English Premier League: Arsenal vs. Blackburn Rovers - When a football match is not a football match
Arsenal travel to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday to take part in a game being vociferously billed as a "rugby match." Forget the art of football, the game will supposedly pit a bunch of thugs against the purveyors and artists of the game. That is how the game is being hyped up before it kicks off the third week of the English Premier League.
The tag has come due to the battle that the two teams indulged in the last time they met in at Ewood Park. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger was indignant at the rough tactics that his side had been made subject to. Furthermore, he was furious with the referee for not giving his players enough protection against what can only be referred to as overenthusiastic physicality.
The complaint may have some semblance of truth, but overall, it is a bit unfair to be branding Rovers’ brand of football as "anti-football." The complaint may have something to do with Rovers manager Sam Allardyce. Allardyce, in the stint before last, where he was manager of Bolton Wanderers, had managed to make his team something of a jinx for Arsenal for a couple of years. The Gunners saw themselves lose at the Wanderers stadium a number of times. Some of those games were crucial to the title run-in and usually those defeats were followed by cries of foul play. Wenger has vociferously condemned the anti-football adopted by Allardyce's Wanderers and said that they made no attempt to play football. Their only tactic was to stop Arsenal from playing.
Allardyce's retort to that allegation has always been generic. He has maintained that against top teams with massive resources, the only way to play is to try and stop the other team from playing. Even though this argument did not win Allardyce any new fans, it was logical that his team will try and play to its strengths and its opponent's weaknesses. This argument, however, was weakened by the fact that Bolton of yesteryear chose to play its stringent (statistically heavy) brand of football against everyone, even Premier League newcomers.
The aforementioned discussion may seem superficial, yet it hints to deeper footballing philosophies of what football is all about. Is it Wenger's utopian vision of Art? That playing beautifully is a victory in itself? Or is pragmatism of the sort Allardyce advocates the order of the day?
Those two questions may not seem evident at Ewood Park this weekend, but scratch the surface a little and these questions are what you will find. Will Blackburn play the supposed "rugby" match? Will Arsenal respond to this brand of football with more beautiful football or will pragmatism force them to fight fire with fire?
As for the match itself to be played, Blackburn Rovers will hope to welcome back one of its most talented players, David Dunn. Dunn is one of the very few players in the Rovers squad who can find the killer pass. It has only been his fitness problems which have stopped him from fulfilling his potential as a top-quality talent. Dunn returned to training after suffering a groin injury during the opening day victory over Everton.
Gael Givet is expected to have recovered sufficiently after losing a tooth in the Carling Cup win over Norwich. Keith Andrews, however, will be absent with a groin problem.
For Arsenal, Brazilian midfielder Denilson will be back in the squad after overcoming an injury while defender Laurent Koscielny returns from a suspension to be eligible for selection. New signing Sebastien Squillaci, however, is not expected to feature in the game at Ewood Park. Nicklas Bendtner, Aaron Ramsey and Samir Nasri are the other long-term absentees for the visiting team.
Arsenal have looked good in their recent games while Blackburn will always be a tough proposition at home. However, it is expected that Arsenal will overcome the strong hand tactics of the home team to nick a 2-1 or 1-0 win. There might not be a 4-0 thrashing as there was a few years ago. Expect it to be cagey and for beautiful football to have only a few moments in the game.
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