april 1st 2005
So, I know that I said yesterday that there was going to be no April Fool’s joke and I know you’re all sitting there going ‘Yeah, right!’ but honestly, there is no April Fool’s joke. How can I possibly do something today without all of you knowing straight away it’s a total and utter spoof. I was thinking of doing something about next year’s kit being fucking purple with no white sleeves, but you know why that one fell flat on its face. There’s just no point so if you’re waiting for something to happen or if you’re waiting for a dodgy link or something like that my advice is not to hold your breath because I don’t want to be charged with blogicide.
Some team news ahead of tomorrow’s game sees Gilberto back in the reckoning with his funky new afro, Thierry Henry on the maybe list provided he doesn’t feel any pain in training, Dennis Bergkamp, Edu and Sol Campbell all still out, Le Bob back in contention after the flu and Patrick Vieira as tired. Arsene Wenger explains all here. He also talks about how important it is to finish second in the league ahead of Manchester United. “If we cannot win the title, we want to finish as close as possible to Chelsea. A Champions League qualifier would affect the preseason planning, no question. There is a danger that if you have one of those matches, they can be very tricky.”
We’ve been linked again with Espanyol keeper Carlos Kameni, this time by the same newspaper that ran the Henry to Barcelona story. Sport says that Kameni’s release clause is just €6m and that Arsene Wenger spoke to him at the recent tsunami fundraising match. I’m sure AW spoke to plenty of players that night but it doesn’t mean we’re going to sign them.He is a very good keeper though and he made the best save I’ve seen all season during the Barcelona v Espanyol derby a few weeks back but I’m not sure we’ll sign a player who’s going to go missing during the African Nations Cup. It’s different with any other position but you need your keeper week in week out. Kameni himself is not keen a move at this stage though, saying “I just want to stay here and continue playing with Espanyol.”
More likely is the Swedish number Andreas Isaakson with my Swedish source telling me Arsenal are looking at him closely and that we’ve sent our France based scout Gilles Grimandi (yes, allez Gilles!) to watch him in recent weeks.
Jermaine Pennant was released from prison yesterday after serving 30 days for his drunk driving escapades. He’s still officially an Arsenal player, for the time-being, but is likely to move in the summer. Hopefully he sorts himself out, makes a decent career for himself and has a fucking nightmare every time he plays against us.
And that’s about it, in what’s going to be the final ever month of Arseblog. More ahead of tomorrow’s game against Norwich in the morning.
