Happy Monday to you from a very wild and rainy Dublin.
Still lots of misinformation abounding regarding Robin van Persie’s injury. This morning’s Sun says he could miss the ‘entire season’ and says Arsene is ‘gutted’ but the news from the player himself isn’t so bad. The Dutch FA have confirmed that there’s a ‘partial rupture’ of his ankle ligaments but there’s no requirement for surgery, which is a good thing.
As for how long he’s going to be out, Robin says:
The prognosis is that I will be out for four to six weeks.
Which is good news, I suppose, but I think I’d like to hear what our medical staff have to say before I get too enthused. Anyone who has done their ankle playing football knows that it can be a difficult injury to heal properly. If we take 6 weeks as the period out then we may have him back for the Christmas rush. In the meantime we’ll have to cope and thankfully the fixtures aren’t anywhere as testing as they might be.
Chelsea at the end of this month and then Liverpool in mid-December are the two biggest games. The rest are fixtures that you feel we should be able to cope with his absence. And let’s remember that one of the real positives about this team this season is that we’re not reliant on one man for goals. They’ve come from all over the pitch, I think we have something like 16 different goalscorers already, so while it’s a bit of a setback and obviously his contribution in recent weeks has been outstanding, it’s not the hammer blow some would make it out to be. I expect some kind of official update from the club today, let’s see.
What is amusing, relatively speaking, is the invention of the press. As soon as van Persie got injured we started seeing stories regarding Marouane Chamakh arriving in January. Honestly, this is some of the laziest shit I’ve ever seen. Are we really supposed to believe that they have a direct line to Arsene’s head? Because as sure as eggs are eggs the boss hasn’t spoken to anyone about bringing in Chamakh. That information, which doesn’t exist in the first place, hasn’t leaked anywhere. They could replace the word ‘Chamakh’ with 9-ton hippo/giraffe hybrid, the Gippo, and it would be as accurate as the shite they’re peddling. Idiots.
Although the idea of Cesc providing killer passes for a Gippo, who would undoubtedly be very good in the air, is quite appealing.
In other news Kieran Gibbs has been talking about making sure he takes his chances this season. With Gael Clichy out injured for a while he’s got a real opportunity and while he’s not thinking about the World Cup former Gunner Ray Parlour reckons he’s got a real chance of making England’s squad. Maybe it’s just me but I think the longer he stays out of the England set-up the better. Think about it, do we really want him hanging around ‘JT’ (barf) and ‘Lamps’, Wonky-mouth and ‘Cuntley’, sorry, I mean Cuntley?
What will he learn from them apart from how to park in handicapped spaces, how to enjoy a shoplifted dinner after a few lines of gack, wideboy nightclub bollocks such as pissing into people’s pints, road swerving and general cuntsrousness? For his own sake I think he should declare for a nation which has no footballing ability whatsoever. Like Ireland. Kieran is kind of an Irish name. At least if Ireland’s senior players tried to influence him he could just say ‘Look Robbie, you fucking mallet-headed, Desperate Dan looking twat, there’s more to football than sitting on your arse bleating at the ref to give you a free kick when you haven’t even been fouled, just tackled, you pox-bottle piece of useless shite’.
I suppose if he plays well for Arsenal we’ll just have to cope with the consequences of him being called up to play international games, and you can’t blame Capello for looking at him when his other left back option is Wayne Bridge, who is to defending what Karen Carpenter was to overeating.
The praise for Aaron Ramsey after his display at the weekend continues with one of his Welsh teammates comparing him to Cesc, which is good stuff indeed. One Cesc is a thing of wonder, two of them would be almost like cheating. Let’s hope his progression continues at this kind of pace.
And that’ll have to do. Just a few days of the Interlull to go, then we can back to real football. Hopefully some competitions to come this week to pass the time, so keep your eyes peeled.
More tomorrow.
