Let’s start this morning with team news ahead of the Villa game. Toure, Eboue, Clichy and Adebayor are out through suspension but Flamini, Rosicky and Hoyte come back in. Hleb is apparently injured and there’s no mention of Senderos and apart from that we’ve got the rest pretty much fit.
Up front I’d imagine it’ll be Baptista and Aliadiere. This is where I add some line about them having to prove they can score goals blah blah blah but I feel a bit like I’m repeating myself and I’d rather be saying something like ‘After their nine goal haul in the last game we hope they can keep it up’.
Villa aren’t having a particularly good season but they’ll probably feel like they’re playing us at a good time. We’re a bit low after the cup defeats and we’re struggling to score goals, although at least Cesc has held his hands up and said it’s something he needs to add to his game. No question but he’s only 19, he’s scored goals before and he’s just having a bad run. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got one tonight actually.
We do need a response from the players. As we’ve said over the last week there’s no point feeling sorry for ourselves and wallowing in self-pity won’t win us any points. They have to show people that people who have written them off are wrong. Or at least a bit wrong. Arsene Wenger feels the team is 95% right. I feel he might be a bit optimistic but he’s not too far off and the injuries we’ve suffered this season would test any team. Henry, van Persie, Gallas, Rosicky, Ljungberg – all experienced heads who have been injured on and off and on and off and on again all season long.
The manager also spoke, at length, about Thierry Henry and his current injury. While he certainly accepted that he had some part to play in it he was scathing about France and their coach Raymond Domenech. He said:
I feel he has been badly managed after the World Cup by the French football team. On August 16 – less than 14 days after he came back – and they played him in the whole game against Bosnia. It was a friendly. After he had played in the World Cup final – why do they need to play him in the whole game?
And he’s right too. Every time Henry gets called up for a friendly he plays the 90 minutes. It’s ridiculous and the boss is quite right to be aggrieved at how his captain is treated. Whether Domenech is using Henry to ‘punish’ Arsene Wenger for not meekly accepting his nonsensical team selections is hard to say but there’s no doubt that the France coach has contributed, in a large way, to Henry’s injury problems this season. What I thought was interesting about the announcement that Thierry would be out for the rest of the season was that they stated he’d miss the rest of the domestic and international season. As much of a two fingers to Domenech that they can give without him being a cunt about it.
No doubt William Gallas will pipe up after a week and say that Domenech is quite within his rights to play Thierry but we all know the manager is 100% correct on this one.
Elsewhere Gunnerblog discusses the manager’s other quotes about only signing one or two players in the summer but that they’ll be ‘super class’ players.
Good luck to the youth side who take on Man Utd tonight at the Grove. Apparently some 30,000 tickets have already been sold with many more expected to turn up on the night. It’ll be good for the kid-kids to experience playing in front of a big crowd, the noise, the atmosphere, and 40% of them fucking off before the final whistle.
One of the sites that Arseblog beat in the Bloggies is about kissing some girl called Suzy. They said:
Rumor: Some wuss soccer blog beat out KSK for the 2007 Best Sports Bloggie.
Fact: Sadly this is true, but they don’t have the witty raconteurs and exquisitely beracked commenters that we do. So those guys can go choke on a bagful of monkey-cock.
Wonderful sentiment, I have to say, but they underestimate the scintillating banter on the arses each day and I’m pretty sure our men have got much bigger moobs than theirs, even if they are American. As well as that we’ve gone beyond the stage of monkey-cock and have moved on to things like panther-cock and gnu-cock.
Sorry you didn’t win guys but you need to get with the times. Monkey-cock is so 1997.
Anyway, that’s that. Here’s to three points tonight and a happy day tomorrow. Oh, and don’t forget to get in touch about the Arsecast this week which features an interview with Arsenal legend Bob “Bob” Wilson.
