March 30th
Still lots of coverage from Tuesday night’s fantastic win so a quick round-up of the stories to follow.
Paul Merson is amongst the many praising Cesc, saying he should go to the World Cup and could be a real star there, but the player, to his credit, has his feet firmly on the ground. In reply to the many suggestions that he’s taken over from Vieira he said “I don’t know and I don’t like it. I have always tried my best. I work hard in every training session and I always give my best. In the last few weeks we have won games and done well and it reflects well on a player individually, but I don’t think that’s fair. It’s the team.”
In the same link you can read the captain’s thoughts about him and I commented the other night to my scruffy shirted companion that Cesc could well play an important part in Thierry Henry’s decision to stay or go. Certainly if you couldn’t see the chancet of a team developing then you might be more inclined to leave but it’s obvious that Cesc is a special talent and to play alongside him, even as experienced as Henry is, must be a mouthwatering prospect. Add to him the defence, which the captain praised as well, Walcott, van Persie, Reyes and so on and the idea of leading those players out in the magnificent new stadium has to be a massive draw. Henry has as well tried to dampen down the praise a bit for the young Spaniard, saying “The important thing now is we must not go too far and get carried away. Cesc is doing extremely well and we just have to let him grow up and get on with it.”
It is a good point. Particularly these days when websites and blogs and forums all over the internet can hype a player beyond belief. That’s not to say Cesc doesn’t deserve the praise at the moment, he certainly does, but remember how much hype there was around players like James Beattie, Shaun Wright-Phillips and even Peter Crouch when he had a good season for Southampton. It’s very rare to see somebody say “Yes, he’s playing well but let’s see how he’s playing in a year’s time”, it’s nearly always over the top. The mark of a truly great player is performing consistently season after season. That’s why Henry, Ronaldinho, Shevchenko and even someone like Frank Lampard can be tagged as ‘World Class’. We can all see that Cesc has the potential to join that group, his talent is obvious and his intelligence is what will help him achieve so much, but maybe sometimes we forget he’s still 18 and perhaps there’s the danger of expecting too much from him (misrepresented headlines like this don’t help – hit hunting is all it is). Anyway, we’ll come back to this in 12 months time when he’s FIFA World Player of the Universe – 4 Eva!!!!
Robert Pires speaks about his first tackle in 13 years and how it led to the opening goal. “I even surprised myself. When the ball is at Patrick’s feet he is a specialist, it is like the pupil who has copied the master.”
More copying please, Robert, who is still playing for his new contract. In the Guardian, just below a boring piece about how ITV have to sell their Arsenal shares, an employment law specialist suggests that Arsenal’s policy of offering one year deals to over 30s could be discriminatory as they’re treating players under 30 differently. I think it’s safe to say that employment law and football is not a good mix. You just can’t treat football as any other profession. Yes, they should be afforded as much protection as is necessary but you can’t offer a 32 year old player a 5 year deal the same way you can a 22 year old. It’s nonsense. It’s like Ashley Cole’s nonsensical law suit against anyone he could possibly bring it against to claim his human rights were being abused when he went to meet Chelsea, totally outside the rules of the Premiership. Hopefully the players will see common sense but I suppose all it takes is for one of them to challenge the policy and things could go tits up.
Pavel Nedved tries to lure Arsenal into a false sense of security. Talking about the second leg in Turin he says “It will be very difficult for us to make something of this tie. In fact, maybe it is already over for us this year.”
Expect lots of stories like this one between now and the game. One thing is for certain though, the manager and the players know the job is not done yet and will approach the game in that way, not thinking they’re already through. Kolo Toure says Sol Campbell has been a big help behind the scenes and has given advice to the defence. “Now remember Kolo, if you make one mistake that’s fine, but two means you throw a big strop and ponce out of the club like a drama queen.”
Bad news for the reserves as they suffered their heaviest defeat of the season against Southampton going down 5-1. Eeek.
And there you go.
