Life's a Beach

By Boris Mellor
October 19 2009

Not only is Walcott out for a month, but Rosicky will also miss the Carling League match in Alkmaar. Fortunately the Czech should bounce back for the weekend, so he won't be a dud for as long as Theo.

Fabianski and Nasri will be playing for the reserves as the first team face up to the sixth placed Dutch team. Arsenal prepared for this game by winning 3-1, AZ prepared by losing 3-2 to the wally with the brolly's team. The wally with the brolly prepared for his great victory by drawing with AZ as manager of Boro in 2006.

AZ's stadium cost a tenth of the "Emirates" and seats 17,000. The first goal ever scored there was by a certain Gilberto Silva in a friendly that Arsenal won 3-0. The AZ was added to the name of the club when a local street finder publisher agreed to sponsor the club for 5000 Euros a year.

Beware Confusion

Alkmaar play in a traditional Arsenal style red and white (proper white sleeves) this might confuse some Arsenal players who often confuse the opposition for Gunners. So if the number of miss passes to Brummies in blue and white is anything to go by, then stray passes should double to a team playing in red and white. So don't get too cross, blame it on the opposition strip.

Last year AZ narrowly missed winning the league, but now that household names such as Tim de Cler, Danny Koevermans, and Shota Arveladze have left the team they might not prove to be such tough opposition.

The manager is the legendary Ronald Koeman who won 78 full Dutch Caps (I've warned you before about these dodgy puns. Ed). No doubt Koeman is hoping to repeat his managerial success with Ajax where he won the double.

Just a small team in Bayern

Alkmaar is a satellite club of Bayern Munich, and in turn they have their own satellite club Telstar (no more puns. Ed. No honest Ed they are called Telstar). This reminds me of the great mathematician Augustus De Morgan's comment on infinity:

"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,

And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,

While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on."

The Monster Mash

AZ have a midfielder called Vincent Monster, be amazing if he only had one eye, I do hope he plays.

They have an amazing record in Europe managing not to lose to lots and lots of teams. However when you remove the number of times they didn't lose to the well known Luxembourg team Football Association Red Boys Differdange it doesn't look quite so impressive. They also held Middlesboro to a draw so we must keep our feet on the ground. However, Everton recently ended their 33 unbeaten games at home run.

Anyway enough of all this, they are not the team they used to be and it's their first time in the CL so anything less than a win could be embarrassing. They are firmly anchored at the bottom of the group with one point won at home against Liege. This really is the Carling Cup gone international.

By the way did you see that the beach ball made the Sun team of the week, and that Capello is considering calling it up to replace Crouch as it has more life in it?

Possible Squad:

Mannone, Clichy, Gallas, Vermaelen, Sagna, Eboue, Song, Fabregas, Diaby, Arshavin, van Persie, Almunia, Vela, Gibbs, Silvestre, Merida, Wilshere, Ramsey.