Still very quiet, as you might imagine.
The main story this morning is the news that football has come under attack from something called ‘common sense’. Robin van Persie has been allowed back to Arsenal to rest up as his international manager has taken a hugely sensible approach to things. Bert van Marwijk said:
Arsene asked me if I could please not play Robin in both games. I had a good talk with Wenger and we decided that Robin would play only on Friday. After that we would send him back to London. I won’t use Robin against the Germans.
It’s rare to find an international boss who isn’t determined to play Billy BigBollocks at all times, refusing to take on board the advice and desire of the manager who knows a player best. Compare this to the painful manner in which Raymond Domenech behaved every time France had meaningless friendlies. Knowing full well what the likes of Henry, Pires and Vieira were capable of he played them every single time, nearly always for 90 minutes. Obviously this was because Domenech was a spiteful, mental cunny but still.
It’s always struck me as a bit odd that for games like these – in which there is no real pressure – that managers don’t try and blood a few new players to see they can do at international level. I know there’s always a certain measure of having to get a result but surely assessing your options is a better idea. Perhaps Holland will discover that Spliffy van der Taart is an ace goalscorer and provide them another excellent option in Euro 2012. On such quirks of fate are careers made.
Anyway, the good news for us is that Robin will return to Arsenal and will, hopefully, be in good shape for next weekend’s trip to Norwich. In other vaguely interesting international news Laurent Koscielny won his first cap for France and, erm, that’s about it.
A quick look at the Sunday papers reveals that Barcelona are interested in an Arsenal midfielder. There’s a surprise. The headline writers, having been weaned on a steady diet of ‘Cesc + DNA + Barça’ are now suffering from withdrawal symptoms. “It used to be so easy, dammit!” they cry in the bowels of the newsrooms. Luckily for them Alex Song’s recent decision to choose Darren Dein to represent him provides these poor souls with some much needed nourishment.
A little taster from our son of orange friend and all of a sudden Barcelona are all over Song, looking to pay actual money for him, because Keita is leaving. The headline writers are now blissed out, but they’ll be back for more. “Just a dime bag,” they say, “just something to keep me going. After this I’m gonna get clean, I swear.”
But they won’t. Eventually they’ll sell their furniture for a shot of Dazza’s sweet, sweet Arsenal player to leave headline juice, ignoring all others, until he’s got them exactly where he wants them. Like meth addicted fools, toothless, skin and bones, with their children living like urchins, rummaging through the rubbish heap that is their house and all for some 36pt bold writing in a newspaper.
One day, one of the children, covered in sores and scabs, will crawl out from the little fort he’s made – in which he imagines life the way it used to be, with food and heat and shoes and parents who don’t look like extras from The Walking Dead – to try and wake Daddy up but Daddy will be cold to the touch, with some flaky dried spittle on the corners of his mouth. Having submitted his ‘Barcelona to buy Arsenal’ headline the night before, he had nowhere left to go, it had all been done, and somehow his body knew and just gave up. That won’t be the end of it though.
There’ll always a new sub-editor, fresh faced, clean as a whistle, thinking he can come in and make the headline business his own, but these kids are just cannon fodder. The cycle will repeat itself like a common Xavi talking about that boy he loves so much but that is just the nature of the business. It’s a harsh world out there folks, a harsh world.
On another note, there must be a mathematical equation which clearly illustrates the relationship between an Arsenal player’s representation by Darren Dein, the amount of stories in the papers about other clubs being interested in him and his likelihood of leaving the club. I’m no equation guy though, I’ll leave it to someone else to sort out.
Other than that, not a jot going on. I had the weirdest dream last night that I had to care for a friend’s baby and he was covered in the kind of bristles you get when you shave your head with a number 1 blade (and assuming you have quite a lot of hair). Then Wayne Rooney and his wife were there and they wanted to pet the baby like it was some kind of dog. I was outraged (even if the baby was like some kind of dog).
Till tomorrow.
