All rounders?

Working out of one's area of specialization definitely improves the overall skillset. We have seen this much too often in the case of cricket, we have seen batsmen who bowl regularly and bowlers who bat consistently. This has made them to improve their overall understanding of the game. We don't have an "all-rounder" concept as such in football, though currently, we can see at Arsenal, there are people who play out of their position. However, this has put our famous gameplay in jeopardy. This is where some people are actually starting to believe that Cricket and Football are two different games. There might be some minor similarities like, both require not more than the playing 11 from a team at any point during the game, both might sometimes have the referee playing as the12th player for one team without the referee realising this.

In football, we need specialist people at specific positions. Ok, Coquelin did a fairly good job at RB, LB and better still at his regular defensive midfield role. But we would still like to have Sagna, Santos(?)/Gibbs playing in their regular positions. You simply cannot imagine playing Arshavin in a holding midfield role.
Speaking of whom, I guess he was used to playing in the central attacking midfield at Zenit just behind the attacker. Even Eboue used to be better on the attacking wing than at right back. To be fair to him, he did fairly alright in both the positions. The point is that injuries has taken its toll again on AFC and we can see that in the results, more precisely the last two. After the 4-0 smashing of Wigan, our wins have been a bit scrappy and the loses have hurt a lot. No one can be blamed for these injuries, but its depressing how much it affects our so called "huge squad". If you carefully notice, for the past 3-4 seasons, we have had some critical injuries which has hampered our progress a lot. Eduardo, RVP, Vermaelen from past three seasons and most of all this season it has piled up. Four full backs, Jack, now Henry, Vermaelen, Arteta. Sometimes you wish that all this was not true,that it is just you playing Fifa on your Playstation. Oh did I forget Diaby? Not my fault, he has been hardly noticed.

People with heart problems are advised not to read ahead. The team news is not great ahead of our clash with ManU.
TV is still a remote possibility and probably will have a test before the game. Arteta is definitely not playing. Henry will have a test. Wilshere, Sagna, Gibbs and Jenkinson are recovering well but still 2-3 weeks away.
Santos is 2 months away. Coqueling is supposed to start training soon. So, I guess none of these will be available against ManU. Even if TV and Henry are fit in time for the game, they might not be risked in the starting XI.

The starting XI for sunday should be a question for rocket scientists, but we'll do our best to come up with it.

Szczesny, Miquel, Per, Kos, Djourou,  Song, Ramsey, Rosicky/Benayoun, Ox/Arshavin(I am already trembling), Walcott, RVP.

A bigger question is, who will be on the bench?? Next you know, Pat Rice resumes at right back!

-Van de kapitein.
-An interesting read.