March 1st
Welcome to a brand new month on Arseblog and here’s hoping our players on international duty come through unscathed. Cesc looks set to win his first cap for Spain as they take on the might of Kolo’s Ivory Coast. Philippe Senderos is in action for Switzerland and Johann Djourou could win his first cap and I can’t pretend to be interested in the meaningless friendlies for a second more. Here’s hoping they all play well and come back in one piece.
Some good news yesterday for Robin van Persie as Dutch police finally announced that the charges against him for rape were being dropped due to lack of evidence. It’s certainly something that’s been hanging over him for some time now and for many reasons I’m glad it’s been dropped, not least of which is that it seems a nasty crime has not been committed.
Jens Lehmann is ‘optimistic’ about signing a new deal with Arsenal, saying “I am optimistic but we still haven’t reached a solution because it depends on how long the agreement will be for. I would like to stay but I do realise that I am 36 years old and if I ask for a four-year contract I might only get two.”
He might only get one given the club’s policy on players over 30. We shall see but he has performed really well this season, the World Cup is obviously a big motivation for him.
Yoann Gourcuff. ‘Who’s he?’, you ask. Someone we’re scouting very seriously at the moment, I’m told. He’s 19, plays in midfield for Rennes, has made 26 appearances this season, scored 4 goals and he’s French. I have no reason whatsoever to disbelieve this story.
Sol Campbell is out for another month according to The Sun. He’s worried this will affect his World Cup chances whereas I couldn’t give a fish’s tit about his World Cup chances or him at this stage.
You might have read during the week about Arsenal signing a deal to promote Israel as a tourist destination. It’s fairly obvious that the club will put their name to anything these days if enough £$€ is involved but it seems this particular deal hasn’t gone down too well with Emirates, the sponsors of the new stadium and our shirts for the next billion years. See here for more.
That’s it. Midweek. Could do with it being Friday today but what can you do? Have fun.
