Last night I dreamt we played Manchester United in a stadium which was not ours because the corporation that owned Arsenal had scheduled a Scritti Politti concert at the Grove for the same day. So Arsenal had play in a much more intimate venue, a stadium in Dundalk which began as a stadium but ended up as a kind of trendy bar with glass walls looking out over the sea. In the end United won 1-0 thanks to a Manuel Almunia howler. I missed the goal as I had been called to the reception area to take a video call on my phone which turned out to be the equivalent of audio-visual spam. I went back and ended up chatting to the United keeper who was just laughing at Almunia. I then missed a relatively easy chance on goal to level things up and in the end I got the blame for the defeat.
Where’s the fucking justice? Back to reality though and the queue for the Arsenal Injury Merry-go-round©® continues as Theo Walcott and Denilson hop off to join the squad against Bolton while Fran Merida gets on and goes ‘Wheeeeee!’ for a while with an injured ankle. It’s a shame for the young Spaniard who I’m sure was hoping to build on his effective cameo against Bolton on Sunday but this is Arsenal where it seems illegal, almost, to do something good and be rewarded with the gift of fitness.
Arsene has tried to shed some light on the situation, saying:
We have analysed absolutely everything. It’s strange because the more injuries you get, you then seem to get even more because you always play the same players. Also, you rush some players back and then you have more chance to get them injured again.
Well, that clears everything up! Cheers, Arsene. At this point though there’s got to be some merit to a bit of investigation as to why our players pick up so many injuries. If it diet? Training methods? Sub-standard Malk which doesn’t have the Vitamin R requirements that a top athlete needs? Or are we just exceptionally unlucky to have built a squad of brittle, injury-prone players? Doesn’t Arsene always say that players who play a lot when they are very young seem to be more susceptible to injury than others? Whatever the reason I hope they find out and do something about it soon.
So while Quincy and Jim Rockford set about probing our hamstring and ligament woes, Arsene has called on the team to strike a pyschological blow to our rivals by going top tomorrow. He says:
Psychologically, it’s important. We have a good opportunity at home to do it so let’s focus and try to do it. We go into a really important period now. We have a very tough run of games coming up but let’s be focused on the next one and keep it simple, as simple as we can.
I know there’s all kinds of goal difference stuff but I think if we beat them 2-0 we go top of the table. And some other statto is going to have to tell me when the last time we were top was. I can’t remember. There’s a great website which shows you the league table at any point in any season but it requires a lot of clicking about this morning and I don’t have time for that. Suffice to say it’s probably been a while. Was it the 07-08 season? Anyway, going to top tomorrow would be most agreeable to me. Most agreeable indeed.
The Mail has some transfer stuff. First off they report that Philippe Senderos is considering a loan move to Celtic. The big Swiss says:
I am very honoured that a big club like Celtic are interested in me and, personally, a loan deal right now would suit me perfectly. But, at this moment, I don’t know exactly where I will be going. There are a few clubs interested and I will study everything before making a decision.
I don’t know the thoughts of The Lord of the Wing on this but I assume they involve Buckfast, a string vest and throwing darts at a picture of Ally McCoist. Or just at Ally McCoist. And no man can tell me there’s anything wrong with that.
The Mail also say that we’ve held talks with the father and agent, who appear to be the same person, making him a Fagent or an Ather, of Racing Santander wonderkid Sergio Canales. I wouldn’t get too excited though. He’s doing to the rounds and after meeting with us he went to Chelsea, Man City and Grimsby Town, saying any deal would depend entirely on how much money he could get for himself and how big a salary he could wangle for the young fella football his son would play.
The Times says Sol Campbell will be added to Arsenal’s Champions League squad when we update our ‘A list’. I would link to the article but Rupert Murdoch has decided that people linking to any of his online content is a bad thing. Which, of course, is completely ridiculous because how can people sending you thousands of hits be in any way negative? Still, who am I to take on the might of a media mogul like Rupert Murdoch? I’m just one Arsenal blogger and he’s a massive, gaping cuntsack. There’s no contest.
I’m thinking of trying some kind of Liveblog thing for the Bolton game tomorrow. As it’s not on TV we’ll all be scouring the web to find some bloke with a camera in front of his foreign satellite powered TV so we can watch some red and white shapes play some white shapes who despite only being shapes will be easily identifiable as the pox-carrying twats Bolton are.
I think there’s all kinds of Twitter and Facebook integration in it too so it could be all interactive and stuff. More details on that tomorrow provided I can get the thing working.
And finally for today, how about a bit of a competition? It’s been a while. Up for grabs now is a fantastic Andrei Arshavin canvas from my good old friends at Modern Canvas Art. It features the Russian in last season’s awesome yellow kit doing the ‘Shhhhh!’ thing after scoring a goal, it measures 75cm x 50cm and I’m pretty sure it’d look awesome on your wall.
To enter, simply answer the following question. Against whom did Andrei Arshavin score his first Arsenal goal? Answers via email to [email protected] and I’ll give you the winner on Thursday morning.
Right, have at it. Till tomorrow.
