May 16th
So final day defeat at the hands of Birmingham was hardly the ideal preparation for the cup final but it might not be the worst thing in the world to have happened. With all eyes on the relegation scrap there was nowhere to see the match but Arsene Wenger blamed a lack of focus saying players had Saturday’s game on their minds.
Freddie Ljungberg came through the game without any real reaction to his hip injury and he’ll be likely to start in Cardiff but there are genuine concerns about Thierry Henry. He suffered a reaction to his groin injury after his 45 minutes against Everton and although there’s a chance he could be fit there’s a very real possibility that he could miss the game. AW “It’s very difficult to assess Thierry. He had a slight reaction on Wednesday night and I will see what the position is on Wednesday or Thursday.”
Speaking about Saturday’s game the boss said Arsenal will try and play football and that United’s tactics are no concern to him. I’d imagine United will again take the very physical approach to the game which, to be fair, has served them, if not the ankles of our players, well in recent encounters. He said “We will try to play football, as we always do, and try to bring the trophy home. I am confident that we can achieve it. How our opponents approach the game is not my responsibility – I’m not speculating about that.”
Ashley Cole’s agent wanted Arsenal to pay him £750,000 for his part in arranging Ashley Cole’s new contract. According to Steve Stammers, who seems to be the journalist Arsenal use when they want to let something slip accidentally on purpose, talks about Cole’s contract were going well until Jonathan Barnett made his demands. The board unanimously rejected his request and quite rightly. Why should Arsenal pay that cunt? He’s Ashley Cole’s agent so if he wants to be paid he should talk to his client. Arsenal will submit this as evidence as part of the hearing into the Colegate affair this week.
Charlie George talks about the 1971 cup final and more. “As soon as I hit it I knew it was in. Big Larry Lloyd always says he got a nick on it but I didn’t see the ball deviate at all. And if Clemence had got to it, it would have broke his hand.”
There’ll be lots of build-up this week to Saturday and while I do have something to say about the season in general I’ll leave it till after the cup final. Tomorrow there’ll be a chance to win a Senderos t-shirt from goalhanger too. Stay tuned, arsefans.
