I realise it’s not a bank holiday for many of you but it is for me so a quick round-up will have to suffice.
Having categorically said we won’t even consider negotiating with Barcelona over Cesc, The Sun is reporting this morning that we’ve said ‘Ok then, double your offer to £50m and he’s yours’. Seems a bit unlikely to me and once again they go and spoil what might be a vaguely believable story with a ridiculously made up quote:
This is the news the men in charge at Barca wanted. They now see the possibility of Arsenal cracking and are determined to get their man. They hope they can get an agreement at around the £35m mark.
Surely if Arsenal, who have said they won’t negotiate at all, have put a fixed price on Cesc the possibility of ‘cracking’ isn’t so much a possibility as a reality. And they can hope for £35m all they want. With the Catalans now publicly after Gael Clichy I imagine Arsenal will be even less willing to do any business.
Just to highlight how accurate the information we have across all the media outlets is, The Mail also runs a similar story saying Arsenal want Barcelona to double their offer to £60m. Frankly, if I were in charge of Arsenal I’d double my response to then:
Fuck Fuck Off Off
Of course this comes on the back of Barcelona’s chief mouthpiece, Xavi, wittering on for about the 50th time about Cesc’s Barça DNA. Change the fucking record you big mouthed twat. I hope Big Phil gives him a boot in the teeth during the World Cup, that might shut him up for a little while. Although he’d probably go around in a Stephen Hawking wheelchair with his Speak and Spell ready to talk more about Cesc’s Barcelona genes or Catalan molecules.
And speaking of Big Phil he could be the first to join the Official Arsenal Centre-Half Exodus 2010 ©arseblog as Fulham are reportedly interested in bringing him to Craven Cottage. Not sure how he could be used as part of the Schwarzer deal though, seeing as he’s a free agent.
Robin van Persie is in good form pre-World Cup, scoring lots of goals in friendlies and generally not being broken up in bits. At the tail end of last season Arsene Wenger bemoaned his absence through injury saying van Persie could be as good as Messi, Rooney, Ronaldo and Malcolm Christie. Robin is nothing if not realistic, saying:
I can see what the manager meant when he said those things. But I still think I am not in the same class until I have gone a long period without an injury. And I want to go through next season where I score 30 goals and have 20 assists. Only then I will turn around to the manager and say, ‘Yes boss, you are right’.
But I admit that I have a massive desire to get to the level of Messi, Rooney and Ronaldo. And I’d rather do it today than tomorrow.
Personally I wish he’d done it yesterday, I think last season would have been a bit different if he’d stayed fit, but it’s the biggest if in football that one. I’ve always thought he’s a remarkably talented player, he’s just poxing unlucky with injuries. He’s not a Michael Owen, for example, whose dodgy hamstrings ruined his career. He’s suffered broken this and ruptured that and crucified the other, it’d be no less than he, or we, deserve for him to spend the rest of his career untroubled by injury. I hope he has a good World Cup and I do love the comments he makes about winning things with us.
Also in today’s Sun a story about another bid for Lorient (note lack of ‘) defender Laurent Koscielny. They say we’ve upped our bid and hope to sign the player before the World Cup starts. Quite what signing him before the start of the World Cup, in which he’s not involved, has anything to do with anything is rather beyond me but there you go. He’s hardly the big name defender we’ve been crying out for but surely his ability as a player is far more important than the bigosity of his name. I should point out now that I know nothing about his ability as a player, just making a general point.
Andrei Arshavin, in his latest Q&A, says he’s ‘satisfied with everything’ at Arsenal. He does seem to be attracting some weird, self-harming fans though.
One day after the Sunday Mirror joined the Daily Star in exclusively revealing Joe Cole would be joining Arsenal, ESPN ‘understands’ that neither ourselves or Man United will bother due to Cole’s excessive wage demands. The only thing I understand is that Joe Cole is a decent enough player but I don’t think anyone is going to be staying up late at night praying to a God they believed in when they were little that he’d join the club they support. I mean, it worked for Charlie Nicholas and Arsenal but look how that ended up?
Joe Cole will join some club after the World Cup, get paid a shit load of money, play some games, score a few goals, get beaten up at some party and then he’ll retire and nobody will ever think about him again. It could be us.
Right, bank holiday breakfast awaits, more tomorrow.
