Hurrah! It’s Friday. That can mean only one thing. Tomorrow is Saturday.
Let’s start this morning with the continued Adebayor v Bendtner saga. The FA have decided no action will be taken against either player but will write to both of them to ‘remind them of their responsibilities’. I suppose in one sense we’re lucky, and it’s probably due to the footage being unconvincing. Had that been definitive then he would definitely have served a ban. Bendtner, meanwhile, was given a day off by Arsene Wenger yesterday.
Now that the dust has settled a bit you have to think that Adebayor has stepped over the line. He’s been given a relatively easy time by fans because of his contribution this season but slapping or headbutting (if that’s what happened) your own team-mate is for chumps like le Saux and Batty, Bowyer and Dyer. Not exactly exalted company to be keeping. Fingers crossed this was an aberration born out of passion and frustration and something that will never be repeated because it’s unbecoming of any Arsenal player, young or old, experienced or youthful. I’m sure Arsene Wenger will, in his own way, make it abundantly clear that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable but at the same time make sure that it doesn’t become a major issue within the squad.
Should we stop talking about it now? Ok then. Ahead of tomorrow’s game against Newcastle we’ve got some good news on the injury front. Philippe Senderos and Gael Clichy will be back and Arsene Wenger says he will rotate his squad again. I’m not really sure how much rotation he can do. Rosicky, Hleb, Cesc, Flamini (NDP coming soon?) should all start, Adebayor and Eduardo can come back in, we might see Jens in goal and we’ll probably get more team news this afternoon. I suspect it’ll be our strongest team against Newcastle.
It’ll also be interesting this afternoon to hear what Arsene has to say about Theo Walcott. Literally minutes after the game against Sp*rs finished the other night there were stories about him going out on loan. It was almost as if Arsene Wenger had made it his business to brief the press on his private thoughts about one player. Or could it be one story was made up and others followed? Like I said yesterday, I would be surprised if he went out on loan anywhere – and the ridiculousness of this story is highlighted by the fact that teams ranging from Stoke to Liverpool want to take him off our hands. I’m of the opinion that he’s probably not ready to be starting games for us but he has enough about him to be an effective sub, either on the wings or up front. I’m not sure a loan is the best idea at all.
Meanwhile we’re close to signing ‘Theo II’ (stupid papers hyping kids out of all reality), Luke Freeman from Gillingham. He’s 15 years of age and when he gets to 18 and hasn’t scored a hundred goals for us people will write him off as useless.
Young defender Harvard Nordveidt talks about his 3 month injury lay-off. He’s another one who will impress at first and then when he’s not a fully accomplished, 100% experienced mistake-free ‘new Bobby Moore/Tony Adams/Franz Beckenbauer’ by the age of 22 will be ridiculed and slagged off unmercilessly.
Now, Arsecast time.
In this weeks OleOle.com sponsored Arsecast I chat to Goodplaya about this week’s events and look ahead to the Newcastle games, the Man in the Bar has a player history, Adebayor is in there somewhere and there’s some other bits and pieces of crap and guff to keep you relatively amused (compared to staring a blank wall without any kind of hallucinogens)
To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes – click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (13mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
[audio:http://arseblog.com/podcasts/arsecast_episode61.mp3]And there you go, more tomorrow. Have a good one.
