Morning all, from a soggy Dublin.
First things first, the Cesc stuff from yesterday was recycled. The quotes were apparently given to a magazine called DIR Emotion. DIR is a chain of gyms in Barcelona. Me and Mrs Blogs used to be members of one near c/Mallorca, if I remember correctly. I stole some towels from them as I felt I wasn’t getting value for money. Having kept his counsel throughout the summer I do not believe Cesc decided to open up to a magazine run by a gym whose towels are threadbare and don’t really dry you off properly.
Once again though these quotes have been lifted straight from the AS site, who collated them to make it look like new stuff, and belched far and wide across the internet without so much as a bit of fact checking.
As for the continual nonsense from Captain Caveman, well, I would sincerely like for him to punched repeatedly in the face .. by Goliath. Let’s see Puyol eat meat then. The man really has no concept of respect for others, and that includes Cesc.
Onto football and Arsene Wenger says he’s confident we’ll do better this season than last. He says:
I am very confident. We know in England that the Premier League is the biggest league in the world and everybody invests a lot of money. We invest in our work, in our beliefs, in the quality of our behaviour and I am confident that will pay off.
A lot of people have taken that quote to signify he won’t buy anyone else but I don’t see it. It’s the usual pre-season quote about nothing much, however I do understand people’s frustration at the same time. We have two very large gaps in the squad which we all want to see filled as quickly as possible, so we’d like Arsene to invest in players as well as the beliefs, behaviour and such.
There’s still no word about a central defender. Loads of names have been thrown up but most of them appear to be agent led. As for the goalkeeping situation lots of papers this morning are running with the story about how Mark Hughes’ first job as Fulham manager is to keep Mark Schwarzer. The Australian wants to come to us, according to the Mail, and Fulham have lined up Rob Green to replace him, but apparently Mohammed Al-Fayed is in love with Schwarzer and doesn’t want him to go. These love triangle thingies are always complicated.
None of which does our situation any good whatsoever. The longer it goes the more it looks like the classic ‘internal solution’. Is Wojscez©® ready? He spent last season on loan at Brentford and their manager has ruled out a return saying the young Pole’s ambitions lie at Arsenal. Perhaps though, it’s a measure of how desperate we are, and our current options, that we’re hoping a 20 year old kid with one season’s experience in League One will make the rather large step up and solve all our problems.
Friday funny? How about Sam Allardyce complaining about a team being too physical. Vital Arsenal has the good, good stuff, while Gingers for Limpar writes to the Mail
Not much else going on really. The Emirates Cup begins tomorrow and it’s live on TV so we get our first look at the team at full size rather than a 500px wide box. Is Koscielny that small in HD? Let’s hope not. We play AC Milan at 4.20, while previous to that Celtic play Lyon.
It also gives us a chance to hear from Arsene about his plans. I know he rarely gives anything away but even without specifics it would be nice to get some reassurance that what we hope is going on behind the scenes is actually going on.
Watch out tomorrow for a competition in which you can win a classic Arsenal shirt, with thanks to my old pals at Classic Football Shirts.
And finally, if you fancy a game of 5-a-side before the Emirates Cup, they’re still looking for a couple of teams here. There is a team there representing Arseblog. You will know them by their uncanny similarity to the Invincibles side. Athletes whose torsos look like they were hewn from the 6-pack of Hercules himself, the silky skills of Bergkamp, the finishing of Henry and Pires combined, the midfield athleticism of Vieira and a goalkeeper mentaller than Lehmann. One part of this is actually true. Come on Arseblog!
Until then, have yourselves a good Friday.
