September 23rd
We’ve got some injury worries ahead of our trip to our old chum Dead Kenny’s team this weekend. Robert Pires is certainly out while Freddie Ljungberg is very doubtful. Dennis Bergkamp is not 100% sure to make the long trip either so we should see Hleb start. If Freddie is out we could push Cesc out on the right, where he played some games last season, and bring in the fit again Mathieu Flamini, or we could see Quincy get a start. Maybe we might even see the goal machine Lupoli on the bench.
Of course we’re still without Thierry and according to the boss “We will see Thierry in four weeks’ time at the earliest”. That certainly does give Reyes and van Persie a chance to show what they’re made of. We can’t rely on centre halves to get us our goals all season long so the other strikers have got to step it up a bit.
Arsene Wenger says international friendlies should be scrapped. I cannot agree more and I’d go so far as to say that international football in general should be scrapped bar a World Cup every 4 years. The boss says “We must get rid of friendlies and reorganise all the international competitions. Nowadays you get a player back on a stretcher 24 hours before a must-win match. You’d have to be a magician rather than a coach to get them back to their normal selves by Saturday.”
It’s true and when you consider a player can get injured playing for his country but the national association makes no contribution to the player’s wages it’s no wonder managers get ticked off. I’ve spoken before about how the international game used to be the highest level a player could play at. That’s no longer the case and it’s not even so much about national pride now. Players can pick and choose their country just to get a game. Witness the Republic of Ireland’s squad under Jack Charlton where a motley bunch of English/Scottish men with dubious parental links became Irish so they could play international ball. It was all good fun for us Irish at the time but looking back it’s kind of embarrassing. Look at Frenchman Freddie Kanoute deciding he was from Mali having been unable to win a cap for the French side. Get rid, I say. Of international football, not Freddie Kanoute or Mali. Although I wouldn’t miss either of them.
Lee Dixon on Chelsea: “You can’t deny they’ve bought the championship because without the money they wouldn’t have won it, it’s as simple as that. They’ve completely changed every aspect of English football, for the worse.”
Some rather spurious transfer rumour links us with the ‘new Ronaldinho‘ who happens to be the Mexican son of a former Brasil international playing at the moment for Barcelona’s youths. It must have been a slow day.
And that’s it. It’s a holiday here today but, dedicated soul that I am, I’m working. Gah.
