Let’s get the bad news out of the way first, shall we?
The three months we’d heard about Cesc now turns out to be four months. Essentially he’s going to miss the rest of the season if that’s the case. You’re looking at an end of April return and at that point he’s going to need time to get match fit and what have you so I think it’s better to assume we’re not going to see him again until next August. If he makes it back sooner then great but with our injury record it’d be foolish to pin any hopes on that.
So it leaves us with a big problem in our midfield and one that the manager admits leaves him ‘more likely‘ to buy in January. To be fair to Arsene he can’t exactly come out, hit the panic button and say he’s desperate to buy – there are countless reasons why that would be utterly foolish. However, I stand by what I said yesterday, we need to make two purchases.
The first is someone who can replace Cesc. For me the ideal solution to that lies at Goodison Park. Mikael Arteta possesses the experience, quality and craft to do the same kind of job Cesc does. He’s a player who wouldn’t require any settling in period which is vital. We need a player who can come in and do a job straight away, not somebody who will need time to acclimatise to Premier League football. I think he’d jump at the chance to play for us too and he’s versatile enough to maintain a squad place even when Cesc comes back. He’s played a lot of football on the right hand side of midfield for Everton so he wouldn’t be redundant on Cesc’s return.
He’s good with set-pieces too, Everton, like most clubs have a pressing need for cash, and for me he’s the most obvious solution to the problem I can think of.
The second player should probably be a midfielder in the Flamini style. Someone with real energy, good in the tackle, tactically aware and who can distribute the ball well. That player is much more difficult to identify although you look at someone like Scott Parker and that’s the kind of player I mean.
Arsene spoke about having ‘internal solutions’ to the problem but I’m not so sure. I have maintained that our midfielders need more competition for places. There are those that will say that Denilson and Song and Diaby will find themselves marginalised if we go out and buy but they’ve had chances. On the other hand working and playing with better players might well improve them. If they can rise to that challenge then it’s better for everyone.
I was watching Arsene’s press conference and he was asked about Andrei Arshavin. His reply was very coy, something like ‘I don’t feel the need to talk about that at the moment’. You wonder if he’s looking at solving the Cesc problem by adding quality elsewhere. Could he be thinking about Arshavin on the left and perhaps moving Nasri central to play the Cesc role? We’ll obviously just have to wait and see but the seriousness of Cesc’s absence should not be underplayed.
Whatever he says about ‘internal solutions’ I think the only way to cope with this is to buy players. Our need was pressing before, it’s even more so now.
During his press conference he dismissed the notion of players leaving. Bendtner, Toure and Gallas were the subject of questions by journalists and he denied that any of them would depart the club. Bendtner has said he’ll move on unless he gets regular football at Arsenal – the best way for him to do that is to take the opportunities when they’re given to him. I thought he looked a prospect last season, his goal return from a limited amount of playing time was impressive, but he has disappointed this time around.
Still, the squad needs augmentation, not further disintegration, so I think we’d be foolish to let anyone leave in January (unless the money was ridiculously good and it would be spent on a replacement).
Looking ahead to the game on Friday we don’t have any team news yet but I’m hoping Cesc is the only new absentee. The importance of the game doesn’t need to be stressed any further and I’m sure Villa will be looking at us thinking it’s rather a good time to play the Arsenal. They’ll have watched Keane’s goal on Sunday and Young and Agbonlahor will be hoping our defence offers up such tasty Christmas gifts.
We don’t need reminding of Villa’s capabilities, they beat us at the Grove, so perhaps there’s a measure of revenge on our players minds. Again we need big performances from our big players but with no Cesc, no Adebayor and all the players missing it’s going to be a real test for us. It’s a game we need to win to close the gap, to restore some confidence and set us up for the return of Tony Adams and Portsmouth two days later.
I know I said I wanted a lightsaber for Christmas but I’d happily swap that for six points.
In other news Arsene Wenger has called Graham Poll an embarrassment, which is the most creative spelling of the word ‘cunt’ I’ve ever seen. Poll is trying to make a name for himself, again, as a controversial media shitehawk and frankly the world would be a better place if he were ignored as the utter irrelevance he is.
And that’s about it. I’ll wander into town today, do a couple of last minute things, have a couple of Christmas Eve pints and then settle in for the evening in front of the fire.
I doubt there’ll be any kind of blog tomorrow so let me just take the opportunity to wish you and yours a very happy Christmas. If you’re not celebrating Christmas then have a happy not Christmas. Thanks for reading throughout the year, it’s been an interesting one to say the least, and even if our views are horribly and irrevocably opposed I wish you all the best for the festive season.
Until Friday.
