June 6th
First I just want to say thanks to Tom for keeping things going while I’ve been unable to update. Also, to those of you who have sent me emails I just don’t have the time or web access to reply so please don’t think I’m ignoring you or anything like that.
The main talking point still is the Ashley Cole case and yesterday the News of the World got the interview everybody wanted’ with Cole himself in which he took it upon himself to slate the club, David Dein, criticise the manager for not doing enough for him and the Arsenal tea lady for forgetting his sugar one morning. He’s blaming everyone, left right and centre, except for himself and his agent who, of course, have been whiter than white and done nothing to warrant any kind of criticism. Quoth the Raven “If they offer me £100,000 or £200,000 a week now I would not accept it. I blame David Dein for trying to force me out. It’s all over. I feel betrayed, confused and badly let down. It’s hard to forgive.”
Yes, it must be hard to forgive Arsenal for going to meet Chelsea to discuss the sale of Cole behind his back even though he didn’t want to leave. Erm…wait a second, that’s not quite right. Maybe it’s hard to forgive Arsenal for giving you the chance to be a world class defender, establish you as an England international and offer to more than double your £27,000 a week wages. I know I’d find that hard to forgive.
Of course it’s just a huge ‘poor me’ PR stunt and yet another attempt by the guilty parties in all this to shift the blame elsewhere and refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions. This bit in particular made me laugh when Cole said “I won’t sign for another Premiership club because I can’t imagine myself playing against Arsenal. I would only want to play abroad.”
Right, so why the fuck did you go meet Chelsea then, Ashley? If you couldn’t imagine playing against Arsenal why would you go and meet a team who we play at least twice a year, a team who we’re going to battle with for the title for the foreseeable future, a team who you should be playing against as Arsenal’s left back? It’s a fairly lame attempt to reclaim some favour but it’s so transparent as to be laughable. I wonder how much Barnett paid the NOTW for the friendly article, remember it was the News of the World and The Sun that broke the story about the meeting in the first place. Cole tries to suggest that because Arsenal didn’t give him exactly what he wanted it was ok for him to take matters into his own hands and go and meet a team he knew he shouldn’t have. I think Ashley Cole’s time at Arsenal is well and truly up. This interview has put paid to any slim chance there might have been for reconcilation between all concerned. He’s chosen the easy way out, to deny, to dissemble, to spoof and to cloud the waters rather than take the admittedly more difficult path of accepting the fact it’s his actions that have brought all this about. If he wasn’t happy with Arsenal’s contract offer he could have continued to negotiate, he still has two years on his deal, running off to meet Chelsea was unacceptable no matter what the circumstances.
I have to have a word about Peter Kenyon too although Tom did mention it and his description of Kenyon’s comments is spot on. He’s been shooting his mouth off about how Arsenal is run by the French clique, about how there’s no team spirit, about the supposed failings of Arsene Wenger as manager (read Jens Lehmann’s denials of that here). Let’s remember he denied any such meeting when the first story broke so he’s a liar with an obvious agenda against Arsenal. He’s crossed a line now in my opinion. You don’t say things like that about another team or another manager and use one of their current players to do it. It’s just low, although you wouldn’t expect much more from him. Let’s also remember Jonathan Barnett called stories about the meeting ‘ridiculous‘ and said there was no problem between Arsenal and Cole. That makes him a liar. Mourinho denied being at the meeting as well saying ‘I have never met the boy’ and that he was in Milan. Yep, he’s a liar too. And Cole himself said that Mourinho and Kenyon walked into the meeting ‘by accident‘ so I don’t need to tell you what that makes Ashley.
Basically the papers are full of stories from four fucking liars and quite honestly I don’t know why anyone would now give any credence to anything they say. Sorry Ashley but a picture looking all mournful holding a copy of a fucking rag of a Sunday tabloid doesn’t do it for me. The only ones we haven’t really heard too much from are the people at Arsenal Football Club and that’s probably the way it should be. Why should we get caught up in a cunt’s convention like this? It’s grimy, it’s dirty, it’s not Arsenal. I think it’s tremendously sad what’s happened with Ashley. I think it’s sad the way he’s been manipulated by people who see him as a way to make more money. It’s sad the way he can’t see the way he’s been played. It’s sad the way one of our favourite players has fucked things up so badly that most Arsenal fans want to see him as far away from the club as possible as soon as possible. His position is now untenable. He’s got to be sold, no question about it. Let him go to Real Madrid, which is a very real possibility, but get him out. Maybe one day he’ll realise what he’s done, what he’s lost that he’ll never find at any other club. It’s an ugly episode in Arsenal’s history but to me Arsenal have behaved properly. Cole blaming the club for being put through an inquiry just shows how removed from the real world he is. It’s like breaking into a house, getting caught and blaming the homeowner for having a burglar alarm.
I’m not naive enough to think everything Arsenal do is for the greater good and gold-plated but at the end of the day we’re not the ones telling lies to the press, we’re not the ones going to meet players from other teams, we’re not the ones tapping up sporting directors from other London clubs, we’re not the ones having dinner with Rio Ferdinand, we’re not the ones trying to destablise the dressing room of our main rivals, we’re not the ones who may or may not have twisted the mind of the young player who just signed for Manchester United making him change his mind and we’re not the ones whose empire is built on a foundation of dishonesty, arrogance, sneakiness, theft and underhandedness. For that I’m glad even if it means we lose Ashley Cole.
The other main story is Freddie Ljungberg supposedly ‘blasting’ Arsenal for relying on 18 and 19 year olds. He wants the club to make some investments in the playing squad this summer. Just like the rest of us, I suppose. Are we all blasting Arsenal too? Perhaps we are.
Anyway, it’s very early here and I have another week of Berlinery goodness ahead of me. Till tomorrow, hopefully.
