Morning all, it’s going to be a busy one, what with Arsene’s press conference, the Champions League draw and the other usual Friday stuff that goes on.
We’ll start with team news ahead of tomorrow. Cesc and Tomas Rosicky are back from injury, which is a real boost, while Alex Song returns from suspension to anchor the midfield. There’s still no sign of the return of William Gallas though. Arsene is calling his calf injury ‘endless’ and explains:
It’s a calf strain, liquid between two muscles. When you rupture fibres, you bleed. When you inflame it a little bit, the envelope of every fibre swells and that creates a pressure on the muscle. You have to be careful not to create a pocket where this liquid doesn’t move out any more. The fibres are not gone and he has a bit of pressure between two muscles.
Not being a medical person I don’t know if that’s an explanation for a normal calf strain or the calf strain that Gallas has or if it’s what sets Gallas’s calf strain apart from everyone else’s. Clearly there’s something more seriously wrong than a bog standard strain. I’ve done it a couple of times myself and usually a week of rest sorts things out. The last time we saw Gallas, Lord Lucan was riding Shergar to victory in the Grand National whilst eating a Texan bar.
As more time goes by the more you suspect it might have something to do with the contract situation – but then the sensible part of your head thinks he’s too important to leave out for anything other than an injury. Arsene has, in the past, left out players whose contracts were running down but they were far more replaceable than Gallas is right now. As he says himself:
We need Sol Campbell and Mikaël Silvestre to be highly ready to help us out.
The bottom line is that if we’re going to win something this year, both these gentlemen need to play out of their elderly experienced skins. We’re now heading towards the end of March with no sign of Gallas. He could be back next week, he might never come back at all, and Sol and Sylvester will have to hold the fort for as long as is necessary.
Looking ahead to the Champions League draw and two former Gunners have been talking about it. Thierry Henry says nobody wants to have to face Lionel Messi, which is really quite a good point, what with Messi being like 99 in everything with a green arrow, while Oleg Luzhny says we should be praying that we don’t get Man United.
Personally, I think we’re going to draw Inter. And Mourinho will talk and talk. And if they score he’ll celebrate in a way which will make me wish medieval torture was still legal – and even if we beat them the whole thing will be an unpleasant experience overall. Which is why I’d like someone else. The draw starts this morning from around 11am GMT. Fingers crossed.
In other news Armand Traore says he doesn’t want to join PSG at all just days after saying he’d like to join PSG. In fairness to him it sounds as if his words were twisted a little bit, which is disappointing. Who would ever have thought a profession as noble and principled as journalism would sink to such depths? Not I, that is for sure.
I have been alerted to the fact that the Mongy faced legbreaker from Stoke and his baseball cap wearing goader-in-chief have been talking again about Aaron Ramsey. However, I shall not be saying anything more about them. From the little I have read it seems our boy has chosen to ignore the cunts, rightly enough, and I think we’d be best off doing the same.
Now then, onto this week’s Arsecast. I’m joined by Tim Stillman from Vital Arsenal to discuss the Hull game, the Champions League draw and the sacking of Phil Brown (an event almost as seismic as the one that occurred Rome). Also, Arsene Wenger Hawkins has some thoughts on that matter, Andrei Arshavin pops in and there’s the usual guff ahead of the West Ham game tomorrow.
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And that’s just about that for this morning. Please spare a thought for the Arseblog basset hound who is actually older than Sol and Sylvester and me combined. He’s 13 and a half and three quarters and a bit – and this morning he has to go and have some lump removal surgery. Nothing too serious hopefully but there you go.
Till tomorrow, basset lovers.
