It’s very quiet this morning.
Perhaps it’s the calm before the storm. I actually typed that as ‘clam’ before the storm about three times. Imagine that though.
‘Reckon there’s gonna be a big storm tonight’.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Spotted a giant clam over yonder’.
‘Yup’.
Although how the clam would survive out of water to act as a portent of inclement weather is another question, but not one we’ll ponder too long. No doubt it would simply descend into a superabundance of fish puns or jokes about chowder and nobody wants that.
Let’s talk Arsenal. What little there is. Bacary Clamna says the team are focussed on winning trophies this season. He says:
This season, we will try to be wiser. We will show everyone we are still the Gunners and that we can win the title. We play to win everything and we will try to do it.
You can’t really fault that kind of attitude, can you? Obviously we missed him after his injury against Chelsea and perhaps the disruption to the back four caused us some defensive problems. With him and Clichy though I think we have the best full back combination in the league. Yes, even better than Ian Harte and Nyron Nosworthy.
Speaking of full backs Aston Villa have got their beady little eyes on a right back and one name on their list is Justin Hoyte. Let’s be realistic, if Sagna stays fit then Hoyte has no chance of making the first team bar the Carling Cup and perhaps the FA Cup. But, if he’s content with that then I don’t see any problem in us hanging onto him. I know he’s an Arsenal lad through and through but if he really wants first team football you have to think a move is his best option.
According to reports in Spain we’re about to sign a young goalkeeper from Real Madrid called Felipe Ramos. Madrid want to loan him out but we’re apparently willing to pay a transfer fee and Madrid will let him go to provide competition primarily for Fabianski. He’s 20 years old and that’s about as much as I can tell you. Given that we already have Almuni, Fabianski and Mannone as the goalkeeping threesome it would be a strange signing but I’m just telling you what the papers say.
There’s nothing new on the Ruben de la Red link other than a story in the Catalan press about how Madrid never give their squad players a chance and that they’d happily take €12m from us for de la Red. It seems to be based on little more than the Guardian article yesterday though.
There’s a game tonight against Huddersfield but it’s a very young squad travelling North. We’ve got the Amsterdam Tournament this weekend which the boss obviously sees as better preparation. With a couple of the senior squad carrying knocks from the weekend’s games I suppose it’s a case of better safe than sorry, especially with a Champions League qualifier next week.
Right then, that’s enough. More tomorrow.
