A depressing evening watching Liverpool hammer PSV in Holland last night. Certainly our Champions League exit to a team as poor as they are has to rank as the worst of Arsene Wenger’s reign. On the other hand two legs against Liverpool in our current form probably wouldn’t have been much fun anyway.
One man not enjoying himself at the moment is Mathieu Flamini and in an interview with L’Equipe he says he’s looking at his options for next season, including buying out the last year of his contract (although I thought that was only for player above a certain age – anyone?). He says:
I have reached the end of a cycle. The Arsenal team is young and has qualities, but I play rarely at the moment. It is a difficult moment to experience and in such a situation any player asks himself some questions. Above all I want to go on working and improving.
Can’t blame a footballer for wanting to play football and there are far too many players who are happy to sit on the bench, or not even get on the bench, and pick up their wages. I quite like him as a player, I have to say. He’s not as technically gifted as some of them but you know he’ll always give you 100% and add some energy and enthusiasm to the team. Certainly his workrate might have helped at Anfield on Saturday. He’s also scored a couple of very important goals for us this season and at the moment I’d play him before I played Denilson but the boss obviously has his reasons for the teams he’s picking.
The Sun’s ‘Wham, bam, thank you Flam‘ has some quotes from his agent/lawyer as well. I’m just sorry we never got ‘Mathieu Flamini’ chant to the tune of ‘We are family’ going.
Now, for the last couple of weeks I have tried to get somebody from Arsenal’s marketing department on the phone. However, whenever you call the number it goes straight to an answering machine and if you leave your name and number – like they ask you to – nobody ever calls back. This, obviously, is in relation to the rumoured white away kit for next season. So, as yet I haven’t been able to confirm anything but yesterday I noticed a large number of hits on Arseblog coming from a wide range of Sp*rs sites and they, by the comments they left and which I failed to approve because I don’t want their comments, seem to be rather amused by the whole thing.
I shall keep trying to find out more about the white kit but it’s already giving Sp*rs fans ammunition and that’s not good. JUST SAY NO!
Steve Bould has praised young Spanish midfielder, Fran Merida, for his display against Man United in the FA Youth Cup. What a lot of people don’t know is that he played 3 games in a week in an international tournament before the Spaniards sent him home, knackered, the night before the semi-final.
And that’s just about that. More tomorrow.
