Normally before a league game Arsene holds a press conference on a Friday. This didn’t happen this week, I think because it’s the FA Cup.
There are still a few bits and bobs to keep us going this morning though. Responding the incident between Adebayor and Bendtner, the boss said:
Disagreements are part of the game and every single manager will be surprised what has been made of that story. Of course you want to deal with this internally. We want to know what kind of incident happened but we will deal with this without any problem. We will even use this to be conscious of how much every incident, even a minor one, can be interpreted on the outside and that will even improve our togetherness inside the team. I believe that from now on it is better for us not to talk too much about it.
And I’d imagine that’s the last we’ll hear of it from the manager. Perhaps Mr Bendtner Sr might give us the benefit of his wisdom again but I hope not and I hope lessons are learned all round from this. And now I believe it is better for us not to talk too much about it.
The boss also ruled out any players going out on loan quashing any stories about Theo’s temporary departure from the club. Citing the fact we only have 17 fit players at the moment makes it quite obvious we can’t lose anyone else. I don’t suppose he’ll have been too heartened to read that Kolo Toure was taken off during the Ivory Coast’s game with what appeared be a groin strain. We don’t know how serious it is yet but as Kolo is gone anyway it doesn’t make that much difference at the moment.
Emmanuel Eboue claims ‘many big clubs’ spoke to Arsenal in the transfer window about him and while he’s currently happy at Arsenal he went on to say ‘you never know’ what might happen. I’d be inclined to take whatever kind of money we could get for him if I thought the boss might go out and buy somebody. For intense hilarity check out Eboue on video talking about how heard Adebayor had punched ‘ …er … whassisname?’. Jesus wept.
Luka Modric says he turned down Arsenal last summer, which does tie in with a number of stories I heard about his transfer being imminent. It obviously got to an advanced stage. Anyway, he wanted to stay in Zagreb. More power to him.
Back to today’s game then and it should be a fun, open game. Newcastle under Keegan will try and attack, as opposed to Newcastle under Allardyce who tried to simply contain. I read somewhere that during one of his coaching sessions Allardyce was rigorous in his instruction about what to do when the opposition were in possession. He had every player memorising where they should be, how they should fall back, keep their shape and so on. He was apparently less than impressed when one of the senior players asked ‘But what do you want us to do when we have the ball?”
In terms of our team I think Jens will play, but that aside the amount of players we have fit means there won’t be a great deal of rotation. A good win today will help get the Sp*rs result out of the way and get us back on track ahead of Tuesday’s league game, also against Newcastle. I had a dream last night that Eduardo scored a rocket with his right foot. Granted it was against Everton but dreams are funny things.
Finally for today older Gooners will remember Ray Kennedy as a fine footballer but sadly he’s fallen on hard times recently. He’s suffered with Parkinson’s disease since he was 34 and all his caps and medals have been long sold to help him just survive. It’s kind of sad that in an era when the most average Premier League footballer never has to work again once he quits the game that a player of Ray Kennedy’s quality is struggling so badly. A joint effort between Liverpool and Arsenal fans will see a number of fund-raising events take place but donations are being sought urgently. Read this if you think you can help in any way, and for more on Ray Kennedy this, from a Liverpool site, is worth a read.
Right, let today bring about the first of two crushing defeats over the Toon. More tomorrow.
