Happy Friday one and all, hope you’re well. A fair amount to get through and we’ll start with the early team news ahead of tomorrow’s game against Wigan.
The most likely returninantor is Robin van Persie who will shake off his knee problem while Andrei Arshavin has a 10% chance according to the boss. He’s so tiny that’s like a 43% chance for a normal sized person. Meanwhile Denilson is going to be out for a couple of weeks with a back problem so he joins Nasri, Walcott, Vela and the long-termers Djourou and Fabianski on the sick list. More on that game tomorrow after Wenger’s pre-match press conference today.
Then, as you might expect, much of the copy this morning is about Adebayor. He ‘reluctantly’ accepted his 3 match ban for violent conduct but still claims he has done nothing wrong, that he couldn’t help stamping on van Persie’s face, that it was the Arsenal fans fault for ‘abusing’ him and that some of the Arsenal players wouldn’t shake his hand before the game. He reminds me of an Irish politician. Nothing is ever his fault. Even when caught red-handed stealing, fiddling expenses or handing fat contracts to his buddies there’s never any acceptance of responsibility.
He always trots out this line about how ‘The people who know me know I would never do that’. What a load of nonsense. We know you fine well and we know you would do that. In fact, we saw you do it, there are pictures taken with cameras and TV cameras and everything, you stupid, lanky twat. It’s called ‘evidence’. And this bullshit about the ‘abuse’ he suffered is fast becoming accepted fact and not simply part of Adebayor and City’s spin on the whole thing.
Even his former mate Eboue has been critical of him, saying:
I’ve not spoken to him because I am very disappointed in him, it was a bad thing to do. For me, Adebayor didn’t do well and that is no good for football because you have a lot of young people who watch the game and then, they see that and it’s no good for football.
He revealed he hadn’t spoken to him since, saying:
If Ade calls me, I will speak with him. But he hasn’t called me yet. I’ll wait. If he calls me, I say ’Thank-you God’, if he doesn’t call me, that’s his problem.
I love how Eboue thanks God for everything. Like he gets up in the morning and finds a fresh custard slice and says “Thank you, God, for this custard slice!”, while Mrs Eboue stands behind him going ‘You wanker. I spent 2 hours in Tesco yesterday”. Alex Song has had a good pop at him too. I like the line about not having a laugh with him in the tunnel. Quite right.
Now, since the stamp on his foot on Saturday captain Cesc Fabregas has been very quiet, but he broke his silence yesterday, saying:
All I tried to do when he was at Arsenal was to create opportunities for him to score. So I think I didn’t do too bad for him. It is a bit strange. It is football and we don’t think about him any more. He doesn’t play for Arsenal and we just have to concentrate on our game and our play.
And that’s seems entirely reasonable to me. The Sun has pictures apparently of Cesc’s leg and the damage inflicted by Adebayor (obviously in a different challenge to the one on his ankle). Nice. We’ll see him in April.
In other news Tomas Rosicky talks about his desire to win silverware this season, Philippe Senderos talks about why he stayed at the club, while Arsene Wenger has hit back at Karl Heinz Rummenigge over rather outrageous allegations of ‘child trafficking’. He says:
We are only signing two, three players and if we are signing teenagers then we are handing them a real opportunity. You cannot say that about Bayern. I am well dismayed about such nonsense.
Well dismayed? Heh, he sounds like that fat one from Little Britain.
Anyway, that’s about that. Now it’s time for this week’s Arsecast. I’m joined on the show by Yogi’s Warrior from A Cultured Left Foot to pore over the events of the week. As well as that there’s a player history from The Man in the Bar, Sylvester, scientific examination of Adebayor’s antics last weekend and, of course, the winners of the competition to win the books signed by Arsene Wenger will be announced.
If you weren’t one of the lucky winners remember you can buy Arsènal: The making of a modern superclub via the link using the code ‘rocky‘ at checkout to get a £1 discount.
You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (20mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
Right then, that’s your lot. More tomorrow.
