november 18th
So it’s a 100% confirmed left back crisis with Arsene Wenger confirming that Gael Clichy would be out for 3 or 4 months and would need surgery on his broken foot while Ashley Cole is out until Christmas. With the only other left footed defender in the squad being Pascal Cygan it is a bit of a worry. It’s a real shame for Clichy too. It’s very strongly rumoured that the club and Cole came to an arrangment about the contract extension he signed a few months ago. This would enable Arsenal to get a good fee for him as he would have had only 12 months to go without signing and talk of a Real Madrid/Baptista swap deal has been mooted for quite some time.
Clichy would have been the obvious replacement and given a great chance to get some games under his belt this season it’s a cruel blow to be sidelined for so long. The boss said “It is terrible for the boy, we feel really bad for him. For us it is hard to take as well because we have no left backs who are really comfortable in that position. Ashley is five weeks away in my opinion and Gael is three to four months away. We’ll just have to be patient and wish them well.”
It remains to be seen how the boss chooses to fill the position with all sorts of permutations available including Cygan, Senderos, Lauren moving from right back, Eboue or someone younger again. Did we ever sign that Traore kid? Anyway, we’ll see tomorrow. The boss also said that Alexander Hleb was likely to be out for another three weeks.
And apart from that there’s nothing going on apart from Barcelona saying how ideal a signing Thierry Henry would be but that’s a bit like saying how ideal a drink of water would be if you were crawling through the desert. It is Friday though which is good.
And we’re on the telly tomorrow morning which is also good.
See you before then. (Ham sandwich).
