Interlull day 4:
Please be advised that over-exposure to Interlull may result in some, or many, of the following side effects: Dizziness, nausea, explosive dysentery, headaches, rectal mutation, increased testosterone levels, dwarfism, an upsurge in monkeying around, deafness, biscuit eating, massive dropsies and painting freckles on oneself with an expensive filbert brush and a tube of Winsor and Newton ‘burnt umber’.
Should any of these symptoms occur please see a doctor as they may be fatal.
Not much going on, as you’d expect. Arsene Wenger says he knew when he was going into this season with young players that he’d get criticism, saying:
I knew when I decided to go for a young team what would hit me. I was prepared for that. I am pleased that I was not wrong but we have a long way to go and a lot to improve.
I’m not sure that he was not not wrong. Or is not wrong. Or Was Not Was. Not even our spy in the house of love can tell us.
We’re doing better, no question about that, but some of the results earlier in the season suggest that for this campaign, at least, he might have been not not wrong, or indeed, not right. The article says we’re ‘increasingly safe’ in fourth place, which is a bit of a stretch seeing as we’ve just got into fourth place in the last couple of weeks.
In this neck of the woods they call that kind of thing ‘jinxing’. As I’ve always said I want Arsene to build a team that can win the league. We certainly have been a bit, just a bit, unlucky with injuries but when you go into a season with only Fabregas as an established central-midfielder and he gets injured it’s not simply down to bad luck, is it?
Anyway, perhaps the arrival of a 27 year old Arshavin and the very obvious effect he’s had on the team is an indication that the balance was wrong. Youth is fantastic but to do the best by those players you have to let them learn as much from the players around them as they do when you chuck them right in at the deep end and say ‘Swim!’.
As expected Emmanuel Adebayor will play for Togo this week. Reports last week said Arsenal had let him go but were unwilling to allow him to play after being out for so long with injury. However, the Togonian head of football or something, said:
Adebayor hasn’t joined up with us in Lome for nothing. He will play in the match against Cameroon. He will play in his role as captain as he always has, as this is a huge match for Togo.
I think Arsenal must have known that if he was going over there he was going to play. If he plays and he gets some fitness back then all well and good. If he plays and gets injured again then it’s our own fault for letting him go in the first place.
Phil Brown says ‘the truth will come out’ about the Fabregate incident. Would this be the same kind of truth that came out when Brown said Arsene Wenger “never” shakes his hand? That kind of truth? Because if you think I can’t handle the truth then you are so, so wrong. That is just the kind of truth I can handle. I’m a truth handler of the highest quality, let me tell you. So you go bang your hand on some other desk, mister.
Manuel Almunia has been speaking again about getting an English passport and declaring for the English national team. I’ve been over this before, I think if he can’t play for Spain then that should be the end of his international dreams. I mean, what kind of country would fill their national team with players who weren’t even born in the country they’re supposed to represent? Madness, I tell you.
The real problem is just plain old loneliness. When everyone else has gone off on international duty Almunia is left back at London Colney with Sylvester, Rosicky and Emmanuel Pingpong who, hilariously, is quite awful at table tennis. Sure, they go on bike rides and have picnics and sometimes get ever so wrapped up in mystery that it’s long after dark before they get home, but those days are the exception rather than the rule.
Some sad news now as it seems everyone’s favourite French-Portuguese U21 international who has never played a game of football in his life could be on the way out of the club. Amaury Bischoff, who spends his days as Gunnersaurus’s PA, has offers from a multitude of other clubs who feel his administration and organisational skills are just what they’re looking for. His agent says:
Amaury can do 80 words a minute, update his Twitter, accept up to 500 invitations an hour on Facebook as well as maintaining 50 MSN chat windows at a time without so much as a stray LOL. He’d be asset to any club mascot.
Truly my heart would cleave in two were he to leave us.
Right, that’s about that. It’s a mucky morning here in Dublin. Bleurgh. Have a good day. More tomorrow.
