Right then, where to start?
Thierry Henry seems to be the reasonable place. Yesterday an interview emerged in which he said he was ‘devastated’ about David Dein’s departure saying it wasn’t a clever move no matter what had happened. He also said he was flattered by AC Milan’s interest and suggested that a lot of stuff had happened at Arsenal that wasn’t supposed to happen.
He’s right. One of the most senior and high profile board members really wasn’t supposed to try and sell the club to Satan Kroenke. I suspect that Henry’s personal relationship with the Dein’s is what has caused him to be devestated (remember Dein’s son, best man at Henry’s wedding and legal advisor to Thierry’s agent, cosy) rather than anything else. I’m sure David Dein was a lovely, friendly guy but at the end of the day it shouldn’t matter one bit to any player, captain or otherwise, what happens at board level and frankly it’s not their place to talk about it. If the players were unsettled by the departure of David Dein I would respectfully suggest they need to get fucking over themselves and very fucking quickly too.
After a couple of months people suggest that getting rid of Dein was a bad move but what else could the board have done? Just bent over and said ‘Oh, go right ahead and sell us down the river to a man with a Yosemite Sam moustache’? Fuck that. I reckon Dein would be the first to admit he played a dangerous game which backfired badly on him and if the shoe were on the other foot he’d have done exactly the same. At the moment Ken Friar is doing much of the work that David Dein did in terms of negotiations and contract stuff, the players may not have their best buddy to make sure they get as much money as they want, but his work at the club is being done. There is no big problem.
To me it sounds a bit like excuse making from Henry and it’s not nice to hear. This comes on top of reports in the Catalan press this morning that Henry has given Barcelona the green light to open negotiations with Arsenal. They’ve been saying all along that after what happened last year they needed an assurance from the player before they spoke to Arsenal. That story has obviously been fed by FC Barcelona so now you have a situation where the club and its associated newspapers are speaking on behalf of Thierry Henry and that’s not good either.
Of course it could be complete fiction and I don’t think Arsenal will sell for a minute. Thierry can want to do one thing, and I do think he wants to stay, but he has a contract and has made commitments to the club, repeatedly, over the last few months. However, with it having stepped up a gear now something really needs to be done about it. Every day the press in Spain are running Henry to Barcelona stories. An unequivocal statement needs to be made by club or player, or both, to put this whole thing to bed now. It’s getting very, very tiresome and Thierry is a bit of a moany hole at the moment. Someone buy him an ice-cream or something.
Still, he does finish the interview on a positive note talking about the potential and looking forward to next season, which is something.
On a more positive spin Emmanuel Adebayor spoke about how he’s not ‘shit’ and that he’s working hard to improve as a player. That’s the kind of stuff we want to hear, not the self-pitying bleating about a deceitful board member. He’s not everyone’s favourite but I think he’s a good lad and will improve next season.
Not much else going on: Ribery has gone to Bayern Munich – my thoughts on that are in the Arsecast – and that’s about it.
In this week’s normal length Arsecast, brought to you by OleOle.com, I talk with an Arsenal blogger who isn’t really an Arsenal blogger. Brant Parsons writes ‘The other football‘ for the Orlando Sentinel and we discuss following Arsenal stateside, his blog and some other stuff too. The Man in the Bar is there too with a player history and I discuss all your nominations for an all-time Cunts XI.
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Have yourselves a good Friday. More Thierry to Barcelona rumours Arsenal news tomorrow.
