Sell Gallas. Cesc – Freddie – Sagna – stress levels.

So well done William Gallas. His comments on his website (which is now mysteriously not working) have allowed the tabloids to run with stories like ‘Gunners Revolt‘ after his comments about players questioning the future of the club. Gallas himself raised doubts over his future at Arsenal as well so despite being ready to jump ship at any moment he feels its ok for him to publicly question the manager without even speaking to him and show the true level of his committment to the club that pays him £90,000 a week.

Honestly, I’ve never been a fan, this doesn’t really do anything to make me a fan and he’s put himself in a situation where what he said really should be dealt with harshly by the club. How frustrating must it be for the manager to have one of the ‘senior’ players at the club start causing this kind of trouble before the season has even begun. Frankly, I’d give Gallas and his ego the chance to go play in Italy or Spain, not simply because he’s a player we haven’t seen anything approaching good form from, but because he is a trouble maker and teams can do without people like that. Free Willy, I say. But not for free. We could easily get a few million for the blabbermouthed cunt. If he wants to go then show him the door. Then close the door in his face when he’s half-way through so it really hurts his nose.

New Real Madrid manager Bernd Schuster has barely been in the job five minutes but he showed he knows the way things work at the Spanish giants by publicy declaring his interest in Cesc Fabregas. Reports in Spain suggested a double-bid for Reyes and Cesc but while we want to get shot of José I fully expect any bids for Cesc, who returns for pre-season training tomorrow, to be firmly rejected. Cesc himself told the Daily Star about how happy he was in England, saying:

Seeing people of all ages, young and old, wearing the shirt with my name on it in London is an honour and gives me a lift. Last season I was the Arsenal player who sold most shirts and that makes me proud.

Bakary Sagna is close to a move to Arsenal and according to Gunnerblog, who reads French websites, he’s in London putting the final touches to a move from Auxerre. I’m with him, I have to say, I think right back is an area we can improve on but knowing nothing about Sagna other than a 20 second clip on YouTube (which makes him look totally fucking awesome! Yeah!!) it’s hard to say what the plans are at the moment. The new deals handed down to both Eboue and Hoyte are confusing me. Sort of like that time I was put in a room full of shovels and told to take my pick.

Fiorentina are in town with lots of lovely lira euro (that really doesn’t work as well, does it? Damn you homogenous currency) for Freddie Ljungberg. The Guardian says the club’s sporting director, Luigi di Pasta, is in town ready to make a £5.5m bid and offer Valerie (heh) Bojinov as part of the deal. You do get the feeling that a change of scenery might benefit both Freddie and Arsenal but another sale would leave our already thin squad a little on the Karen Carpenter side of things.

I notice that the post-Eduardo euphoria has well and truly worn off and that people are lapsing back into pre-Eduardo gloominess because of the lack of signings. I can understand that, in a way, but at the same time my zen-like calm is getting me through this difficult off-season. ‘As always with Arsene there’s a lot going on behind the scenes’ said Chairman PHW last week and I’m sure that’s true. I do expect more signings but who knows who they’ll be and when they’ll happen? Not me, that’s for sure. Not anyone it seems. Therefore I’m not going to worry about things just at this moment in time.

Should we be facing our first game of the season and it looks like Alex Song is going to play at centre-half because Gallas has gone on strike and just to prove a point to the club has kidnapped Kolo, Senderos and Djourou and has tied them up in a damp basement and Adebayor is moping because his dancing partner has gone and Cesc has been seen stuffing his face with lobster bought for him by Rebecca Loos who is working for Real Madrid and Alex Hleb says he’s going to be top goalscorer for the season then I might start to get a bit worried.

Until then though I’m staying cool, daddy-o. So should you.

Gallas needs to shut up. Again.

A happy Monday to you all. The sun is shining this morning for a change. Hurrah.

Let’s begin with William Gallas who has been speaking to his own website about the season ahead. This is what he had to say:

What is sure, it is that several players are questioning club’s future. Around us, all the teams are recruiting but what is planned to compensate for the departure of Henry?

I will have a discussion with Arsène Wenger and board members to know the objectives of the club this season and what they wish to set up to build an even more competitive team.

Now, let me first say that I believe the club needs to sign more players. We need to improve, we need to bring in fresh faces and fresh legs in order to be competitive in the league again. There’s absolutely no question about it in my mind or indee, I would imagine, in your mind either. We’ve lost Henry, brought in Eduardo but that still doesn’t address the issues we had last season nor does it do enough to make us real challengers for the league. Yet.

However, comments by someone like Gallas saying that players are questioning the club’s future are unnecessary, damaging and are of no benefit to anyone whatsoever. They serve only to further the agenda of William Gallas. Now, I quite understand the fact he wants to play in a team which is going to challenge for silverware but at the end of the day he’s being paid a lot of money by Arsenal Football Club, he’s a senior player (based on his age and experience) and with that comes a certain amount of responsibility.

There are things that do not need to be said in public, especially as, by his own admission, he still hasn’t spoken to Arsene Wenger (and I can’t imagine Gallas rounding up the rest of the board so they have to listen him) about his plans for the season ahead. If this is the kind of ‘uncontested leadership’ he’s capable of then he needs to think again. Comments like these make nice headlines but don’t do much else but cause problems.

If we’d gotten to August 31st without signing anyone else, without making ourselves better and stronger then I would have no complaints whatsoever if Gallas, or any other player, wanted to have a bit of a moan about the state of the squad. There wouldn’t be a fan out there who would disagree with them, I don’t think. Once again though it’s just another round of Gallas’ patented bleating and it is tremendously tiresome, in my opinion. I really, really wish he’d just shut up.

In other news Liverpool are closing in on Ryan Babel, a long rumoured target for us, while Chelsea appear to have won the race to sign Florent Malouda. Can’t say I’m particularly bothered either way, especially about Malouda who’s never done it for me and definitely not at that kind of price.

For those of you waiting for confirmation of the live TV games for the season ahead there’s a list here which covers the start of the season until the end of November. We’re not on TV until September 2nd when we play Portsmouth at home.

I did like the way that Arsenal’s decision not to assign the number 14 jersey to anyone this season was picked up on by a couple of websites as if we were going to retire the number. I think it’s simply a matter of not giving the pressure of following in Henry’s footsteps to anyone and it will be used in the future the same way that 5 and 6 and 10 have been.

Our first pre-season game takes place this Saturday against Barnet so we shoul start getting back into the swing of things then and hopefully we’ll hear from Arsene this week as well.

Right then, breakfast time. More tomorrow.

Sunday round-up

Again a very quiet one this morning.

Steve Stammers reports in the Sunday Mirror that Bakary Sagna (sag-na, sanya, which is it?) will sign this week and provide cover for the back four and those who will be going to the ACN this season. As I keep saying it seems an odd one to buy a right back when we have two who have just signed long term deals but such is the way of Arsene.

Jose Antonio Reyes’ agent has made it clear that his client doesn’t want to come back to London and said that negotiations are underway with Madrid:

Arsenal are not asking for 20 million euros but they are asking for a reasonable fee in accordance with what they paid to Sevilla. The negotiations are on the table.

And let’s hope it’s not too difficult to work something out. We definitely need to replace Reyes in the squad, even Arsene admitted to missing his pace and wing play last season, so hopefully he’s got some targets in mind.

Marca is reporting that Arsene Wenger will only consider selling Cesc if Robinho is thrown is as part of the deal. It seems Madrid are going to make an offer of around €40m for Cesc and Reyes. They can shove their €40m up their holes if you ask me. Give us €10m for Reyes and then piss off.

Jeremie Aliadiere has again complained about his treatment by Arsene Wenger. He really ought to shut up now. To many Arsenal fans he got more than enough chances and never took them. If he gets 10 goals for Boro I’ll be surprised.

And there’s not much more to tell you this morning so I shall wish you a happy Sunday and be on my merry way. Till tomorrow.

Saturday guff

Saturday quietitude for you as there really is nothing to report this morning. There’s the exciting announcement of this year’s official squad numbers, I suppose.

The only ones we didn’t know previously were Fabianski and Bendtner who will wear 21 and 26 respectively. Eduardo has 9 and apart from that there’s no changes.

The Madrid press are trying to stir up a Cesc to Real story but his agent has shot that down quite quickly. However, he does say ‘This is football and you never know what can happen’, in the middle of it so expect that one small piece to be picked up and run under headlines like ‘Agent leaves door open for Fabregas’ Real deal’. They seem to be more keen on Kaka at the moment though so it’ll be Milan who have to suffer to daily torture of the Spanish football daily.

There were rumours that Mathieu Flamini might stay at the club having decided he’d now be ok with playing at full back. Erm, great. I think he’s a decent squad player and our squad is looking fairly thin at this moment in time. We can’t really afford to let anyone else, apart from Alex Song, go and if the Flamster wants to stay that’s fine with me. He can provide cover for both full back positions and midfield.

Gilberto is a bit cross with Didier Drogba. He told The Sun:

So Drogba said we are out of the title race, did he? Let’s wait and see what happens. He might find himself on the wrong end of a slap in the face as he’s going to his parked car. Guy talks to much, see, and guys with mouths as big as that might as well have a neon sign saying ‘punch me’. He’s got a mouth so big it’d make a bishop kick a hole in the altar boys training academy window.

He then lit a pipe, took a hit from a pint bottle of bourbon, put his feet up on the desk and opened his mail.

And that, my good old friends, is about all there is to say this morning.