A Draw Before Interlull - is your glass half full?

Interlulls are difficult to say the least.  They are made even more so by the fact that we left off in the League top of the table.  Drawing at West Brom may have not been the exact result that we wanted, but I don't think anyone can complain about our first place position.  Any honest Gooner would tell you that circumstances are polar opposite of what we thought they would be back in August. I think the lack of free-flowing performance last Sunday was due to several issues.  Firstly, I give credit to West Brom for playing hard and tactically sound footy.  Clogging up our middle and pressing three players to our one who was on the ball congested the lanes of our passing, made it look like we were dribbling the ball into a striped crowd, and frustrated us with fouls that went uncalled.  Jack in particular spent most of his first half prone on the pitch waving his hands in the air appealing to the ref for a foul (really the only area of his footballing that drives me crazy).

Secondly, with our injuries, and thereby lack of rotation, I would wonder if some of our regulars are getting a bit tired.  Ramsey came off and iced his leg after what we would now consider a sub-par performance from him.  Mertesacker also was solid, but made a couple of judgmental errors.  He was one of the defenders that spaced off while Yacob ran to meet the ball with his head.  Very un-Per of him.  The bad news is our most tired players are off now on international duty traveling distances and running on fumes.  That is worrisome.  The good news is by the time the lull has been put to sleep, we should have impactful players returning from injury.  Santi and Yaya are due back October 19th with possibly Poldi, Theo, and Sagna back the week after.  We have some serious games coming up after the break, so these returns are well-timed indeed (I just saw Tommy has a shin injury?  Jeesh - he just got back!).

But, the 19th seems a long way off on the football horizon.  All we have to entertain us are stories of Jack possibly being misquoted about a comment when asked about some non-English player playing for England.  This controversy comes on the tails of his smoking debacle (for which he took ownership - well done Jack-o!).  Yep - that's how slow the news is.  We don't seem to have any injury news coming in from our boys training internationally but the matches themselves begin the 11th.  Our boys from Germany, England, France, and Spain all play on Friday, Oops - and lets not forget Nicky B. who is back in the Denmark squad.  I'll be scouring for injury news Saturday morning.

That's all for now.  I may post a few thoughtful articles between now and the end of the break.  Until then, good luck trying to stay awake and have a good one Gooners.