Morning. The Interlull is taking its toll now. I am like a man stranded in the desert, ragged clothes, scruffy, unshaven, dying for a drink.
Hold on, that’s just normal. Hurrah!
It will be good to get these poxy internationals over and done with though. The latest injury victim is hardly a surprise, Abou Diaby was withdrawn from the French squad after suffering from something. God knows what now but it’s becoming ever more apparent, if it wasn’t blindingly obvious anyway, that he’s got serious problems staying fit.
Surely it goes beyond bad luck at this stage. He can do a few weeks, then he gets an injury. It’s like clockwork and it’s a real shame because there’s a talented player in there somewhere, it just seems as if we’re never going to see him because of all the niggles he picks up. On the plus side he recovered from his last knock in record time, just a few days, so maybe this will be the same.
Anyway, fingers crossed the rest of our lads come through their games tonight without any problems.
It’s all about Ivan Gazidis now and he’s had plenty to say. Firstly he’s convinced that Cesc will be staying at Arsenal, saying:
I can’t marry the stories that I read with the reality, which is that Cesc is extremely happy at Arsenal and totally committed to the club, and that’s every message that Arsene Wenger or I have ever received from him or his representatives.
Which is good to hear and while I think we all accept Cesc is going to go back to Spain at some point in his career I really don’t have any short term worries about that. The summer will be interesting, with Real Madrid on the prowl, but he’s committed to the club, he’s proud of being captain of Arsenal and he wants to win things with us.
There are stories floating about this morning about Robin van Persie as well. It’s much the same kind of stuff that’s been about for the last few weeks. Speaking about his new contract offer Robin says:
Financially Arsenal’s last offer is fine, but that isn’t everything for me. It’s about my ambitions and how they can be fulfilled. The club and I want the same, and it’s our intention to achieve that. Now it’s about making that final push. I certainly feel I can play an important role in taking Arsenal to a higher level.
In an era when we lambaste footballers for thinking only about the money it’s hard to criticise a player for whom money is not the most important thing. Of course you can point to van Persie’s injury record and how the club have looked after and supported him through that and other low-points in his career and personal life – I don’t think that’s unfair at all.
However, it strikes me that van Persie is someone who wants to win things with Arsenal. If we have our doubts about the team, the strength of the squad etc, isn’t it natural that some of the players will as well? I’d be more worried if the players were happy to coast along just picking up their wages. That they want things to improve is good. Anyway, to me it all sounds quite positive so I’m not worried in that regard.
Nevertheless, Gazidis makes a good point, saying:
I can’t guarantee success because success depends on those very players but am I confident that I can keep those players and we can make progress? Absolutely, very confident.
It’s not good enough for us to be in fourth place, we have to be competing for the Premier League title. I think there are a variety of reasons we are in fourth place but it’s not the level of our ambition – not the level of Arsene Wenger’s, the board’s or my ambition.
The bit about the players is bang on the money and whatever you or I might think of the way the manager has built this particular squad and made the mistakes he’s made, I don’t think you can ever question his desire to win things. He thought he could do it one way and when it became apparent that way wasn’t really working he changed things around a bit and added some experience and quality to the squad in Arshavin.
I think come summertime we’ll see a couple of similar purchases which will provide the squad with the extra quality needed to compete for the league but also provide the younger players with the chance to learn and improve by playing alongside guys like that. Anyway, that’s all to come in those long, hilarious, summer months.
Final bit of Gazidis is him talking about Kroenke, Lady Nina and Jabba the Usmanov. Go read.
Sylvester says he wants Man United in the semi-finals of the Champions League. Two points. One – we’ve still got two legs of the quarter-final to play before we can even think about who we’re going to play in the semi. Two – anyone who’d prefer Man United to Porto is clearly a mentalist.
Finally for today, Goonerholic has some worrying news from UEFA. Is there no end to Platini’s madness?
Rightyo, that’ll do. More tomorrow.
