It’s going to be a relatively quiet week with the next game not until Sunday so the blogs might be a bit shorter than usual. I suppose I could always tell you about my dreams – like the one last night when I was being frisked going into the new stadium hoping nobody would spot the handcuffs on my wrists because I’d just escaped from a Nazi prison. Too much Call of Duty before bed, I reckon.
Anyway, onto the football. After his red card against Blackburn we’ll be without midfield lynch-pin Gilberto. He really has had an exceptional season so far but Arsene Wenger reckons we have the quality to cope without him. I would suspect Mathieu Flamini will be the one to take his place. It would be probably a bit too soon for Abou Diaby after such a long time out with injury. I don’t have any problem with Flamini, I think he’s a better player than people give him credit for and his energy and running will be vital against United’s midfield.
The boss also thinks the number of yellow cards we have this season is ‘hard to interpret’ as the stats show we have committed the fewest fouls of any club.
Lauren has turned down a move to West Ham according to the Sun. With his contract up in the summer it seems likely he’ll move back to Spain at that stage. If it means we keep an experienced player in our squad until the end of the season then I’m happy to have him. Of course there are still a couple of weeks of the transfer window left so anything can happen. West Ham were also knocked back by young Watford star Ashley Young. Are they the club that nobody wants to join, like Lepers United?
Alexander Hleb says Andrei Shevchenko is too old to have made the move to Premiership. Rumours abound that Shevchenko was Abramovich’s signing and that the former AC Milan man is enjoying life in London and having a right old jolly much to the ire of Mourinho. Still, after playing most of your career in Italy the Premiership does take some getting used to and I wouldn’t write him off just yet.
Meanwhile Emmanuel Adebayor has threatened to quit international football if things in the Togonian national squad don’t change. Certainly that would be good for us and while players come in and out of international retirement all the time you won’t hear me complaining if he decides to pack it in.
And that is about that. Don’t forget, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions for this week’s Arsecast then please get in touch. To email it’s arsecast@[remove]arseblog.com or you can leave an audio message via the Arsebite system. I look forward to separating the wheat from the chaff other wheat.
More tomorrow.
