Some interesting (and quite possibly ill-advised) pre-match quotes attributed to Danny Murphy in this morning’s papers. If the Fulham captain was Andrew Strauss, he might have said Arsenal have lost their aura.
I played against Vieira, Petit, Henry, Overmars and Bergkamp, a different kettle of fish. I do respect them now and they can turn us over if they play well and we don’t. But, they were simply better quality in years gone by. I can’t remember a weak link in that team.They were all established internationals, not one of them was ‘potential’. There’s a difference between having established internationals in your team and having players who are on the way up.
He’s probably right but it’s not as if Arsenal need another reason to be fired up for this one. They have lost their last two away games having been right in the game and they will still have painful memories of their last trip to the Cottage. There might well be a few early tackles flying in on Murphy this evening.
Unusually, for the Sun their story offers a much fuller – and perhaps fairer interpretation – of Murphy’s arguments than the excerpts elsewhere.