LeeDixon

Back in my playing days we always liked going to West Ham, the Arsenal teams I played in enjoyed some good results there and the short trip across town never held much fear for us. Times have changed though, and few are expecting Arsenal to get an easy ride at Upton Park in the late Saturday kick-off. The Premier League table offers a clue to the clubs' respective form: seventh plays eighth here, with the east Londoners one place above their north London neighbours after a strong start to the season. Accepted football wisdom has this down as big and strong versus creative and skilful, but it's not quite as simple as that. That assessment of Big Sam's teams is a little unfair on Allardyce. He's been around for some time now and has come up with a successful system. Sure, West Ham...

[u]Manchester City v Dortmund - 19:45, Live on Sky Sports 2[/u] Manchester City thought they had done everything necessary to pull off a famous victory in the Bernabeu. Then disaster struck and they flew back to England devastated. That's the way it goes in this competition - you can have all the money but the teams who compete for Europe's prize over many seasons keep plugging away and can often turn things around when their opponents look like 1.01 certainties. Manchester United, Madrid and Barcelona have all done it. Now City need to take three points against this talented Dortmund side. Last season, the Blues failed to do themselves justice in the Champions League. If they lose this, which I don't believe they will, the competition could pass them by again. Roberto Mancini's...

As a Manchester City fan, I'm still on a high from the frenetic end to last season. In my playing career, I was involved in some dramatic title races but I never experienced anything like that final day. City must now consolidate and dominate and, although I'm backing them at 2.3 to retain the title, I think Manchester United will push them close again. [b]Will Robin van Persie's transfer tip title race?[/b] Robin van Persie's move will have a huge impact on the destiny of the title. I always felt that it would be a bigger deal for United to land RVP than it would be for City because of the array of firepower that is already at Eastlands. If I was pricing up the Premier League market I'd have the Manchester clubs neck and neck. For now, I'm backing my Blues to make it Premier League...

[u]Match Odds[/u] Norwich are going through something that happens to a lot of newly-promoted clubs. Having guaranteed their stay in the Premier League a few weeks back, they've suffered something of a late-season lull. The Canaries have lost their last four and going back a bit further, it's just one win from their last 11 in the league. In fairness to them, it's not for the want of trying. I think it's just fatigue kicking in. Paul Lambert will be hammering it into his players that he wants to finish as high up in the table as possible and that two points from their last two matches could allow them to move a couple of places up the table which equates to some decent money in the Norwich coffers. I'm not too sure a trip to the Emirates is the sort of fixture they'd want up next though. As...

As a top player you want the big games to come thick and fast at you and you don't want to miss out on any. Over the course of nine days Chelsea will have played Tottenham, Barcelona (twice) and Arsenal and you don't get too many bigger games in club football than those. Still, Roberto Di Matteo is a pragmatic man and now that he's in with a real chance of making the final of the Champions League, we may get a slightly unfamiliar starting XI for Chelsea Saturday lunchtime. And that could be a huge factor in this game. [u]Match Odds[/u] It's hard to explain how Arsenal lost to Wigan on Monday night. They had most of the ball, the lion's share of the chances and boasted a wonderful record against Wigan prior to that match. To an extentthat Chelsea can relate to because it was a pretty...

There was nothing particularly surprising about the manner of Arsenal's win over Wolves on Wednesday night. They would probably have secured a relatively comfortable win anyway but the minute the Midlanders were reduced to ten men, that was pretty much game over. But as that was all going on, Wigan were doing something far more unexpected. They were beating Manchester United at home and whereas that re-opened the title race, that's something they couldn't care less about. What it did do was secure them an unexpected three points that could well end up being the difference between staying up or going down. [u]Match Odds[/u] You can say what you like about Arsene Wenger's transfer policy and something of a stubbornness as regards his beliefs. But there's no doubting the man's record....

The Arsenal players and fans will have mixed feelings about Tuesday night. On the one hand they played incredibly well and beat the Serie A favourites 3-0, coming within a whisker of what would have been the greatest two-legged Champions League comeback ever. But on the other hand they didn't quite manage to get over the line and achieving as high a Premier League finish as possible really is all they have to play for right now. Arsenal have now won their last four in the league and two weeks ago it was Tottenham they beat, who followed that up with defeat at home to Manchester United. All of which means Spurs are no longer guaranteed third place, which seemed to be where they'd finish (at least) for much of the season. Arsenal's run won't end here. Newcastle have had a great season...

In between the devil and the deep blue sea. In between a rock and a hard place. That's the situation in which Arsene Wenger finds himself going into the second leg of this Champions League knock-out match. Arsenal were destroyed 4-0 in the first leg in Milan and, if they were to find a way of progressing, I suspect they might consider re-naming the Emirates Stadium the Arsene Wenger Stadium because it would go down as one of the biggest turnarounds in European football history. But before we get too ahead of ourselves, let's remember the Betfair market makes the Gunners 34.0 to progress and that price is actually considerably shorter than what it was; they were matched at 50.0 to go through in the aftermath of the first leg and have been shortened on the back of those two fine domestic ...

What a week it's been for these two giants of English football. Liverpool won the first piece of silverware of the new Kenny Dalglish era after holding their nerve during the Carling Cup penalty shootout while five-star Arsenal destroyed Spurs to rise above Chelsea into fourth spot in the Premier League. It sets up a fine opener to a big weekend in England's top division. [u]Match Odds[/u] I was at The Emirates on Sunday and the Arsenal fans were nervous before the game. For the first 25 minutes or so it seemed their worries were justified as a disaster appeared to unfold before our eyes. But the Gunners showed incredible spirit to bounce back and putting five goals past Brad Friedel was like something out of a dream. Any result like that is a huge confidence boost but the defence...