february 12th
The José saga rumbles on as you might expect and Arseweb has an excellent take on the whole situation here – clarifying a couple of points which haven’t been reported properly in the English press particularly the ‘bad people’ phrase. Arsene Wenger had to say something about it today during his normal Friday press conference and he didn’t appear unduly concerned about what happened, remaining confident about José’s future at the club. The boss said “There is no reason why I should sell the player. It does not take away from the challenge that we have, both Reyes and myself, in front of us to make him one of the best players in the world, and I think he can achieve that. We have a good Spanish troop here. He has integrated and is loved by everybody. That will help him to go through periods like that.”
A couple of goals against Palace on Monday night wouldn’t hurt either. The boss also spoke about Ashley Cole’s situation saying he knows the truth about what happened and that’s why he hasn’t asked Cole if he was at the meeting. I was told yesterday that Arsenal believe there’s a sum of money waiting in a bank account for Ashley Cole from Chelsea (part of a deal which has already been agreed with the player and his agent) and that they’d be willing to do business with Chelsea if a figure of £20m is brought to the table by Chelsea. There’s a belief that Gael Clichy is a more than adequate replacement and that Arsene could do a lot with the money Cole’s sale would bring in. Speaking yesterday the boss was clearly not happy with what’s gone on, saying “It’s been a big disturbance to us. The moment was especially unpleasant, the day before the Manchester United game. What have we done wrong? If somebody has done anything wrong, it’s Chelsea.”
It will certainly be interesting to see who plays left back when we take on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Anyway, the Palace game is not until Monday so in the meantime we’ll have to sit back and watch Chelsea drop points against Everton and see City hammer United on Sunday.
Enjoy your weekend.
