Good morning and welcome to the mini-Interlull.
There’s been some interesting developments in that a number of Arsenal players have developed infectious diseases which prevent them from going away with their country. Cesc has a case of “gastroenteritis” while Robin van Persie has “flu”. With an important game at the weekend and the arrival of Barcelona next midweek you would have say those are timely ailments.
I can see them both now. Tucked up in bed, eating chicken noodle soup, feeling terrible and watching daytime TV. Get well soon chaps. I’m sure they’ll be just about better in time for Wolves on Saturday. Kieran Gibbs is also out of the England squad for reasons not given, Aaron Ramsey won’t play for Wales while Johan Djourou obviously won’t be playing for Switzerland.
There’s still no news on his injury. Some reports, via the Swiss FA, suggested he’d be out for a month. Crap sheets like Metro, which I forgot to block on NewsNow on my phone, have gone full drama already saying he’s out for the season. We’ll have to wait for an update from the club but he said on his Twitter:
Hello. Thanks for the support. I was hit on my knee on saturday as you saw it. I’m feeling better. For more infos check arsenal.com. Cheers.
Which sounds a lot more positive than many of us feared. If he took a whack on the knee then that might well be a lot better than pulling/straining/snapping/tweaking something. And he’s feeling better. Of course he was teasing us by saying check arsenal.com for more, because there is no more just yet, but fingers crossed it’s not as bad as we fear.
Given his history with knacked knees I suspect they’ll be very cautious with him so maybe the weekend might be too much but having him back for Barcelona would be a big boost.
Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere will be away on England duty. The former will be out to prove a point having been left out of the World Cup squad last summer, the latter looking to establish himself further in this fantastic season he’s having. Theo says of Jack:
Jack’s an absolute dream to play with, especially when you play on the right-hand side and he has got an absolutely gifted left foot. He can just ping it over to you. He spots the ball that no one else would – apart from Cesc, I suppose. Cesc spots everything.
And of the reaction to Saturday’s game:
There’s no point sulking on it now. We have the character in the team to recover from that, people who will stand up to be counted. There are so many people in our side who will respond in the right way.
Let’s hope so. Laurent Koscielny has admitted there was a certain amount of fear in the Arsenal performance and as I keep saying we’ve got to react properly. It’s like falling off a horse. You’ve got to get up, punch the horse in the face and, just like Christopher Cross, ride like the wind. Wolves are the chestnut coloured, maney beast staring down at us with its sugarlumpy teeth and we’ve got to give it a slap, right in the kisser, before scoring the goals with Michael McDonald doing backing vocals.
Theo, Jack and the rest of England play Denmark in Copenhagen and Nicklas Bendtner has been speaking about footballer’s lifestyles etc. Of course a few journos have used it to have a pop at him for his over-confidence in the past but what he says actually makes a lot of sense and he sounds pretty level headed about the whole thing if you ask me. As for comments about his future they hardly register either. Tonight’s game will do him good, I hope, and a goal or two would only benefit us.
As for the fiction splashed across the The Sun there simply aren’t enough words to describe what a load of old bollocks that is. Even worse than the risible Interpol story. Still, search for Rosicky + Interpol in Google and you can see the damage done there.
The BBC takes a look at the Arsenal Fanshare scheme. There are now more Fanshare members than shareholders which is pretty impressive. For more on the scheme check out Arsenal Fanshare and the AST.
Aside from that not much happening this morning. Hopefully we’ll get a Djourou update but I suspect we might keep quiet on that one for now. If anything does develop I’ll update via Twitter.
Now, I’ve got such a long way to go, to make it to the border of Mexico. Giddy-up. Till tomorrow.
