I must admit, it gives me something to laugh about — and it’s happened again this week — when I hear of stories saying I have told Arsene Wenger that I’m going to be leaving in January. Obviously, it’s all rubbish.
Obviously. Thierry Henry talks in his column in today’s Sun about the story I rubbished on here from Eat, Sleep, Shite the other day. It was so bad that even Clubcall, inventors of rumour for years so you can ring their premium phone line, said it was a load of crap.
In the article he talks about his own form, referees and how he’d never be one, the West Ham game and briefly about the Liverpool game tomorrow. He also doesn’t believe it’s necessary to bring charges against Alan Pardew and Arsene Wenger which is a view most people would agree with.
Ahead of the Liverpool game there’s some bad news injury wise. Tomas Rosicky will miss the next 10 days with a hamstring strain and that is a loss. Maybe we’ll see a conventional 4-4-2 now with perhaps van Persie or Walcott wide left but given the fact that we haven’t heard from Arsene Wenger yet we’re all just speculating.
The players are under no illusions about how important the game is though. Gilberto says:
If we want to fight for the title then we must win this game. We know what happened last year, we struggled a lot in the early stages. We are confident for this game. We’ve forgotten about our last few games and I think we’ve taken a lesson from them.
While not quite a ‘must win’ it’s certainly a ‘must not lose’. While Rafael Benitez has accused Arsene Wenger of lacking respect by not shaking hands with Alan Pardew our boss will have been working all week with his team. I also seem to remember Benitez not shaking hands with Mourinho on more than one occasion so there’s a touch of pots and kettles about him.
We’ll need to be solid at the back and Alan Smith, although recycling the old story about Kolo Toure’s first day at training for about the 10th time, writes a good article about our Ivorian centre-half. He is now the mainstay of the defence and with his attitude and commitment it’s no wonder he’s such a favourite amongst the fans. He says:
I am a really bad loser. Even today, when we lost in training, I am not happy at all. I always want to win. This is a team who can win the Premiership. We just have to keep going and believe we can make it.
I believe in Kolo, something good in everything I see…
Anyway, that’s about that. Tom will be here tomorrow and Monday bringing your blogging goodness because I’m making my first trip to the new stadium with my mug-smashing, Liverpool supporting brother (boooooo!). No doubt I’ll catch up with some of you for some pints before and after the game.
Until then, come on you reds.
