It’s -9 again this morning and this time it comes with snow. My back garden is a picturesque winter wonderland … for now. Wait until the elderly dog has to go out and make the whiteness a bit yellow and then a bit brown. Sure, it adds some colour to proceedings but it’d be a bit like taking crayons to your newspaper.
There’s not a great deal going on as you might imagine. Arsene talking about his transfer policy is making some headlines but only because there’s not a great deal going on. We’ve heard it all before, there’s no point re-hashing it again. We spend what we have, we respect our own budget, other teams have financial resources we don’t, the last time I spent big money I got me a lazy Russian, the time before that a Spaniard who was raised by wolves and couldn’t cope with England etc etc. We know.
So, Nicklas Bendtner has been talking and saying the right things:
I want to get back to 100 per cent, get back into the squad and take my chances when I get them to prove I should be there.
As a noted wit pointed out on the arses the other day (can’t remember who, sorry, and it’s too early go back looking) the fact that Nick has become a father in recent days at least proves he’s not shooting blanks off the pitch. On it, well that’s a different matter. I thought he’d begun his season well enough. After being out for a long time with a troublesome groin injury he scored at Man City and then at Newcastle in the Carling Cup.
In the wake of Chamakh’s good start to the season, where the Moroccan carried the can for both Bendtner and van Persie, he spoke about how competition for places was a good thing. A fantastic attitude. It showed he was aware that he’d have to play well and work hard to get a place in the side. Then he seemed to decide that this playing well and working hard thing was a bit of a pain and went off on his little rant about how he should be in the side and that he’d look elsewhere if he wasn’t playing regularly.
That saw him dropped for the North London derby and clearly there’s been little thaw in relations. He played, and scored, against Wigan in the Carling Cup and got 15 minutes against Partizan. That’s it. Personally, I think there’s the makings of a good striker in him and one who adds something to the squad. He’s good in the air, he can score from outside the box which we’ve yet to see from Chamakh, and he does get goals. I know he misses his share but he got 13 goals last season and 14 the season before and for a player who wasn’t a regular starter that is more than decent.
So clearly he’s got talent and it’s easy to forget he’s just 22 (23 next month). It’s easy to forget the important goals, Stoke last season, the last minute winner against Wolves, the last minute winner against Hull, that header against Sp*rs. It’s easy to forget he is, for the most part, the only player in the squad who scores those kind of goals. And it’s easy to forget because he makes it easy. Talking about how he should be in the first team, at the expense of a player who has done well all season, because he’s ‘in the form of his life’ after two goals is ludicrous nonsense.
His self-confidence and belief is important but it needs to be tempered with some humility and common sense. Shooting your mouth off about how you should in the team has rarely ever made any manager pick a player. Quite the opposite really. Perhaps the new arrival will mature him a bit and make him realise that it he really wants to be as good as he thinks he is then he’s going to have to work for it. He can coast through his career if he wants, and make a comfortable living, but will he have anything other than a healthy bank account to show for it? At Arsenal he’s got competition for his place which should make him better as a player, not as a loudmouth who spouts off the moment things don’t go his way.
We’ve heard him say the right things before and he’s then gone and put his foot in his mouth again (a place many feel it is when he’s on the pitch and in front of goal). I hope this time he means what he says and can contribute more positively. It’d be good for him and good for Arsenal.
Elsewhere, Wojscez©® talks about the day he broke both his arms in the gym:
I was in the gym doing squats when I lost my balance and the weight fell on my hands and broke both of them. There was actually a few people in the gym at the same time and they said they were about to laugh before they realised my arms were not quite straight.
Arsene Wenger said recently that he feared for the young man’s career such was the extent of the injury yet no journalist has asked the most pressing question with regard this incident: How did you go to the toilet?
Having two broken arms, probably in slings/casts, would most certainly restrict one’s movement. As such it would be nigh on impossible to unsheath one’s mickey when needing a wee and as for having a poo, well that must have been a total nightmare. You’d have to hire a total stranger to do it for you and then, when you were better, send them away or have them killed because you’d never want to look that person in the eye again. I’m sure the feeling would be more than mutual too.
Anyway, I’m sure some day someone will ask because dammit we have a right to know. Ok, well, I’m just kind of curious. Actually, I could probably live without knowing. What if it was like in the old days when youth players had to clean the boots of the senior players? Was a younger academy player tasked with being Wojscez’s©® taker-outer/wiper? Somewhere in London is a former young footballer who sits rocking back and forth in a padded room.
‘Please, no more’, he says pitifully. ‘No more’. The doctors look on with sadness knowing he’s reached a place inside his head there’s simply no coming back from.
Finally, thanks to everyone who voted to make Arseblog Best Fan Site in the Soccerlens awards. Much appreciated.
Right so, that’ll have to do. I have to go shovel some snow out of the way of stuff. That Mother Nature is a right old cow. Till tomorrow.
