Well, it had to happen, didn’t it? The Interlull had been so dull and tedious the only thing that could spark a bit of life into it was an injury to one of our players. It certainly wasn’t going to be the football as anyone who sat through the Sunday park football shitstravaganza that was Ireland v France last night will tell you.
Anyway, as that game was plodding on reports began to emerge of an injury to Robin van Persie not long into Holland’s game against Italy. Within a couple of hours there were all kinds of rumours. He’d broken his ankle, he’d ruptured his ankle ligaments and he’d be out from 2-3 months to the rest of the season. Or forever. As his leg had fallen off. The Dutch coach said:
The first diagnosis is that Robin has a bad ankle injury. The seriousness of it we won’t know until we have the full X-rays in hospital.
Basically though we don’t know anything yet. The video footage of the injury is here. While some might choose to blame Chiellini, I don’t think that’s fair. The defender made a tackle, as he was perfectly entitled to do, van Persie just got unlucky. Making him some kind of pantomime villain is pointless. What is clear though is that van Persie was in a lot of pain and it does look like the kind of injury that might keep him out for a while.
However, until there’s some official confirmation from the club about the extent of the problem I’m not going to get involved in speculation and rumour. Let’s step back from the cliff face and see what happens. And look, an injury to an important player was inevitable. It happens to every team and if you had to put any money on it happening to one of our players you’d get short odds on it being Robin.
It’s a big shame because he’s playing so well at the moment and with Bendtner out of action as well the most obvious replacement is there right now. Nonetheless we’re going to just have to grit our teeth and get on with it. We won’t win any games by feeling sorry for ourselves – and while it’s doubly frustrating that this injury happened in a meaningless international game, and I’m sure Arsene will have something to say about that, we’ve got a big enough squad and it’s time for them to step up and show they’re up to the task. Over to you Eduardo and, if he still exists, Carlos Vela. Theo’s not far away either.
Some of the newspaper hype is quite ridiculous though. If you believed some of them Arsenal now have no chance of winning anything this season because of van Persie’s injury. As if all our hopes rested on one man. Yes, it’s a blow, and yes we’ve spoken about how important it is that our big players stay fit, but should we throw in the towel because of one injury? My bollocks. As I said, they happen to us, to every team, and the show must go on. Fingers crossed it’s not as a bad as we fear it is but until we get official confirmation let’s not lose the run of ourselves.
Thankfully there are no reports of any injuries to anyone else and there was much talk yesterday of Aaron Ramsey’s performance for Wales against Scotland. I didn’t see any of it, nor can I find any footage, but the young man was outstanding by all accounts, which is, at the end of the day, good news for us.
Update: Video thanks 101greatgoals.
Rounding up the rest of the Sunday’s guff, Patrick Vieira talks about Abou Diaby in the Sunday Mirror, the News of the World links us with a Brazilian called Maicosuel and links our Crozilian with a £10m move to Liverpool (you don’t need me to tell you both these stories are most likely complete fiction, do you?) while Thomas Vermaelen tells The Mirror he can do better – maybe we can play him up front in van Persie’s absence.
Tribal Football carries quotes from Philippe Senderos, probably from the Swiss press, who says he might leave the club when the transfer window opens. You couldn’t blame him, in fairness, his move to Everton was scuppered by Djourou’s injury but playing back-up all season is no fun for any player. Still, if he is to leave then a replacement would have to be found.
Beyond that not a lot going on. Time for bacon and eggs, the Sunday papers and some serious hoping re: RVP.
Laters.
