april 18th
10.26 – Bad news for Sol Campbell as referee Mark Halsey declares himself ‘happy’ with the red card decision. Not as happy as Sir Alex mind you, but happy all the same. Arsenal will still appeal using the transcript below as evidence. The real one of course, not the childish home-erotic one. Or will they?
Arsenal have accused Ole Gunnar Solskjaer of ‘making the most’ of the Campbell challenge. Sol said “…he got up straight away and if I’d really elbowed him one he’d have struggled.” Which is exactly the point I made here. Also, Ruud van Nistelrooy ran over to the linescunt making an elbowing gesture. You didn’t see Arsenal players running around making punching gestures after his bodyshot on Freddie last season. Anyway, it’s going to go to the video panel, and seeing as it normally takes them 3 months to do anything more than pick their arses, Sol’s ban should come into effect sometime during the summer.
Better news concerns Patrick Vieira. It had been feared he’d be out for the season, but it now seems as if he’s just going to miss 2 weeks, ruling him out of the games against Bolton and Boro.
Despite the prospect of missing two of our most important players, the rest of the lads are defiant. Thierry Henry talks about scoring more scrappy goals, Freddie Ljungberg says the players definitely believe they can do it, while Robert Pires says “We have two titles to defend – the Premiership and the FA Cup – and we’ll defend them to the finish.”
There really is very little between the teams at the moment – and it’s being suggested that should things finish level on goal difference, goals scored, goals against, games won, size of choppers etc, that a play-off could be needed to decide the winner of the championship. If that happens, it’ll time to break out the lithium. I’m not sure I could cope…
Arsenal will wear red in the Cup Final against Southampton. Hurrah.
Right, finally, you might notice most of this month is missing. It’s not missing, it’s just moved. I haven’t quite figured out where I’m going to move it to though, so I’ll keep you posted on that one. Also, we’re trialling something at the moment for the members area where you can subscribe and receive Arseblog via email each day. Will keep you up to date on that one too.