Happy Friday to you. Or, as we say in Irish, Rith mé ar nós na gaoithe. Which means ‘I ran like the wind’.
This was one of the only phrases I could ever remember in Irish so I’d put it in all the essays I ever wrote. Until one day I wrote ‘Rith mé ar nós na Ford Orion’ and the teacher gave me a belt in the side of the head. ‘Mangan ye feckless eejit’, he might have said. I genuinely thought I was being creative.
Anyway, running like the wind in Irish has no bearing whatsoever on the fact that it’s Friday, but I’m preparing for a monster weekend here. Mrs Blogs is away and I’m gonna par-taaaaaaaay like it’s 2099 (making the assumption that we’ve already partied like it were 1999 and that kind of partying is old hat now. Maybe I could party like it’s 1899 by going to a saloon with swing doors and getting into a bar fight with some bloke who is demented with syphilis).
In reality I’m likely to just take the dog for walks, watch football, play some FIFA and go to bed, but I like to pretend to myself that I’ve still got the energy for anything. Something. Ah well.
We’re preparing for a game with West Ham tomorrow and no doubt there’ll be more team news this morning when the manager meets the press. For now comes the not too unexpected revelation that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will miss 3-4 weeks with the hamstring strain he picked up against United on Monday evening when we beat them and they lost and they had a player sent off and two players booked for diving and Fellaini, the big fuzzy wanker, got schooled by Coquelin.
Apparently it’s a grade one strain, which is just below a grade two and two away from a grade three, the worst grade. I can’t be alone in hoping certain players on other teams suffer a grade 31, twanging their hammies like an old banjo string, but luckily for us The Ox is a plain old oneser.
What’s been interesting over the last couple of weeks is how players have come back from muscle strain injuries relatively quickly. There was a time we’d all laugh at the ‘three weeks’ as we came to terms with never seeing a player again except when he was laid out in his coffin with wreaths and weeping relatives all around him, but Aaron Ramsey, for example, was back quite quickly.
And the other day Arsene Wenger said that Gabriel, who strained his hamstring against QPR, could be back in training this Sunday and may be available for Monaco. Now, I’m not suggesting that we’re injecting them with growth hormones and stem cells and spinning their blood like other clubs might possibly do but I’m not saying which ones but it’s the ones where the players are hardly ever injured and they have EPO orgies and stuff, but could it be possible that things are improving on the recovery front? I guess we’ll see.
There’s also some good news this morning as Hector Bellerin has, reportedly, signed a new four year deal with the club. I like the cut of his jib, I have to say. Or his hib, as they say in Spanish. He’s taken the chance afforded to him by the desperately unlucky Mathieu Debuchy with genuine aplomb.
What’s been most eye-catching is his very obvious improvement since he endured a difficult night on his full debut in Dortmund back in September. Offensively he’s quick and puts in some great balls from the right, but how quickly he’s learned what the role requires defensively is the most impressive thing about him. It shows a willingness to learn and listen on the training ground, and the natural ability he obviously possesses has been refined.
Like Coquelin he was in the right place at the right time, but very often down the years players have been given chances and not taken them this well. Securing his future at the club is a good thing. He may find himself in and out of the side a bit when Debuchy returns, but having an understudy of that calibre is both reassuring and, from a competitive point of view, great benefit to the squad.
Right then, time for the Arsecast, and on this week’s show I look back at the hilarious japery that went on at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge, and I’m joined by the Man from East Lower to discuss reaching the FA Cup semi-final, our recent form, our chances in Monaco and more. The Angriest Man on Twitter pops in and there’s all the usual waffle besides.
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All the news from the manager’s press conference on Arseblog News throughout the day, more tomorrow as we prepare for West Ham. Until then.
