Hello there,
it’s a morning of speculation and intrigue. Well, speculation. Not much intrigue. In fact, I find my life quite devoid of intrigue which is no bad thing really. Not that intrigue is anything terrible. I just prefer to know what’s going on and I’m really not one for surprises.
Speculation 1– Thomas Vermaelen might make a ‘remarkable’ comeback against Stoke on Sunday. I do wonder if ‘remarkable’ is the right word to use here considering he’s been out injured since 1974. Unless he’s going to be playing with an enormous, titanium shielded boot which will protect his sore Achilles in a new fangled way. That would be remarkable.
‘Welcome’ comeback might be more accurate, especially as Johan Djourou went off injured against United on Sunday. That leaves the manager with a choice. Bring back the Verminator or play Squillaci against Stoke’s aerial bombardment and motley crew of ill-tempered, violence inflicting , sometime-footballing ents. The man himself said just last weekend that he was ready and able to play if the boss called upon him and considering the opposition it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to me.
Sunday’s game is going to be a physical battle and Vermaelen strikes me as more of a fighter than Squidward. There’ll be plenty to say about this game over the next few days so I’m going to hold my fire on that one.
Speculation 2 – Sees The Mail link us with a £22m move for Shaktar Dontesk winger Willian if Speculation 3 – Samir Nasri doesn’t sign a new deal with the club. They talk of ‘fear’ that Nasri hasn’t yet signed his new deal and with just one year left on his contract the situation is a bit precarious. From what I can gather the general feeling is that Nasri will sign but of course the longer things go on the more suspicious you get. It’s only natural.
If there are any further delays a decision has to be made this summer. He cannot do a Flamini. We know Arsene has issues with players in the final year of their contract. The term frozen out was invented for it (ask Edu and Wiltooooooord). Flamini was slightly different because I think he was trying to convince him with first team football. Anyway, one to worry about at the season’s end.
As for the Brazilian from Shaktar, well I personally hope we sign him and he turns out to be amazing. He’ll score the greatest goal in Premier League history. Picking the ball up in his own box he’ll nutmeg whichever lanky twat Sp*rs have playing up front for them, before running the length of the pitch doing keepy-ups, barking like a wild dog, then rounding the keeper, stopping the ball on the goal line, sitting on it, waiting until Gallas just about gets to him, doing a Cruyff turn, flicking it up in the air, and performing an overhead kick which hits both posts, the bar, and then comes back out for him to do a flying scissors kick into the top corner.
Then, in his post-match interviews he will reveal himself to be the most modest footballer of all time which will allow me to run the following headline the next morning – Willian: It was really nothing.
Speculation 4 – Again The Mail and this time they suggest Arsene Wenger will talk to Stuart Pearce about Jack Wilshere’s participation in the U21 European Something’s this summer.
Arsene – “Jack is lacking a little bit the sharpness to go with England this summer”
Pearce – “Look, he’s coming and if he gets injured next season then he’ll be injured because of me but it won’t be my fault”
Arsene – “He’s got the mentul strengfff to deal with it but it would be better for his development if he were to get rest”
Pearce – “I never had rest when I was a player and look at me now. One sec, Frenchie, time for my hourly cortisone injection”.
Arsene – “It is a bad idea to take him”
Pearce – “I, for one, am looking forward to his tired, underwhelming performances as England crash out of the European Championships in the 1/4 finals next summer. Anyway, don’t worry. Everyone will blame Capello anyway!”
Arsene – “LOL”
Speculation 5 – Cesc Fabregas is a £35m target for Real Madrid according to The Sun. You know, if you were to get the biggest Z in the world, then a series of slightly smaller Zs, and lay them across the countryside they couldn’t possibly sum up how ZZZzzzz this story is.
Of course the usual summer stuff will start up soon. I noticed a piece in the Mirror where Cesc was urged to ‘put up or shut up’ and to ‘put an end to the saga’. What fucking saga? There isn’t one apart from the one you just made up so you could write your article. I have no doubt there’ll be speculation around his future this summer, it’s par for the course when you have one of the best players in the world in your team. It happened with Pires, Vieira and Henry for long enough, so we know how it goes, but let’s at least get to the summer first.
Speculation 6 – Blackburn’s Phil Jones is, apparently, very much on our radar and he’s added some fuel to the fire by calling our football ‘pretty’. I’m not sure if that’s 100% a compliment to be honest. Rumours are that Steve Rowley has been scouting the hole off him but if other rumours hold true then perhaps Jones could be a target for Chelsea. It’s true that Abramovich has offered Arsenal’s chief scout an enormous salary increase to jump ship and the fear is he’ll be off. We shall see.
And that’s really about all the speculation I can bring you this morning. Hopefully that’s enough to get you through what looks like a fairly miserable looking Thursday. No sun here anyway.
Check out Tim Stillman’s new column here.
Finally, if I could just ask you to pop over here and send a vote Arseblog’s way I’d be much obliged.
Till tomorrow, when speculation suggests there might well be some kind of audio based accompaniment to the blog. Ooooh.
