Valencia review

Well, just as I was preparing a whole thing about how Bobby Charlton said that friendlies are important because they can be used well to build momentum and that England won the world cup by winning all their friendlies for a couple of years beforehand, we loose our last friendly of the summer.

Our line up is likely to be our likely starting line up in the beginning of the season according to l'Boss. I like our starting line up and think it's probably the way to go until some of our boys get to full fitness and get more acquainted with the squad.

I didn't see the game but having read the match report, it seems that the opening was unsettled due to the harsh weather with heavy rain and the remainder of the first half was generally even, with a few chances here and there for both teams. The second half saw a lot of changes as Wenger played all his available players except for poor Aaron Ramsey who sat the whole game out.

Apparently we should have scored twice in the opening five minutes but didn't take our chances and were then out run by Valencia for the rest of the game. They scored in the 73rd after we failed to clear a free kick, it was Valencia's third shot at us that ended up going in. Old habbits die hard I guess. And then as the game died off David Villa added one in the 90th after having had a penalty saved by Fabianski, which'll do wonders for his confidence no doubt.

There wasn't much commentary about individual performances but the text suggests that Van Persie was our main man getting most of our chances. Eduardo got one or two that he uncharacteristically spurned.

It seems to me that after making 8/9 changes at half time the game swayed in their favor and we weren't able to adequately compete. This doesn't bode entirely well but it's not the end of the world either. With Ramsey remaining on the bench, Denilson out of the squad and Rosicky and Nasri in the physios our second string has more to offer than those who came on in the second half today. With the possible addition of 1/2 more we'll be all the stronger. Not to mention the fact that we won't be making 8 subs every game and our second string won't be playing all together all the time, they'll be mixed with the starters and will be more able to make a difference and develop well. It is, however, slightly discouraging because our squad is so deep and promising, it's like having to take a few steps back after having worked so hard to take a couple steps forward.

Of course this was a friendly and it did, more than anything, give l'Boss one last chance to look at the team and contemplate a line up before the start of the season. There'll be more commentary Monday after I see some highlights and we'll spend the rest of the week looking over pre-season, looking forward to the start of the season and finishing off the reviews of our rivals.

Highbury86