Morning all, Interlull is over, we appear, at this stage, to have come through unscathed. The early team news is good, in that there’s nothing unexpected, but it’s always possible that Arsene might spring a ‘surprise’ or two at today’s press conference.
Jack Wilshere faces a fitness test but according to his Twitter:
Feeling better today, training tomorrow and hopefully selected for Saturday.
Hopefully indeed. The boss was waiting on those returning from far flung lands, Rosicky and Arshavin for example, before giving everyone a clean bill of health but the signs are promising.
Nicklas Bendtner’s injury appears to have cleared up with the Big Dane saying:
I have been talking to Arsene Wenger and he has told me the same things that he said publicly, that I have to be patient.
He is right and I have known that all the time. I just want to play, like any other player. But I am aware that my team-mates have been playing well in my absence and some have been scoring goals as well, so it won’t be easy for me to regain my place among the starting XI.
If he knew all the time it begs the question why he went public the way he did but if this means he’ll knuckle down, work hard and get on with things then all the better. A repeat of his header from a couple of seasons back would be nice but I would prefer that header to put us into double figures rather than winning it late. Getting old, my heart, you know yourself.
Bacary Sagna talks about William Gallas and says, quite endearingly I think, that he’s not ‘furious’ with him. We know there are issues between Gallas and certain members of the squad, Nasri in particular, and like any player who swaps a cannon for a cock he’s going to get a bit of stick from the crowd. Not a great deal though. It’s not as if Gallas was a hero, a player whose departure we bemoaned and despaired about, so once he doesn’t do that former player coming back to haunt us thing he’s probably better off ignored.
As for Robin van Persie telling Arsenal to sign Rafael van der Vaart, meh. No point talking about that now that he’s a despicable lily white cunt, is there?
There will be more in-depth thoughts on tomorrow’s blog. Once we hear the full extent of the team news we can speculate on the starting XI and so forth. So it’s surprisingly quiet this morning in terms of news but it’s very much the clam before the storm. Yes, I said clam. If you’re ever walking down the road and see a giant clam coming towards you, best to make your way inside till the inevitable rains pass.
So, on to this week’s Arsecast and joining me to talk about the three impact and influence of the three French connected summer signings is Philippe Auclair from France Football. We also chat about the game tomorrow. As well as that there’s Internet Joe, Arshavin, some well needed culture and a chance for you to win a Savile Rogue scarf.
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 (27mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
[audio:http://arseblog.com/podcasts/arsecast_episode176.mp3]Also on the show the winners of the GCR Books competition and if you didn’t win don’t worry, you can still avail of a 10% discount by using the code ‘Arseblog‘ at check-out.
And that’s about that for today. Those of you twitching with anticipation for tomorrow’s game will just have to wait. Till then.
