Morning all,
the focus now moves away from Monday and onto Saturday’s game against Stoke City RFC. Pubis and his merry men, led by Lennie of course, will come and make life very difficult for us with their long throws and their long throws and their long throws. And, to give them credit, they’re good at that. The long throws.
The Mail reports that Lennie will have extra security around him as this is the first time he’s faced Arsenal since Aaron Ramsey had the temerity to try and break his metatarsal with the middle of his shin. Thankfully though Lennie’s feeling fine and even the Stoke chairman has let us know he’s not been affected by the crude assault:
Ryan has got over it. He has overcome any difficulties presented to him and everyone has seen how well he has been doing for us.
Arsenal have despatched the vicious Ramsey to the Championship where he belongs and I think all of us will be heartened this morning to know that Lennie has managed to cope with the incident. That he bears no residual scars, mental or physical, is a light in all of our lives and we should be thankful every day that he wasn’t horrifically injured. He might have had to spend months in pain and unable to play football.
I suppose the security will be there to make sure that all the Arsenal fans don’t overwhelm him with good wishes and cries of ‘Hurrah for Lennie!’ and ‘Capital to see you coping so well, old boy’. He’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be an X-Factor finalist. It’s one thing coping with a reckless shinning on the very foot with which you make your living but this kind of star-status might be a bigger challenge for him, what with the learning disabilities and all. I’m sure he’ll manage.
And while we’re on the subject of vicious, filthy on-pitch assaults, that Abou Diaby, who tried to snap Dan Smith’s studs with his ankle bone, might be back in contention for Saturday’s game, according to The Sun. I have to say that would be a surprise. The reports weren’t particularly encouraging so I don’t know if this is a case that he’s recovered or if they’re just throwing him back in to see if he can just live with the problem. We shall see.
Also this morning reports that Roma want Emmanuel Eboue but there’s not much detail to them. From what I can see the reports originated with goal.com who were regurgitating stuff from TalkShite so I think we can safely ignore them. Or bring them out the back and give them a solid thrashing like they deserve.
Samir Nasri, meanwhile, has spoken again about William Gallas, saying:
Bloke’s a facking twat, inneh? ‘e can fack off if he finks I’m shaking ‘is ‘and, the facking cant.
I too was surprised by how good his English was in that interview with Football Focus. It seems this will simmer on until we play Sp*rs again and I’ve got no real problem with that. The pre-game handshake is, let’s face it, a great big load of old bollocks. Sanitised nonsense from the authorities to play up the ‘sporting’ aspect of the game. Well, shaking hands with someone pre-game is not sporting, it’s useless, perfunctory and frankly I hate it.
After a match, fine, shake hands with your opponent, win or lose … if you feel like it. If you don’t, no bother. And this idea that a big fuss is made because one player didn’t shake hands with another is anachronistic nonsense. If Nasri hates Gallas why should he shake his hand? It was the same that time Arsene didn’t shake hands with Mark Hughes. Having been subjected to 90 minutes of some Home and Away looking cave-dweller bellowing at him on the sideline the manager felt within his rights to ignore custom or tradition and not shake hands.
Then the story becomes about how Wenger was a bad sport and not about how Mark Hughes was a ridiculous idiot expecting someone to just forget about a litany of abuse because tradition demands it. Traditions, like Arsenal player’s legs rules, are meant to be broken. I hope no Arsenal player shakes Lennie’s hand on Saturday. That would be awesome. Not least because of the outrage it would cause but mostly because I hate Lennie, his thick-as-shit dangerous approach to the game of football and his stupid face when he cries.
Stories re: a Clichy/Benzema swap can be dismissed as nonsensical I think but I wouldn’t completely rule out their interest in the player. There were stories in the summer that would add some measure of legitimacy to these reports but another sulky lump of a forward who doesn’t score enough and thinks he’s brilliant? We’ve already got one we don’t know what to do with.
Arsenal’s defence needs a different kind of mustard.
And that’s really about that for this morning. An early start as you’ll have noticed. I went to bed last night and left the heating on so I woke up with a mouth drier than a camel’s arse. And because of stupid water restrictions in Dublin’s fair city I didn’t even have enough water to make coffee and have had to make do with tea. Which does nothing for the mild *boilk* I am suffering.
Back tomorrow with an Arsecast, till then take it easy.
