Morning all, welcome to a fairly quiet morning on a new look Arseblog. A lick of paint and some new wallpaper helps every now and again. I’m pretty sure this is what will earn me that move to America I’ve always wanted and the $50m a year salary I so richly deserve. There are a couple of little things to still iron out and if you notice anything weird please let me know.
We have Blackburn tomorrow and there’s good and bad news in terms of injuries. Emmanuel Adebayor returns to the squad which will give the manager a slight headache. With Henry, van Persie and Baptista to consider as well as the Togoninator it means someone’s going to be disappointed but I’m sure the boss prefers that kind of worry to the one where he hasn’t got a fit striker at all. William Gallas remains injured though and he’s suffered a set-back in his recovery and according to Arsene Wenger he’s likely to be missing for another two or three weeks. Still, with Kolo Toure, who never seems to get tired, and Senderos and Djourou in good form it’s not as big a problem as it might have been. And if the two Swiss lads keep it up Gallas might find his return to the team will be at left back rather than in the centre.
In transfer news the Mirror reports Lauren held talks with West Ham yesterday but he’s keeping his counsel as he’s had offers from Spain as well. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go to the Hammers until the end of the season then go back home to Spain in the summer.
Also in the Mirror comes the news that Arsene Wenger decided to get rid of Freddie Ljungberg when he discovered the Swede had been signed up by a Hollywood agency. It strikes me that the Mirror has done a lot of shit stirring with this story. While there may be some truth to it I sincerely doubt the club and the manager has acted so poorly to our longest serving outfield player (at least I think he is).
Elsewhere Ajax star Ryan Babel says he’s not interested in a move to Arsenal in this transfer window saying he wants to stay with Ajax while the big news this morning is that the Sun reports Jose Mourinho will leave Chelsea at the end of the season because he’s fed up with being interfered with. “Just because I am special doesn’t mean they can touch my special area”, he’s reported to have said.
Ok, stop. Arsecast time.
As always the Arsecast is sponsored by classicfootballshirts.co.uk and this week features an in-depth blogchat with Amy Lawrence focussing mainly on the young players at Arsenal and the club’s youth policy in light of the two cup games against Liverpool, Arsene Wenger Hawkins doesn’t like a BBC commentator, the Man in the Bar provides another player history, we highlight a serious deficiency with the official Arsenal podcast, there’s a bet of the week from www.bluesq.com and there’s lots of other crap in there as well. This week’s Arsecast clocks in at around 45 minutes so it’s a specially extended edition which comes at no extra charge to you!
To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes – click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (21mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here.
And that’s that. Have a good Friday. A Blackburn preview and more tomorrow.
