It’s all gone a bit quiet this morning. As the initial furore from the Ramsey incident dies down I suspect we have arrived at the eye of the storm.
The internationals have provided a bit of a distraction but Arsene gets his players back today, the England team leave our training ground and the focus will turn to Burnley on Saturday. Arsene’s press conference this Friday is going to be really something, I think. The manager has had the best part of a week to to gather his thoughts but he’s not one to hold back at the best of times. He’ll be asked for his opinion and I’m quite sure he’ll give it without pulling any punches.
Once he does I think it could all kick off again – but whatever you think about Arsene Wenger he’s not afraid to say what he thinks, nor does he particularly care what anyone thinks of what he thinks. No doubt every Tom, Dick and window-licking Harry will have their tuppenceworth about what he says but the range of opinion this week has been so utterly baffling at times that I don’t think anything could possibly be a surprise now. Quite what Arsene’s approach will be, I’m not sure, but it should be interesting.
At the moment I’m keeping fingers crossed that all the players involved in friendlies last night come home in good shape. As far as I know this is the last Interlull before the end of the season so it’s all hands on deck from now until May. Of those in action last night Carlos Vela showed he’s a good goalscorer … for Mexico … as he notched one in their win against New Zealand (at 1’20 here). The game was in Los Angeles though and with jet lag and time zones and all the rest I don’t expect him to be involved this weekend. Nicklas Bendtner was on the scoresheet for Denmark, another nice header and hopefully he can keep this little run of scoring going.
Theo Walcott had a disappointing run out for England, by all accounts. I’m choosing to ignore Chris Waddle who says Theo Walcott has no football brain. This is a man who, instead of scoring a penalty, thought it would be a good idea to kick the ball out of the ground in a World Cup semi-final. This is a regular TV pundit who says ‘pelanty’ instead of ‘penalty’. He is no position to make judgements on other people’s brains, the Sp*rs cunt.
Still, that’s as much coverage as we need to give internationals now and it’s down to business. The game against Burnley on Saturday is going to be emotional, I’m sure. As the Man from East Lower points out it feels like something has changed. Whether it’s the solidarity shown by Arsenal fans, the consensus of opinion that has been so rare in recent times, the spirit and character of the team to respond the way they did after seeing the stricken Ramsey broken on the Stoke pitch, who knows? It’s most likely a combination of all those things, it feels like a wind at our back, in a way. It feels like we have a part to play in this season and I’m sure the swell of support and people right behind the team can only be a good thing. I’m sure the Grove will be rocking this Saturday and I’m sure the team will respond.
We should get early team news a bit later on so more on that in tomorrow’s blog and possibly on Twitter later.
Thomas Vermaelen on Sol Campbell.
Finally, can I ask someone from RedAction to drop me an email this morning? Email is: thearseblog at arseblog dot com.
Short enough this morning, I’ll grant you, but after the week we’ve had perhaps that’s no bad thing. More tomorrow with, of course, an Arsecast. Till then.
