Preview: Roma vs Arsenal – Flash back
By Randy Osae
Stadio Olimpico
Arsenal visit Rome on Wednesday night knowing they do not have to storm the Italian capital to progress in the Champions League, but emulating their exploits in that part of Europe will undermine their credentials in the competition.
Kolo Toure travelled with the squad to Rome along with Eduardo and Walcott. But Silvestre who is now fit, stayed in London as he only resumed training recently.
Adebayor, Rosicky and Fabregas will also be absent.
Other than that, everyone else not mentioned was among the squad that arrived in Italy.
Eduardo and Theo Walcott – who both played in the Gunners’ FA Cup win over Burnley – are among manager Arsene Wenger’s options up front.
Now here is a flash back of the last time the Gunners made such a trip.
Arsenal had the worst possible start going behind to Antonio Cassano’s fourth-minute goal.
But, before the Olympic Stadium cheers had subsided, Henry levelled the scores with a sublime finish.
The French international scored again to give Arsenal the lead on 70 minutes and soon after completed his hat-trick with a superbly taken free-kick.
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.2193935&w=310&h=260&fv=]
Ahh memories…
There is a lot od talk comming from Roma, I was unimpressed with them in the first leg and with our returning players our first team is possibly better than the 1-3 result if you consider Luzhny and Cygan?
As long as we turn up and without De Rossi all should be good.
Arsenal tends to do well against Italian side be it at home or away. I firmly believe that we can get the desired result in Rome. As the form of the team is picking up nicely couple with the return of Walcott and Eduardo, this tie looks very promising to us. Like Wenger mentioned after the post match interview against Burnley, We are growing from strength to strength. So long as we remain discipline and focus, success is ours.
Thierry Henry…
thats the way
Thanks for the memories…
No problem Kidz, we just need memories for motivation.
I believe our place in the last eight is already guaranteed as I dont see Roma beating us tomorrow.
All we have to do is score one away goal and they are finished, as they will need a 2 goal advantage to advance.
I think we are going to witness a rejuvenated gunners side in roma on wednesday. We could have easily beat them 3-0 in the first leg when our team was psychologically down let alone now that the team is ticking.
I see us scoring two goals with a possible third in the final minutes with roma scoring once or none. It could be a repeat of the video, only that TH14 will not be in the mix.
Honestly I’m more bothered about the game against blackburn than this one.
I may be wrong but I feel that we performed better in the cup competition ( Carling & FA ) and Champion League. Our League performances is a bit of a concern. Citygunner I know where you are coming from when you mentioned the coming Blackburn game.
The epl has been our undoing this season and not the cup competitions like you rightly said kidz.
I’m confident the roma game is a done deal but I fear that over confidence and negative tactics from lower teams might give us a hard time time this weekend.
Alardyce and his negative tactics when he was at bolton became a bogey for us and I dont see him changing tactics, knowing his team cant compete with us if they play a free flowing game.
Hopefully dudu, arshavin, on fire bendtner, and rvp will find the creativity to lead us through.
3-1 or 2-0 against roma, 2-0 against blackburn
In God we trust
Go gunners
This is the truly magician his name is Henry.
This is our legend
a away goal!
all we need!
and arsenal
please dont conceed!
great poem, Namit.
hehe!