respond well after 3 or 4 good results.

The league is still not gone yet, the draw has basically put us back the same as it was before Chelsea lost to Liverpool and Man United only managed a point at Everton so nothing much has really changed apart from the games played statistic. I have said from the start of the season that we have the talent to win the league and I stand by that but what I didn’t account for was the mental attitude of a 6 year old. If this can change then we have a hope if not then kiss and goodbye to the league for another season at the very least.

Today we take on another ‘smaller’ side away from home, surely we just need to turn up do a few tricks and back flicks and we will win 7-0. Well, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear the players talking like that in private.

Arsene may adopt a physical and tall side to counter the longer game from Stoke City. Alex Song could come in alongside Cesc Fabregas with Abou Diaby who is fresher than Nasri to play from the left. Emmanuel Eboue if passed fit could replace Theo Walcott on the right that may lose a little bit of attacking balance from the side. A bench of Walcott, Nasri, Bendtner and Vela should be enough to change the game if we did start off with a more powerful looking team.

Arsene was asked about Stoke City and the danger from long throws.

Wenger said:

“We know they are very dangerous on set-pieces and especially from long throw-ins. We need to deal with that.

“I believe the most important thing is for us to have the ball and put them under pressure. We have to attack the ball in the air and not make too much fuss about it. They score maybe one like that every two months and it is not like a penalty. It is a throw-in and we cannot get obsessed by that. We need to try and dominate the game and score goals.”

Wenger claims that he and the players know what the problem is.

We know the truth on the inside and that is not what has been projected on the outside. We know what we have to do. We were all very disappointed.

Interesting, did they know what the truth was after the Fulham game? Or how about the Hull City game? Perhaps they worked it out between them after the Sunderland match? I guess not. they all had a cuddle after the stupid draw on Wednesday, had a cry and worked it out together. So we should go the rest of the season unbeaten now.

Mean Lean’s predicted line up

Mean Lean’s predictions

Rotation means that it is hard to predict how this 90 minutes will unfold. Wenger will rotate to combat Stokes aerial threat as well as rest tired legs. I think Stoke will play this like a cup final and go at us from the first minute. A wrong attitude will see us not get into our rhythm and we could witness another upset. The team should respond (again) correctly as they know what the situation is. Kolo Toure will partner Silvestre for the first time as Gallas picked up an injury against Tottenham. Tactical injury? Is something going on there or is that the sceptic in me?

I imagine that Song will come in for Denilson but do not be surprised if Cesc is the one to make way and Diaby should play on the left where I expected him to be against Tottenham.

Stoke City 1 Arsenal 0

Too many changes could upset the rhythm of the side and without our creative players we could struggle. Negative prediction? I prefer to call it reverse psychology.

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