Our fourth round opposition. We are also at home, so it's a pretty good draw, but nearly all the big teams got kind draws. We recently faced Coventry in the league cup, and they were pretty bad and we won 6-0. Hopefully we repeat that performance.
I like the idea of them making a decent lump from the game which will help their long term existence, their fans have had a rough trot and now face home games at Northampton and must fit games in around their schedule, a payday from a game at ours will do no end of good....
With Man Utd & Spurs out the run is a bit clearer. City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton still in. Getting past Cov (first priority) & then avoiding them in R5 would be great.
Trouble is there will come a time where a number of vital games come quickly and prioritising isn't easy - last year we went out to Blackburn 3 days before the Bayern home leg and I'm sure we weren't totally focussed against a lower division team who'd spent most of the season in turmoil. 5th round games are due to be played weekend 15/16 Feb, which comes a few days after we play Man Utd at home and a few days before we play Bayern again, I can see those 7 days being absolutely vital. If we progress to quarter final that game comes 3 days before the return Bayern leg. Focus will be key....
Interesting that this game is being played on a Friday now, because of TV. Anyone know when last played a game on a Friday?
I don't think I've ever watched a single Arsenal competitive game being played on a Friday! But this actually works out quite good for us, we get an extra day's rest before the mid-week game against Southampton on Tuesday, so better play on Friday than Saturday and get only 2 days rest before that tough away game.
We're going to have to take it 1 game at a time during those heavy fixtures, I think it's much preferable to have the FA cup game, rather than a league game, prior to that mega clash against Munich, depending on the cup opponent offcourse. If we can get good results VS Liverpool & United that would be an excellent confidence boost before the mega clash against Munich, plus having those big league games means we will be in a period of lot's of focus, which again, is a good thing before you have that mega clash VS Bayern.
[video=youtube;4jiBIdtUKhs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jiBIdtUKhs[/video] But, arguably our greatest game was played on a Friday.
[video=youtube;er5vVCVbVsw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er5vVCVbVsw[/video] This epic game was also played on a Friday for some reason. Maybe that was the last game we played on a Friday.
This was played on Good Friday. Dull fact for the younger members, when ITV won the deal to show live div 1 games (now Prem) around 1984 I guess, in the days where sponsors shirts couldn't be worn and most teams had black patches stitched onto their shirts to cover the sponsor because teams only had 1 kit, these games were played on a Friday. I remember one very painful early live game at OT when we went 2-1 up early in the 2nd half only to get beaten 4-2....
I could be wrong but around the same time we played Watford on consecutive days, that would have been around Easter so could very well have been a Fri/Sat. I remember going to the home game and we got dicked 2-0, I think we even found a way of losing the following day too. And they moan about playing twice a week now....
I don't think we would have played two days on the bounce in the 80's. I also think by the time football was shown live on TV clubs were able to wear shirts showing showing a sponsor although I do agree clubs were originally banned from wearing shirts with a sponsor for televised games i.e. MOTD,Big Match
I can assure you we played 2 days running, both games against Watford, probably around mid 80's. I also remember the 1979-80 season when we played something like 18 games in 50 days at the end of the season - we played the CWC Final in Brussels on the Wednesday night then played Wolves away Friday night !
You've gone from saying you could be wrong about playing two days on the bounce to assuring me that it happened. I remember the ECWC final in Brussels in 1980 all too clearly as I was there
By suggesting 'I might be wrong' I was referring to the era, not the fact it happened. Just for my own sanity..... http://www.footballsite.co.uk/Statistics/LeagueTables/Season1985-86/ClubResults/1985-86Arsenal.html
