Swans Pay the Good Squad a Visit – Match Preview

On a day Loic Remy’s medical has been done and Yann M’Vila’s London arrival all about a done deal, Swansea visit the capital for an FA Cup third round replay looking to sting more misery on gooners all over.

While we let up on the Remy chase a long time ago only to watch as he did a Mata on Newcastle, QPR signing M’Vila is just a bitter bit for me to accept at the moment. More so since the deal would cost the royals a whooping £7m.

In the midst of this, the boss stated that he knows just how he wants the squad bolstered and that the club is “working very hard” at doing so.

According to the god, “First of all we want to sort out the injuries we have, and we are trying very hard to close the deal with Walcott. Once we have done that, we will certainly do something else. At the moment I cannot tell you more.”

It gets better though as he added that “It has become more difficult [to buy players in January] for one simple reason: we have a good squad.”

Right! But, like a Dumbledore who knows just how the scarred one would react to such, Wenger further said “I know we swim against the stream a bit because people don’t believe that. I say we have a very good squad.”

“God” has spoken, we move on.

Jack Wilshere looks set to feature tonight as Wenger recognises that while Jack will need some rest, that rest will come later.

We do need Wilshere tonight and with Mikel Arteta out with a calf injury for (what hopefully won’t be more than) three weeks tops. Wenger for now reckons Arteta should be back in time for Liverpool’s visit of the Grove.

In other team news, Laurent Koscielny is suspended and will be replaced in the squad by Arshavin according to the god, while Tomas Rosicky will also miss the tie with a calf injury of his own.

Possible starting XI:
Szczesny. Sagna/(Jenkinson), BFG, Vermaelen, Gibbs. Diaby/(Ramsey), Wilshere, Cazorla. Podolski, Walcott. Giroud.

Francis Coquelin should really be getting a starting shirt, since he’s the only natural holding midfielder close enough to the first team but what would Wenger do? Wenger knows best.

A win tonight will keep us on course for a trophy this season. Another humble pie serving from the Swans and, we can pretty much start preparing for next season’s campaign. I don’t think this squad can win the Champions League.

Away from tonight’s match, West Ham’s Mohamed Diame will be watched by the club in the Hammers’ replay at Manchester United in view of activating his £3.5m release clause.

But with his words about our transfer activity this month, you get a feeling our interest in Diame is a dead end. And of course, we have Abou Diaby and Emmanuel Frimpong.

That’s the bit from us today. Hopefully the real Arsenal will turn up tonight.

Have any thoughts? Please share with us below or on twitter.

Have a good day!