Good morning, a fine start to a new week for many of you. Round these parts there aren’t too many Sp*rs fans. I play football with one on a Tuesday and when I told him I was going over for the game he said ‘Oh dear, you’ve just wasted your money there’.
Oh dear indeed. So he’ll get some tomorrow night but I can imagine those of you returning to work today who live in much closer quarters to fans of that persuasion will have a jolly good morning engaging in ‘banter’, you might say. Have fun with that.
While we have a Champions League game this week much of the focus is still on the weekend’s events. Amazingly people are now beginning to revise their opinion of this team. While Alan Hansen watches his beloved Mugsmashers reel from crisis to euphoria and back to crisis again, he manages to write something nice about Arsenal. Amazing. I bet his scar was pulsing as he did.
Meanwhile Robin van Persie has summed up things perfectly, saying:
It always feels good to beat Spurs. It even feels good when we don’t play them and they get beaten, so it’s especially good when we’ve played them.
Marvelous. A bit like van Persie’s form at the moment. Patrick Barclay writes about him in The Times and he’s really growing into the central striker position. He started slowly, no goals in Arsenal’s first 6 games. Now he’s fot 8 in our last 9 and he’s fast becoming accustomed the role many thought he wasn’t really suited to. I suppose we should know better than to underestimate Arsene Wenger’s ability to get the best out of a player in a forward position.
Let’s not forget he had to convince Thierry Henry he had what it takes to score goals at a time when established commentators on things Arsenal were just as convinced that Henry would never be a centre-forward. Van Persie is no Henry, he doesn’t go at defences the same way, but the boss’s comments about him being a bit of a mix of Henry and Bergkamp isn’t too far off the mark. And what a mix that is. Let’s hope he can keep it up and it’s worth pointing out that everyone’s favourite £25m summer signing who was lauded in the press as one of the best strikers in the world hasn’t scored since he nodded that one in against us. The lanky bollocks.
Robin himself makes headlines this mornings, not for his scoring or his recent form, but for the fact he’s expressed a desire to play in the next round of the Carling Cup. Funnily enough it happens to be against Man City. On Saturday he said:
What’s the draw? Manchester City away? Nice. I want to play that one. If the boss decides to let me play, I’m happy. I’d love to play. We fancy winning that competition.
Two guesses at why he’d be so up for this one. The defeat earlier in the season and the incident with Adebayor no doubt providing motivation. To be honest I don’t think Arsene will involve him. Firstly because with Bendtner, Walcott and Vela all injured the manager won’t want to risk his main man. And secondly, for all the maturity he’s shown, there’s a small part of me that just wouldn’t put it past him to cunt Adebayor right up in the air and get himself a red card. Anyway, that game isn’t till December so we’ll see.
I think I’m in love with this picture. I want it in large. So large I can wrap it around my house. Like house wallpaper. That’d be awesome. And I’d put a speech bubble coming out of Pat Rice’s mouth that just said “Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!”. Because that’s what he’s saying just before he turns to the Sp*rs fans and gives them the finger while thrusting his groin out at them.
“Yeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh!”
Not much else happening though. It’s a good way to start the week though. The joy of Saturday still resonating, a nice home fixture in the Champions League to look forward to. I’ve had worse Monday mornings, it has to be said.
Have a good one, more tomorrow.
