So well done William Gallas. His comments on his website (which is now mysteriously not working) have allowed the tabloids to run with stories like ‘Gunners Revolt‘ after his comments about players questioning the future of the club. Gallas himself raised doubts over his future at Arsenal as well so despite being ready to jump ship at any moment he feels its ok for him to publicly question the manager without even speaking to him and show the true level of his committment to the club that pays him £90,000 a week.
Honestly, I’ve never been a fan, this doesn’t really do anything to make me a fan and he’s put himself in a situation where what he said really should be dealt with harshly by the club. How frustrating must it be for the manager to have one of the ‘senior’ players at the club start causing this kind of trouble before the season has even begun. Frankly, I’d give Gallas and his ego the chance to go play in Italy or Spain, not simply because he’s a player we haven’t seen anything approaching good form from, but because he is a trouble maker and teams can do without people like that. Free Willy, I say. But not for free. We could easily get a few million for the blabbermouthed cunt. If he wants to go then show him the door. Then close the door in his face when he’s half-way through so it really hurts his nose.
New Real Madrid manager Bernd Schuster has barely been in the job five minutes but he showed he knows the way things work at the Spanish giants by publicy declaring his interest in Cesc Fabregas. Reports in Spain suggested a double-bid for Reyes and Cesc but while we want to get shot of José I fully expect any bids for Cesc, who returns for pre-season training tomorrow, to be firmly rejected. Cesc himself told the Daily Star about how happy he was in England, saying:
Seeing people of all ages, young and old, wearing the shirt with my name on it in London is an honour and gives me a lift. Last season I was the Arsenal player who sold most shirts and that makes me proud.
Bakary Sagna is close to a move to Arsenal and according to Gunnerblog, who reads French websites, he’s in London putting the final touches to a move from Auxerre. I’m with him, I have to say, I think right back is an area we can improve on but knowing nothing about Sagna other than a 20 second clip on YouTube (which makes him look totally fucking awesome! Yeah!!) it’s hard to say what the plans are at the moment. The new deals handed down to both Eboue and Hoyte are confusing me. Sort of like that time I was put in a room full of shovels and told to take my pick.
Fiorentina are in town with lots of lovely lira euro (that really doesn’t work as well, does it? Damn you homogenous currency) for Freddie Ljungberg. The Guardian says the club’s sporting director, Luigi di Pasta, is in town ready to make a £5.5m bid and offer Valerie (heh) Bojinov as part of the deal. You do get the feeling that a change of scenery might benefit both Freddie and Arsenal but another sale would leave our already thin squad a little on the Karen Carpenter side of things.
I notice that the post-Eduardo euphoria has well and truly worn off and that people are lapsing back into pre-Eduardo gloominess because of the lack of signings. I can understand that, in a way, but at the same time my zen-like calm is getting me through this difficult off-season. ‘As always with Arsene there’s a lot going on behind the scenes’ said Chairman PHW last week and I’m sure that’s true. I do expect more signings but who knows who they’ll be and when they’ll happen? Not me, that’s for sure. Not anyone it seems. Therefore I’m not going to worry about things just at this moment in time.
Should we be facing our first game of the season and it looks like Alex Song is going to play at centre-half because Gallas has gone on strike and just to prove a point to the club has kidnapped Kolo, Senderos and Djourou and has tied them up in a damp basement and Adebayor is moping because his dancing partner has gone and Cesc has been seen stuffing his face with lobster bought for him by Rebecca Loos who is working for Real Madrid and Alex Hleb says he’s going to be top goalscorer for the season then I might start to get a bit worried.
Until then though I’m staying cool, daddy-o. So should you.
