April 12th
Well, the big story this morning is the return of Sol Campbell to the team after his prolonged absence through injury and him being a fucking twat. With so many games coming up the boss has decided to rest Philippe Senderos and bring back Johnny Walkout. He said “I’ll play him because I feel he’s ready for us. We have to change the team and I’m happy we have Sol Campbell back. After that I will go from game to game and make my decisions when I have to.”
He might be happy to have him back but I’m not. I know we have lots of games but Campbell doesn’t deserve any part of them, in my opinion, and to me it looked like Kolo was the one who needed the rest after the United game, not big Phil. I’m not one to express discontent at the manager’s decisions lightly but I don’t like this one at all. Still, he’s the boss and I’m just the chump who writes a website about Arsenal.
However, despite the nausea Campbell’s return has caused I have to be fair to the manager because he’s handled it well. There was some fear that dropping/resting Senderos might knock his confidence but Arsene Wenger has been quick to praise him, saying “The only thing I can say is I do not take Senderos out because I am not happy with him. I’m very happy with him. Philippe is completely focused and completely dedicated to the game. You have to consider that he is only 22. But he is not scared to play and wants the ball. He has quite an efficient technique with both feet and is very keen to learn always. He’s good in the air and has a strong physique. He is suited to English football.”
I think ‘dedicated’ is a telling choice of word because the player he’s bringing back has been far from that this season and in recent weeks has shown quite clearly that his motivation for playing again is to ensure a World Cup place and nothing else. What’s more, in all the time Campbell has had free since his walkout it hasn’t once occurred to him to apologise to the Arsenal fans for his half-time escape during the West Ham game, which again speaks volumes about him. Arsenal fans are an understanding bunch – we’ve had a captain go to jail for drink driving, we’ve had a cocaine addict gambloholic and we stood by them all because they appreciate what the club and the fans do for them and said as much. So when you have an experienced player commit the cardinal sin of walking out on his team-mates, mid match, and then he doesn’t so much as say a word about it and accuses people of playing ‘silly little games’ then it’s no wonder his stock with some Arsenal fans is about as low as it was when he was captain of Sp*rs. An apology would have gone a long way with the fans, the lack of one should go a long way to ensuring we try harder to sell him this summer than we did last.
Anyway, as the manager has said he’ll go game to game I can only hope that when it comes to the important games he stays with the Kolo – Senderos partnership that has served us so well and doesn’t choose to rely on somebody who might get a bee in his bonnet at any time and fuck off to Belgium for the weekend. Senderos has earned the faith of manager, not thrown it all away. He’s shown that the partnership between himself and Kolo has real long-term potential and when his form suffered a bit he got his head down, worked hard and improved without going AWOL. Needs must, I suppose, and Campbell has to play because he and Senderos don’t work as a duo so if AW wants to rest a defender it has to be the Swiss. I trust it will only be short-term though and that what we do get from Campbell is at least 100% effort. This time.
Also out for tonight’s game is Cesc Fabregas who is still feeling the effects of his sore foot while Freddie Ljungberg and José Antonio Reyes are both set to start. Harry Redknapp says Portsmouth will have to stop Thierry Henry although he has no idea how to do it and as an Arsenal fan as a boy he talked about the kind of thing that makes this club so classy, saying “When my dad died a couple of months ago, Arsenal sent a wreath to his funeral. I’ll never forget that and could hardly believe that. I didn’t tell anyone at Arsenal. Somebody must have picked up on it. Fantastic.”
Jens Lehmann on being picked to be Germany’s number one of the World Cup – “If you know the coach had to make a difficult decision, you want to do everything to fulfil his confidence, and that is my aim for the next weeks. My first priority is to do everything I can with Arsenal.”
Ashley Cole is set to quit Arsenal according to The Sun. Apparently he feels there’s an important principle at stake. It seems going to meet other clubs just before important games, for which your agent is charged by the FA, then lying about it, getting found out and dragging the whole thing through the courts to avoid paying a fine you more than deserve is an important principle. The mind boggles. When you’re trying to deal with obstinate stupidity on that level then you probably have to let say ‘goodbye’ no matter how good a player he is. Again, even if he is fit for the last few games of the season does he deserve to play if his mind is made up to leave?
AW says despite the ‘hundreds’ of rules in place at the club there isn’t one about gambling which may be something to do with it being quite an English thing. Thierry Henry has interestingly quit his sponsorship deal with Nike and after the World Cup will be moving to the Reebok stable. I’m not sure if this has any bearing on his future but Barcelona and Nike have very strong ties.
Finally, don’t forget the competition to win a copy of Football Manager for PSP (which is the handheld Sony thingy NOT a Playstation 2) and for xBox360. See yesterday’s blog for the question and you have until tomorrow night to enter. The winners will be announced on Friday.
Ok, here’s hoping we get back on track tonight as nothing less than three points will do. Come on you Gunners!
