Morning all, Interlull is over, we appear, at this stage, to have come through unscathed. The early team news is good, in that there’s nothing unexpected, but it’s always possible that Arsene might spring a ‘surprise’ or two at today’s press conference.

Jack Wilshere faces a fitness test but according to his Twitter:

Feeling better today, training tomorrow and hopefully selected for Saturday.

Hopefully indeed. The boss was waiting on those returning from far flung lands, Rosicky and Arshavin for example, before giving everyone a clean bill of health but the signs are promising.

Nicklas Bendtner’s injury appears to have cleared up with the Big Dane saying:

I have been talking to Arsene Wenger and he has told me the same things that he said publicly, that I have to be patient.

He is right and I have known that all the time. I just want to play, like any other player. But I am aware that my team-mates have been playing well in my absence and some have been scoring goals as well, so it won’t be easy for me to regain my place among the starting XI.

If he knew all the time it begs the question why he went public the way he did but if this means he’ll knuckle down, work hard and get on with things then all the better. A repeat of his header from a couple of seasons back would be nice but I would prefer that header to put us into double figures rather than winning it late. Getting old, my heart, you know yourself.

Bacary Sagna talks about William Gallas and says, quite endearingly I think, that he’s not ‘furious’ with him. We know there are issues between Gallas and certain members of the squad, Nasri in particular, and like any player who swaps a cannon for a cock he’s going to get a bit of stick from the crowd. Not a great deal though. It’s not as if Gallas was a hero, a player whose departure we bemoaned and despaired about, so once he doesn’t do that former player coming back to haunt us thing he’s probably better off ignored.

As for Robin van Persie telling Arsenal to sign Rafael van der Vaart, meh. No point talking about that now that he’s a despicable lily white cunt, is there?

There will be more in-depth thoughts on tomorrow’s blog. Once we hear the full extent of the team news we can speculate on the starting XI and so forth. So it’s surprisingly quiet this morning in terms of news but it’s very much the clam before the storm. Yes, I said clam. If you’re ever walking down the road and see a giant clam coming towards you, best to make your way inside till the inevitable rains pass.

So, on to this week’s Arsecast and joining me to talk about the three impact and influence of the three French connected summer signings is Philippe Auclair from France Football. We also chat about the game tomorrow. As well as that there’s Internet Joe, Arshavin, some well needed culture and a chance for you to win a Savile Rogue scarf.

You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too. To download this week’s Arsecast directly – click here (27mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

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Also on the show the winners of the GCR Books competition and if you didn’t win don’t worry, you can still avail of a 10% discount by using the code ‘Arseblog‘ at check-out.

And that’s about that for today. Those of you twitching with anticipation for tomorrow’s game will just have to wait. Till then.

Morning all and welcome to Friday.

We’ll start with the good news that Wojscez©® has signed a new deal with the club. A five year contract for the promising young Pole means he’s a happy chappy, he’s obviously been given some assurance that first team football is, if not guaranteed, within his grasp. His comments from a few weeks back were clearly borne out of frustration and a lack of clarity about his future and that seems to have been taken care of. The man himself said:

It’s a great feeling to sign a new contract with Arsenal and I’m so pleased. The negotiations happened very quickly and it was easy.

While Arsene Wenger said:

We have all seen his huge potential, both in training and in the matches that he has played for us, so we look forward to seeing him develop further in the coming years.

I have to admit having the fear that he’d go somewhere for nothing in the summer and turn out to be the most awesome keeper of all time. Part panther, part Mr Stretchyarms from the Fantastic Four, part Sylvester Stallone from Escape to Victory. Seeing him do that elsewhere would have been tough. It also means Fabianski knows his young compatriot is breathing right down his neck, as opposed to Manuel Almunia who is on life support somewhere now. It’s hard to see any future for the Spaniard at the club right at this moment in time but things change very quickly in football.

Fabianski is, for all intensive porpoises, our number 1 right now. The thought of that a few months back would have filled even the unflappable underpants with poo. So who knows? It was also pointed out to me on Twitter yesterday that perhaps I should learn how to spell his name now that he’s going to be around for  a while. A fair point I suppose. Woycheck Sczczczczczzcczzczcznsey. Royston Chesney. Wojscez©®. Got it.

There’s some early team news ahead of Sunday’s game with Everton and the good news is we don’t appear to have lost anyone from the Wolves game. That’s a couple of times that’s happened in a row now. We’ve played a game and not picked up any fresh knocks. Clearly the medical team have questions to answer, why aren’t we picking up injuries like we used to? I’m not used to this healthy nonsense. Kieran Gibbs is the only returnee and I suspect he’ll watch from the bench on Sunday. The manager says there’ll be a couple of changes from Wednesday night, just to keep things a bit fresh, but we can think about, and speculate on, those closer to the time.

It’s very early for transfer guff but this morning’s Guardian reckons we could be in for Bolton’s Gary Cahill. They’ve said they’re willing to sell him, the player says he wants to go play for someone better, and we’ve been linked. It all seems a bit fanciful to me and unless there’s something really, really wrong with Vermaelen’s achilles I don’t see it happening.

And beyond that there’s not much else going down. Arsene’s press conference takes place later and as well as the Everton game I expect he’ll be asked about Ian Holloway’s fantastic rant about the team he put out on Wednesday night against Villa. Well worth a listen if you haven’t already heard it. I think he’s perfectly entitled to play whoever he wants out of his 25 man squad, it’s not as if they took a battering at Villa, and it’ll be interesting to hear what Arsene says about it, especially after he was critical of Mick McCarthy last season for playing a supposedly weaker side against Man United.

Right then, time for this week’s Arsecast and I’m joined by the Cultured Left Foot of Yogi’s Warrior to discuss Newcastle, Wolves, Fabianski and more. As well as that there’s Internet Joe, Talkshite Radio, some vintage news, a touching documentary as well as a chance for you to win yourself an Arsenal book with thanks to GCR Books. All you have to do is listen to get the details.

You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too. To download this week’s Arsecast directly – click here (23mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

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More tomorrow including all the guff from Arsene’s press conference. In the meantime have yourselves a good Friday.

Good morning Arse fiends. Welcome to another Friday.

If you were asked, Weird Science style, to put together your ideal footballer made up from the bits of other footballers who would you choose? The spirit of Tony Adams, the finishing of Thierry Henry, the vision of Dennis Bergkamp, the ability to spark a 21 man brawl of Anders Limpar, the engine of Ray Parlour, the kicking Ronaldo up in the air of Lauren and, of course, the dreaminess of Robert Pires.

Sure, it’d be a bizarre Frankenfootballer but modern science means the bolt in the creature’s neck would be barely visible and if he suffered like Shelley’s monster, desperate with loneliness and craving love, we could simply enter him on X-Factor where, it appears, the studio audience dish out generous applause to any old cunt. Hopefully that would prevent him taking revenge on his creator which is good news for those around me.

I bring this up because Jack Wilshere has been talking about who he wants to play like, saying:

Liam Brady is my role model. He has helped me a lot and people have said I am a similar player to him.

Yes, this is good. He goes on:

I was on the books when Patrick was still here and I think the way he tackled and intercepted play is something I would add to my game

Oh yes, yes. If this wasn’t a family blog I might touch my special area with excitement. Brady  + Vieira = Wilshere. It’s a winning combo. Of course Jack is his own player. At some point he’ll have to say “I’m not the new Liam Brady/Patrick Vieira hybrid, the Brieira if you will, I am simply Jack Wilshere” and we’ll accept that because just being Jack Wilshere will be plenty – but when he curls one in at the lane or when he strides majestically through midfield, juggling the ball past the modern day equivalent of a bewildered, halfwitted Jamie Redknapp, we’ll nod sagely at each other and just say “Brieira”.

Meanwhile the row around Robin van Persie rumbles on. Arsenal, understandably, are somewhat peeved that Robin has been called up to the Dutch national side for a meaningless friendly on Nov 17th. This is because he got injured in the Blackburn game on August 28th and hasn’t played for us since. The Dutch coach, Bert van Marwijk said:

Has there been any contact with the medical staff of Holland and Arsenal? I don’t know. I don’t care, because I spoke to Robin personally and I just made the selection and will wait for any comments to come.

Which is, all things considered, remarkably disrespectful. Surely it wouldn’t take much for him or one of his staff to pick up the phone and speak to Arsenal’s medical team. It’s an example of how skewed the system is that they can completely and utterly disregard the clubs in matters such as these. Robin has been out for 10 weeks now, hasn’t trained, hasn’t kicked a ball, and yet he can be picked for an international fixture which has no importance at all.

Compare and contrast with Belgian manager George Leekens speaking about Thomas Vermaelen (as reported by John Cross on the Twitter). He said:

We are not going to take a risk for a friendly game. His health is most important thing. I have a great relationship with Arsene Wenger and completely respect him and what he tells me about his players.

Bert van Marwijk has every right to call up van Persie if he wants, there’s really nothing we can do about it, but the way he’s gone about things demonstrates an arrogance and lack of class that you would associate with someone who would let Mark van Bommel marry his daughter. Manners cost nothing. That said, there’s a part of me which thinks that we should just let van Persie go play. He’s got to get back on the pitch at some stage and if he injures himself again then so be it. It would happen just as easily playing for us as playing for Holland.

He’ll need a few games to get back up to speed so if the international game can play a part in that, fine. However, that doesn’t mean van Marwijk isn’t a stupendous benny who is not tied to a tree. Just wanted to make that bit clear. Also, Dick Advocaat, a man whose name sounds like a late night drunken parlour game, has been at it as well accusing the manager of ‘always moaning’. Hands up who cares what he thinks? Thought so.

Normally there’s a bit of team news on a Friday as we head towards the weekend’s game but the late arrival back from Europe means we’ll have to wait until today’s press conference to find out who might be back for the Newcastle game. You have to hope that at least a couple of the missing midfield quartet will be back, their experience and quality will be crucial. It didn’t look as if we picked up any injuries on Wednesday night you never know who might have hit their knee off the drinks trolley on the flight home. More on that tomorrow.

Now, onto this week’s Arsecast and I’m joined by 7amkickoff to discuss the goings on of the week, as well as the usual round-up from Internet Joe and a very tough quiz running through the entire show. You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too. To download this week’s Arsecast directly – click here (23mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

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And that’s about that for today. Have yourselves a good one, free from van Marwijkism and full of Brieira goodness. Till tomorrow.

Good Friday to one and all, we can start with some early team news for tomorrow.

It’s not a surprise at all that Kieran Gibbs is set to be out for ‘a few weeks’ with knee ligament damage. He looked in trouble on Wednesday night and it’s another blow for a player who is the poo which attracts the injury flies. Hopefully it is just a few weeks and not a few weeks like we’ve seen with some others.

Robin van Persie and Aaron Ramsey are set to return to full training next week, the former more likely to see action before the latter. I suspect they’ll be very, very cautious with Ramsey, ensuring that the problems which dogged Eduardo and Diaby subsequent to their horrific injuries don’t affect him. Manuel Almunia remains out with his broken heart elbow while there’s still no definitive answer on Thomas Vermaelen, the manager saying:

It is difficult to set a fixed time because his Achilles improves slowly.

So you could ask the question why he’s given us fixed times on more than one occasion but it’s not really that big of an issue. The most important thing is ensuring he gets back fully fit because he is an important player for us.

One of the issues touched on in today’s Arsecast is competition for places and the way that players react to that. Theo Walcott and Nicklas Bendtner have returned from injury this week and given the manager the kind of problem that every manager wants to have – how does he fit them into his team? There are lots of games to play, with midweek action in the Champions League, but it can often take players some time to get back up to speed after a spell out. Walcott has 3 in 2 games, Nick 2 in 2. They’re flying.

Theo says:

There is competition for places but that’s what you want – you want the manager to have a headache. Players like the competition because it gets the best out of us all and, if we can continue to get better, it’s going great.

What’s interesting is that we have that in nearly every position on the pitch this season. Even the display of Wojscez©® the other night will have reminded Fabianski that he’s got to maintain consistency, that there’s a young, hungry player just waiting for him to slip up so he can have his chance. Theo’s attitude is fantastic though and if that’s a measure of how the rest of the squad feel about things then it’s very positive indeed.

The boss will have to decide if Theo has played himself back into the team for tomorrow’s game – he’s got to be seriously in the reckoning – and then how he reshuffles things. Samir Nasri is in the best form of his Arsenal career and the man whose place might be most under threat at this moment in time is Andrei Arshavin. I suspect, for this weekend anyway, Theo’s midweek exertions will mean he starts on the bench, ready to come on and take advantage of tired legs late in the game, especially as West Ham played 120 mins on Wednesday night. We might get a better idea after Arsene’s press conference today.

The Mirror reports that Celtic are looking at Wojscez©® for a January loan move. Can’t see it happening myself but who knows? It all depends on what the boss reckons he can get out of Manuel Almunia between now and the end of the season.

Before the Arsecast just a reminder to folks to update their bookmarks/links to arseblog.com. And don’t forget the whole Facebook – Twitter thing as well as the mailing list which will cram fresh arse in your box every morning, and I know most Arseblog readers love a bit of that.

Now then, on to this week’s Arsecast and I’m joined by Goodplaya to discuss the Carling Cup, Man City, competition for places and the next couple of fixtures. Internet Joe has his usual round-up and an old friend returns.

Please remember that because of the move some things will have changed. You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too. To download this week’s Arsecast directly – click here (23mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

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Right then, have at it. Till tomorrow.