Morning all, just one day until we get a real game of football again. How splendid.
There’s vague team news ahead of the Blackburn game at this stage. Carlos Vela will miss out because of his lengthy travels while there are doubts over Samir Nasri who has some kind of knee problem. Mikael Silvestre’s eagerly awaited debut will have to wait as well. Aw shucks. We’ll get more later as Arsene holds court at his usual pre-match press conference.
Despite the hat-trick against for England Theo Walcott is not guaranteed to start with the boss saying he’ll have to rotate, especially for players who have been on international duty. Theo has played two games inside the last week and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he started on the bench tomorrow. However, the manager was delighted with the three goal haul and Theo’s reaction to it. His already high profile has been raised even higher and Arsene has made the point of calling for him to be protected by referees. With physical away games at Blackburn and Bolton to come in the next week or so those comments are timely.
The boss has also been talking about money in football and how football is not a supermarket. You read what he says and it makes complete sense yet the reality is that clubs with wealthy owners will now spend whatever they want on a player and his wages and there’s not much anybody can do to stop them. It must be particularly galling that after all the work of getting the stadium built, with the long-term aim of increasing the club’s income, that this wave of sugar daddies has come along and done it the easy way, so to speak. They are the cheat in Championship Manager that gives you a £500m transfer chest to start the game with and it does make life easier for them and more difficult for the rest.
I don’t really know what can be done about it though. Chelsea have operated at a massive loss for years, Man City are sure to do the same, and as long as the rich owners are there to pay the bills then there doesn’t seem to be anything that the FA, FIFA or anyone can do. I did like AW’s little dig at Robinho though, that was funny.
Reports yesterday linked us with a move for former Hertha Berlin player Mineiro. He’s a free agent and could do a job in the short term, I suppose. He was at the training ground this week and I’m told he took some part in a behind closed doors game. Whether he did enough to impress remains to be seen.
Now then, time for the Arsecast, such as it is this week. There really has been a dearth of material so it’s not the longest Arsecast of all time. Nevertheless I chat to Goonerholic about Theo’s hat-trick, the upcoming away games and more. There’s a player history, Silvester is there and … erm … that’s about it really.
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Right so, time to get ready to get prepared to get geared up for tomorrow. Until then.
