february 11th
We’ll start this morning with José Reyes’ fine rebuttal of Real Madrid’s agently-reported interest in him. Obviously it’s nice to know one of the biggest clubs in the world likes the cut of your jib but José’s going nowhere. He said “Of course, it’s flattering. But not only am I under contract at Arsenal, I am happy here and committed to helping the team win more trophies.”
All well and good, you’d think, but no. Last night a story broke about a radio station in Spain making contact with Reyes via his agent. Thing is the DJ was pretending to be Emilio Butragueno, Real Madrid’s sporting director. During the conversation José admitted to being ‘not great’ at Arsenal and when asked if he’d be interested in joining Real Madrid he said that he would be and that it had always been a dream to play there. He also said he was ‘going to have to carry on playing with some bad people’ at Arsenal. Then the DJ told him he was just pulling his leg and now José is said to be considering legal action against the station.
Regardless of what’s been said you have to put this down as a pretty low thing for the radio station to do. Poor José is obviously struggling with life in England at the moment and this is not going to make things any easier for him. When you see the press in action here though nothing surprises you – they love the tabloid culture as much as in England – there are daily TV shows where they follow the wives of matadors around as they bring their kids to school and spy on celebs as they take holidays, visit sick relatives and so on. Nothing, and nobody, is sacred. It shouldn’t be a surprise to know that the radio station in question is part of the Cadena group with has close associations with Real Madrid so it wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility that this is part of a plan to unsettle Reyes even as Butragueno himself rules out any swap deal involving Michael Owen and called the DJ’s prank a ‘disgrace’.
It’s another headache for Arsene Wenger though and it hasn’t been the best of times lately. With Ashley Cole’s non-commital attitude towards his future at the club and now José being lulled into saying things he really shouldn’t have it’s going to take some work to put things right. It’s hard not to feel sorry for José – the change in lifestyle between Spain and England is proving a very big difficulty for him – and while it’s easy for us to get used to the sunshine, late nights and delicious seafood it’s a lot more difficult for a Spaniard to grow accustomed to the cold, wet and kippers of England. I really hope he can sort it out and stay with us but nobody should be too harsh with him for the way he’s feeling right now. The radio station have picked on him when he’s vulberable and they knew it fine well. He doesn’t need grief from the fans about this, he needs to know we love him and we’d invite him over for a traditional andalucian dinner like stewed oxtail or beans with clams. We might just watch him eat though, eh?
In other news Manuel Almunia says he accepts Arsene Wenger’s decision to bring back Jens Lehmann with ‘no fuss’ while Lehmann is happy to be back playing for the Gunners again. With Arsenal not playing until Monday night – great Valentines timing you bastards – it’ll be a pretty boring weekend. Early team news suggests we’ll be without Campbell, Hoyte and van Persie although Kolo returns after his suspension. No doubt we’ll hear more about the Reyes thing over the weekend too. Till tomorrow.
