As is the norm with international week, there’s absolutely nowt concrete about Arsenal in the news. The only junk that’s been flying around concerns our two young Catalan boys

Morning all. The Mean and Lean one is away for the rest of the week in sunny Norfolk, so I have the honour of doing the MyVision ’til he’s back.

As is the norm with international week, there’s absolutely nowt concrete about Arsenal in the news. The only junk that’s been flying around concerns our two young Catalan boys: Cesc and Fran Merida.

Barca ‘technical secretary’ (according to Sky Sports – hah what a pansy!) Chicken Tikka Beguiristain came out yesterday and said that amid rumours that they wanted our no.4 back, they would not be making the first move. Instead, the player himself would have to come out and issue a ‘come and get me’ plea. What kind of sadists are they? And moreso, what a load of tosh. I’m willing to put money on the fact that Barca will be after him either this summer or next.

This is a new form of tapping up methinks, a reverse psychology one. They want the player to act first, thereby burning any bridges with his current team and looking like the villain, while Barca rush in like a white knight on a charger to rescue him. Are they THAT bitter that they lost him all those years ago? On a more serious note, why are they even talking about a player who is not theirs? F.C. Barcelona? More like F.C. B*stard-loner, and I’ll let you guess what the ‘F.C.’ stands for…

Another Barca-related matter that has affected the club recently is the charge levelled at Fran Merida. Apparently the club are going to stump up the money, and rightfully so because I doubt Fran has got £2+ million sitting in his bank account. You’d think that the club going to this kind of length was indicative of how bright a future they felt he had, but according to a few of the rumour-mongers we’re looking to offload him back to Spain because he is ‘slow’. Now I haven’t seen him live, apart from a token injury time appearance against Newcastle in the Carling Cup a few weeks back, so I can’t personally comment on how good he is/isn’t. From what I hear he is very creative with a decent eye for goal and he looks quite stocky already so the physicality of the English game shouldn’t be a problem. Let me put it this way… Riquelme isn’t exactly the fastest player in the world, but he ain’t too bad now, is he?

Young Fran has actually been talking to the official site about how good it was to get on the pitch against Newcastle, and with Sheffield United coming up next in that competition slap bang in the middle of games against Liverpool and Man United, I think it’s fair to say he may well get more of a chance against the Blades.

Ahhh the joys of international week. In all the years I’ve been watching football, I’ve only ever fallen asleep twice…and both were England internationals. With international week comes the perennial ‘club versus country’ debate on forums. Surely it’s a hands-down thing? Don’t get me wrong, I always watch England games and in major tournaments I even allow myself to get ever-so-slightly excited about them. But rest assured it is a fake excitement. This national team simply does not tug at my heart strings like my club does. Why? BECAUSE THERE ARE NO ARSENAL PLAYERS IN IT! When we had Cashley and Sol in the England line-up, I always felt more involved in internationals. Back in the day when Wrighty used to get his odd chance up-front I would will him to score a hat-trick, and when Big Tone was skipper in Euro 96 I was desperate for England to win. But not for England’s sake, no siree Bob. It was simply so I could bask in the warm glowing warming glow of an Arsenal player performing great for his country. But these days, meh. I am more interested in watching the Under-21’s to see Justin and Theo.

Right that’s enough rambling from me, I should get back to work. Have a good day fellow Goons.

Squid Boy