Morning all, the team fly out to Porto today so they can do that thing where they get to train on the pitch which seems to be customary to Champions League football. Arsene will meet the press beforehand and we should get some more in-depth team news later on.
As it stands there are worries about William Gallas who took no part in training yesterday after aggravating his back. That means Sol Campbell is on stand-by to play should he not make it. Obviously it’d be better if Gallas were fit but his propensity to pick up injuries which keep him out for a fairly long period ought to be taken into account. If there’s any chance of that we shouldn’t risk him and I don’t think I’d have any real worries about Campbell playing tomorrow night.
There are no such injury worries about Thomas Vermaelen who plays through injury like a monkey with a banjo. And if you’ve ever tried to take away a monkey’s banjo then you know what I mean. If you haven’t, try it. Go on. Just don’t blame me when the chimp tears off your arm and beats you to death with it. Speaking about his suspected broken leg at Villa and the subsequent games, the Belgian said:
It turned out that I could play against Manchester United, but after that game I had some more problems, so I went for another scan. We could see then that there was a big bruise on the bone, and that’s all – so it is painful but that can be controlled with medicine and when it is not broken, you can’t do too much wrong. It is not a big problem to play – yes it is still there and will take some time to go away, but it is not dangerous.
“What? That? Flesh wound! Don’t worry about it”.
“But your arm has been reefed off by a gibbon in a banjo frenzy”.
“I said don’t worry about, now let me take this throw!”
Gotta love players who realise pain is part of the game. You suspect there are some for whom a slightly dicky stomach equals a couple of weeks off but not Vermaelen. The other week watching the Chelsea game, when Malouda stuck the head on him, the cheer in the pub when the camera showed the Chelsea man bleeding like the brittle-skinned weakling he is while Vermaelen had not a scratch on him was fantastic. He says the team will ‘battle’ till the end of the season and you know he means it literally.
We should have Eduardo back in action tomorrow night, there’s definitely no Arshavin, and there’ll be a fuller preview of the Porto game tomorrow.
A few other little snippets. The club have frozen ticket prices for next season. Ivan Gazidis says:
We strongly believe the right course of action is to freeze the cost of match tickets and season tickets for the forthcoming season. We are mindful that the current financial climate is difficult and our decision to maintain the current pricing structure reflects that.
Good news.
Dennis Bergkamp has completed his coaching badges which makes me a little moist as I think about him coaching Arsenal players at some point in the future. Of course he can never be a manager, what with the flying thing, but any Arsenal supporting scientists ought to see this is a chance to contribute something to the game and to the club they love. Forget about curing diseases, making SuperCorn or any of that boring stuff – they need to invent teleportation which would allow Dennis to do the job as manager of Arsenal. It would also be hugely beneficial to the human race as a whole but they come a distant second.
We beat Chelsea at last! The reserves hammered them 2-1 last night, goals from Sunu and Freeman doing the business. I notice Arsenal had a sub called Roarie Deacon. I hope his nickname is Joey. It would be criminal if not.
And there you go. Thankfully tomorrow we’ll have a whole pile of stuff to talk about and a match to look forward to. As an aside, does anyone know why the Champions League fixtures are broken up over separate weeks this season? I’m assuming it’s just another stupid idea by Platini to increase coverage and advertising but is there another reason? As for this idea that the Premier League plans a play-off for the final CL position, pfff, worst idea since Mrs Collins told Mr Collins to ‘go bareback’ in 1950. Sadly the coming was not in the air that night.
Till tomorrow.
