By Boris Mellor
April 21 2006

Wenger’s plates are now spinning around faster than ever, on Wednesday they wobbled a bit, but they finally remained spinning perfectly balanced.

 Now he has to juggle them all over again, for to pick the team for Tottenham is to pick the team for Villarreal on Tuesday. Although the team must think ahead one match at a time Arsene will have to think of both matches.

 

He knows that Villarreal will be resting their players in the league on Sunday so that they will have a fresh team, and home advantage, for Tuesday night. But he also knows that the match against Spurs is a must win, even a draw will finish off any hope of finishing 4^th. All Spurs need to do is park the bus and hope for a breakaway, its Arsenal that have to win.

 

Yet it is obvious that Wenger will have to juggle the team about, rest some players and bring others in. If he gets it right he is a hero, get it wrong and the chorus of criticism will reach fever pitch. I don’t believe he will be doing a Pompey against Spurs. Campbell is not ready to return, and Arsene says Cole is behind Clichy in terms of fitness, that he will not be ready for another couple of weeks. The Sun contradicts that, we will just have to wait and see. There are no new injuries from Wednesday night. Win this game and fourth spot is in the Gunners hands.

 

However Arsenal are at the crossroads of history, a chance to play in their first CL final. It’s a big call to make, fixture congestion is a problem, but the prize is great. This is the time that players must forget their tiredness and keep their eyes on the prize. If they can’t raise their game at this stage then they should have no pretensions to greatness. Once these two games, in four days are over, it’s almost a week to the next game; they can do all their recovering then. Normally such demands cannot be made on players, but now is not a normal time, glory and history are calling, Wenger will demand his players answer that call.