Well the Adebayor saga rumbles on this morning with AC Milan apparently back in the hunt.
According to AC Milan’s vice-chairman Adriano Galliani says he received a letter from Arsenal saying we’d be open to negotiating a deal. He says:
“I will reveal to you a scoop. I have received a letter from Arsenal that says, ‘Following our communication of June 13, in which we informed you we were not willing to deal over Adebayor, now we are writing to tell you that we will consider a deal if it still interests you’.”
Christ, these foreigners just can’t keep their mouths shut for a second, can they? Interesting news if true though and it ties in with what we’ve been hearing for the last couple of weeks – that Arsenal will sell him if the price is right.
However, with AC Milan having been quite vocal about how expensive Adebayor was you just wonder if it’s a tactic to try and drive the price down somehow. Anyway, it’s up to them now to make a bid if they really want him. There’s no real reaction to this news in the Spanish press, the Catalan papers in particular are more concerned with the ongoing situation regarding Barcelona president Joan Laporta. He was caught raping a goat at the top of Montjuic and the public are outraged because the goat was married. That kind of thing is frowned upon over there.
I’d just like to say that I couldn’t possibly be any more bored with Adebayor than I am now. Well, not until tomorrow when the tedium of his sheer existence coupled with this transfer business will undoubtedly raise the bar a bit more.
The Hleb stuff yesterday – not much to say beyond what I said yesterday but what’s amusing is the supposed ‘backtrack’ from Hleb is taken from the same interview his ‘slam’ comments were. What was disappointing was to see pretty much every single newspaper, broadsheet and tabloid, run with the story without much fact checking. The vast majority of Arsenal blogs and fan sites had far more insight and information and for once the papers didn’t lift it.
Pre-season training began yesterday for some of the players. Those involved in Euro 2008 are still on their holidays while there was no sign of Hleb or Adebayor, which isn’t that unexpected I suppose. The official website has some pics of the first day back.
It’s a shame about Ray – it looks like former midfielder Ray Parlour is set to retire from the game. He played nearly 400 games for Arsenal and was, and is, a proper fucking legend. Never the most technically gifted player he more than made up for it with sheer hard work, tough tackling and non-stop running, providing the team with the kind of engine room it needs. Fans love to see players like that, I think that’s why Flamini was so popular last season as well – and there are players who could learn a lot from watching Ray Parlour.
He had an eye for goal too, the obvious ones we remember are the screamer against Valencia and the ‘It’s only Ray Parlour’ goal in the 2002 FA Cup final. But I remember a hat-trick in the Champions League which was as accomplished as you’ll ever see (Werder Bremen, I think) and one against Newcastle at Highbury too. Best of luck to him and thanks for the memories, Razor.
Not much else going on, you have until tomorrow morning to enter the competition to win tickets to see the London Masters on July 19th. Lots of entries yesterday, lots of wrong ones too. You’ll find the question on yesterday’s post and my advice is to read it carefully. Winners tomorrow.
Till then.
