december 8th
10.03 – So far a quiet morning when it comes to Arsenal news.
There’s the Leeds in the FA Cup story, and the Henry saying he’ll play for Arsenal forever story which most of you will have seen already. Despite Barcelona spokesperson Sandra Rossell saying they’d pay somewhere between £18m and £27m for him, as if that’s all they had to do, Henry won’t be going anywhere. But then we all knew that already.
Despite admitting it was bad challenge and apologising for it, some members of the press would have Ashley Cole banned for 6 games for his red card against Leicester. I don’t know what these media guys want. If you say you don’t see it, they say ‘Same old, same old’, if you apologise they beat you with it. But then if you’re an England international who doesn’t play for Arsenal it’s ok to elbow players in the face (Beckham), kick players in the head and threaten to take your ball home with you (Shearer), and jump in two-footed time after time without retribution from your manager or anyone else for that matter (Steven Gerrard).
Well done to Arsenal for doing the right thing. Cole’s tackle was terrible, out of character really, and he’ll serve his ban, like any other player (although maybe he should say he forgot how to tackle and then he’d be free to play until the FA get around to dealing with it). The apology was the right thing to do, but as usual the first sniff of trouble and they go bleating on and on about Arsenal’s discipline. No mention of Dugarry breaking Craig Short’s nose with the most blatant and deliberate elbow you’ll ever see. They even have ‘Cole’s role of shame’ in The Sun, and in there they’ve put the half-time brawl during the England v Turkey game when Cole was spat on. So, him being spat on and Emile Heskey starting a fight is somehow part of Ashley’s role of shame. Nonsense. Why do they even bother? It was a bad tackle, he got sent off, he apologised, end of story.
Some good news to finish with – according to This is London, Arsenal will confirm this week that the money for Ashburton Grove is in place. I won’t hold my breath, but I will keep my fingers crossed.
