Despite an apology yesterday from Sunderland’s Daniel Smith Arsenal’s players didn’t hold back in their criticism of the tackle which has put Abou Diaby out of the game for the forseeable future. The mild mannered Kolo Toure said:
It wasn’t an accident. He just came in to try to hurt the player, which is really, really bad. They wanted to show desire because they were 3-0 down at half time, but to show desire is not to kick or to hurt the player.
While Cesc, who was looking straight at the tackle assult, said:
I am disappointed with them about this. The game was almost over and we were winning 3-0 and it was an unnecessary tackle.
For his part the Sunderland player showed he’s a real candidate for the brain of Britain, saying:
If I did catch him it wasn’t meant. I sincerely went to win the ball.
“IF?!!” There’s no if about it as a dislocated and fractured ankle might just be, you know, proof that you crocked him. He was nowhere near the ball either and his jumping lunge, studs first into Diaby’s ankle makes him either the worst tackler since Paul Scholes or a liar who got frustrated and decided to do his opponent. Look at the picture in The Sun. He’s not looking at the ball because the ball is not attached to Diaby’s ankle. I’m sure he didn’t mean to injure him as badly as he did but he certainly didn’t mean to get the ball. Anyway, he’s off down the leagues, like Sunderland, so hopefully he’ll get what’s coming to him which is the non-descript career his ‘talent’ merits.
On to other things. After being linked with a move to Sevilla yesterday the Spanish club have played down suggestions that Lauren could leave Arsenal this summer. There was some talk of him being used to pay a part of the Reyes fee but with potentially so much experience on its way we need to hang onto some of the ‘old guard’. Also, as exciting as Eboue is I still think he’s got lots to learn and Lauren can show him the way. To my mind he’s still a better player than the young Ivoronian Coastian and it’s vital we keep him.
The Mirror has a highly speculative story about Real Madrid and Cesc and a £12m bid. They may want to double that after his match winning display in the Champions League final and we’ll still tell them to go and shite. Speaking of which Lionel Messi has been ruled out of the game due to the injury he picked up against Chelsea.
The tickets for the game were allocated yesterday and already there’s some bad feeling amongst supporters who have been unsuccessful in their bids. The registration system was flawed and there will be doubts that the procedure was run as well as it might have been, especially as there seems to be a decent number of people still waiting for confirmation one way or the other. No doubt we’ll hear more about this over the coming days.
Ok, not much else going on. There’ll be more tomorrow including a preview of the Citeh game. Till then.
Update: Totally forgot to announce the Goalhanger t-shirt winners! The RNG did its things and the winners are as follows:
Cesc t-shirt: Joshua Cole and Peter Angelli
Jens t-shirt:Â Demetris Kyprianou and Matthew Zeqiri.
Thanks to everone for taking part, I’ll be in touch with the winners for address details and shirt sizes. Thanks again to Goalhanger for the prizes.
