I know (in fact all Arsenal fans do) that it is a very dangerous thing to count your chickens before they are hatched, but this time around the Newcastle manager himself has admitted that he expects an extremely difficult game when the Gunners come to St. James Park this weekend, due to the lack of players at his disposal.
John Carver has said that he has hardly enough players to fill his subs bench ahead of the game. He told Goal: “I’ve had big challenges in the past and this is one of the biggest,”
“It’s my job to prepare the team to bounce back from Everton.
“But I only have 13 fit senior players, plus two goalkeepers, for the game
“We are a small group and it’s a difficult time but the only way you get through it is by sticking together and smiling.”
Newcastle lost the Everton game by 3-0, which wasn’t helped by the red card for Fabricio Coloccini, and he is already missing some of his top players like Papiss Cisse, Cheick Tiote, Mehdi Abeid, Siem De Jong and Steven Taylor. This augurs well for the Gunners as Newcastle’s confidence is already in tatters after losing five of their last six games.
Arsenal really need the three points on Saturday with Liverpool taking on Man United on Sunday, and we could also use a little extra confidence boost after narrowly being knocked out of the Champions League. Fingers crossed that the Arsenal squad are ready to take advantage of our opponents problems….