| Welcome to bcfcforum.co.uk. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Blues V Arsenal - Hansen's View; One of Arsenal's toughest fixtures | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 25 2010, 05:01 PM (164 Views) | |
| Blacksmith | Mar 25 2010, 05:01 PM Post #1 |
|
Jeff Hall
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Hansen reckons this will be one of Arsenal's toughest remaining fixtures, but he still reckons they will win. From 'The New Football Pools' Arsenal face arguably one of their toughest remaining fixtures when they travel to St Andrew’s this weekend to take on Birmingham. The fact that they will have to do it without this season’s star defender Thomas Vermaelen adds to the difficulty of this match for the Gunners but with belief and form on their side, they will still be favourites. Alex McLeish’s Blues team slumped to their 5th league defeat in six away games at Blackburn in midweek but at home, Birmingham remain extremely difficult to beat. No away side has been able to win at St Andrew’s since Bolton won there in late September. All credit to Alex and his team for maintaining their eleven match unbeaten home league run when you consider some of the teams that they’ve faced there. The likes of Man City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham and Everton have all managed to draw at St Andrew’s which suggests a similar result is likely this weekend. However, Arsenal are in such good form while Birmingham are struggling to maintain their momentum and uncharacteristically leaking goals. The Blues have the joint 2nd best home defensive record in the division having conceded just ten goals, so Arsenal may have their work cut out finding the net. However, the Gunners are in good scoring form having racked up 17 goals in their last six games in all competitions. Former Birmingham player Nicklas Bendtner is the obvious threat to the Blues defence after netting six goals in his last six appearances. The Dane is by no means the only danger to the home side as Arsene Wenger’s team have had a total of eight different scorers in this run. Captain Cesc Fabregas is one of those and he has scored in each of his last four league appearances. Birmingham are likely to get their chances too with Sol Campbell likely to be joined by either Alex Song or Mikael Silvestre at centre-half in an untried combination. Sol has been a great signing and has proved his worth against the likes of Stoke and Hull in recent weeks but he will need to be on his toes against Cameron Jerome who has scored four goals in his last four games. Jerome has both power and pace, so could be a handful. Arsenal don’t have the best of memories of St Andrew’s in recent years and have only won one of their last three visits (one defeat). However, with belief and confidence coursing through this young Arsenal side, I am tipping them to strike a huge psychological blow in the title race by winning where both United and Chelsea have failed. After all, the Gunners have won their last six league games, their best run of form since winning seven on the bounce in October 2007. Therefore, I am backing an away win. |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · Blues Chat · Next Topic » |




![]](http://z4.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)



8:51 AM Jul 11