It seems odd that after the season has ended we’re kicking off today with some injury news, but there’s concern over Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain after he took a whack to the knee in England’s friendly against Ecuador last night.
He had, apparently, been playing pretty well on the right hand side of the attack when he went down under a challenge, and Roy Hodgson confirmed he’d need a scan to assess the damage, saying:
Oxlade-Chamberlain is the one that bothers. His knee buckled under the the challenge as the player turned into him. He’ll have a scan, I’d imagine. When we’ve had the scan, we’ll know more.
There’s always a touch of fatalism when an Arsenal player gets injured. At this point I think it’s a built-in coping mechanism. Even if we hear of something relatively minor and are told the absence will be brief, the jokes about months and years out and being paralysed forever begin immediately. Sometimes it does appear as if our injuries are measured in dog years, but let’s hope that’s not the case with the Ox and that he gets to go to Brazil.
He’s obviously somebody the manager would like to give a bigger role to next season, but when you consider that he, Ramsey, Wilshere, Ozil, and Cazorla all spent time out injured last season, it’s a good job we’re not thinking about adding any depth to that particular area of the squad.
*cough*
*COUGH*
Meanwhile, Ivan Gazidis says that the club are ‘deep in conversations’ about potential additions to the squad this summer. Speaking to a supporters Q&A session last night, he said:
Transfers are obviously important and we are deep in conversations already. I am confident we will add what we need this summer.
And continued:
The manager is not scared to spend, has the experience, but as always will have to juggle a set budget.
Saying he has to ‘juggle a budget’ does sound a little disingenuous, doesn’t it? Isn’t this the summer when the shackles come off and we don’t have to look for money down the back of the sofa? Juggling a budget is something a lower league manager might have to do when they’re trying to balance the very shaky books, so let’s not be under any illusions about what Arsene’s task is.
He’s got to figure out how to spend a – and this is the technical term here – shitload of filthy, dirty cash on the team to ensure that we’re better at home, better in Europe and compete properly right until the end of the season. I’m not suggesting it’s easy to buy players or anything like that, but you can be quite sure that most managers across Europe would love to have the juggling job he has.
Anyway, it’s a very good problem for us to have, in fairness, and let’s hope those conversations are going well and decisively and we can shed the reputation we have for being the shy boy trying to ask out the pretty girl when it comes to getting deals done.
“So …”
“Yes!”
“Erm …”
“Just ask me.”
“Uhm …well … er …”
Then you end up with the girl with the slightly buggy eyes. Or something. I have heard, through the grapevine, that we’ve added some depth to our negotiation team so that Dick Law isn’t left to do all the dirty work himself. We’ve taken on board another American lawyer called Denny Crane to act as his sidekick.
He’s vastly experienced and comes with a huge reputation of having never lost a case. He was involved in an incident some years ago when he shot a homeless man in the head with a paintball gun, but the charges were dropped in the end. He’s bound to add some real ‘Denny Crane’ to the way we do things and his insistence on finishing every working day with a scotch and a cigar harks back to the days of yore. He’s a man who will maintain the great traditions of this club and I’m excited to see how smoothly things go this summer with him on board.
Finally for today, if you’re not sick of it all already, James and I discuss the whole Cesc thing on this week’s Arsecast Extra, as well as other business like Mario Balotelli, pace in the team and how many falcons you can bring into first class. Your ears will thank you, listen here.
Right, that’ll do ya. Till tomorrow.
