Good morning and welcome to another Monday. I’m feeling the effects of the weekend, I have to say. Playing 5-a-side football on half a full sized pitch is pretty tough and as it was a warm sunny day in London on Saturday it was hard going.
I’ve got stabby thighs, tweaked hamstrings, a sunburnt head and a bedevilled torso but it was all worth it. A fantastic weekend with excellent people and a piece of silverware. I’m just waiting for the club to give the Greens a call to do a lap of honour on the final day of the season.
It was a shame that the Man City game was so dull but what can you do? City really did set out to not lose more than to win the game and their defensive mindset made it difficult for us to break them down. I think I might have started with Bendtner with van Persie just behind him, it would have caused the City defence more problems but there you go.
Speaking of van Persie he says he doesn’t care about Emmanuel Adebayor, having not shaken hands with his former teammate, and I like that kind of thing. If there’s one thing I can do well it’s hold footballing grudges and I think van Persie is the same. While others might be overly friendly with a guy they consider their friend Robin is more like a fan about the whole thing. He knows that Adebayor disrespected the club, the manager and the fans with his antics (both while he was here and since he left) and won’t engage in the back-slappery. In fact, he took a little bit of revenge for the stamping thing, but said:
There was nothing in it. In football you make tackles. That was one of them.
Heh. Maybe in the past the tackle van Persie made on Adebayor might have been a bit more rigorous, he might have risked a red card, but the new mature van Persie is experienced enough to know how to leave a guy flat on his arse in the centre-circle and only get a yellow. I like that maturity but as an Arsenal fan I like that he did it at all. I don’t want to see him injure Adebayor, there’s no place for that kind of thing (especially as we’ve been through the mill with players deliberately injured), but that kind of a foul, which reminds Adebayor what Robin and the fans think of him, is a fine thing in my opinion.
I especially liked that Robin didn’t even look back. I suspect, however, that he’ll have had the match on Sky+ and quite enjoyed replaying it when he got home later. More importantly, however, was the fact that Robin played 90 minutes for us for the first time since we beat Wolves 4-1 on November 7th. It’s a bit too late to make a real difference to our season, but Robin says:
I am so pleased to be back. The plan was to play for 60 or 70 minutes but everything felt good so I played on. Now, I just want to have a season without injuries.
[Insert joke here about how Arsenal and/or van Persie without injury is like something that’s very unlikely to happen indeed]. Holland, sadly, are going to get the benefit of van Persie’s injury this summer, which is ironic as his injury occurred playing for them. Provided he doesn’t suffer any fresh problems though a good World Cup for him could be good for us and he won’t have suffered the burn out associated with summer tournaments as he’ll be going into it relatively fresh.
In other news we’re being linked again with Fulham’s Brede Hangeland. It’s clear we’re going to need at least one centre-half this summer and the Norwegian has the advantage of Premier League experience. He does seem to be the Sebastian Frey of centre-halves though, I’ve lost count of the amount of stories which said we were going to buy him over the last couple of seasons, and I reckon this story will be the first of many suggesting defenders from across the world are about to join.
And speaking of defenders, Arsene Wenger has said that Sol Campbell might be an option for England in South Africa this summer. He says:
I do not select the team and I do not say Capello has to take him – I just say you compare him today in the Premier League with the other centre-backs and he does not suffer in the comparison.
It would be a remarkable comeback for Sol and certainly England could do a lot worse. If he is going to stay with us for another year then maybe we might be selfish and hope he gets a summer of rest but it’s a testament to how well he’s done since he re-signed in January that this is even being spoken about. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating – there are players in our squad who would do well to look at him and how he plays the game. It would improve them.
The Mail reports that Lady Nina Bracewell Smith is to sell her shareholding in Arsenal to an unnamed ‘eastern European’. Apparently this person is ‘on a par’ with Kroenke and Usmanov. Whether this means he has a Big Lebowski ‘tache or is a fat Man United fan we’ll have to wait and see.
Not much else happening really. I reckon it’s going to be fairly quiet as the season draws to a close and as we don’t play Blackburn until this day next week.
Now, time for breakfast and to see if I can stand up with twanging any more muscles. Till tomorrow.
