“When [Arsène] Wenger signed me, he knew the player I am. I’ve been in this kind of situation before, so it’s not new to me
Happy Monday, Well not so happy for Lassana Diarra according to The Times he has come out explaining that he doesn’t want to be left out of the first team for much longer.
“For the moment, everything is going fine and I’m learning, but I cannot stay like this for ever,” Diarra said. “I’m not going to wait for a year because I changed clubs in order to play.
“I’m not stupid. If I come to Arsenal and my situation is the same as at Chelsea, then I should have stayed at Chelsea. If I come to Arsenal, it’s to play. In a few months, I’ll have to decide what I want to do.”
“I’ve played more games for my country than for my club, which is ridiculous,” he said. “When I came to Chelsea, I was 19, so to wait for a year is OK, but when I’m playing for the French national team with the European Championship coming, I need to play regular football. I cannot stay like this, going to training but staying at home at weekends and sometimes playing in the Carling Cup. I cannot accept this now.
“When [Arsène] Wenger signed me, he knew the player I am. I’ve been in this kind of situation before, so it’s not new to me. I’ve waited for a long time, but I’m 22 and cannot wait as I have in the past. I know Arsenal are a very good team, playing good football and top of the league, but I want to play. If I’m not playing by Christmas I may have to go somewhere else.”
This wasn’t really the news that I wanted to hear because I have high hopes for Diarra as I wrote in a previous article. At the moment he has two defensive midfielders ahead of him and apart from injuries and the Carling cup I cannot see him playing very much. I hope that interview was taken out of context and he is prepared to wait for his chance because he can be a better player than Gilberto and Makelele in time.
Arsene Wenger has been talking about the new strength in the side and said that we cannot be bullied anymore.
“The time when my team was bullied is certainly over,” added Wenger. “We can respond and on that front we’re certainly stronger. I feel the players now know they can escape by keeping the ball moving quickly, especially here where the pitch is so good.
“Not being bullied is a very important quality, but let’s first go to Tuesday night and Liverpool which are very important games. If we get over these two hurdles we’ll be very confident about dealing with United.”
What Arsene meant there was ‘we will win on Tuesday and we have to raise our game for Liverpool on Sunday’
I expect Arsene to shuffle things around a bit for Tuesday night, in order to keep the ‘first team’ fresh for Sunday. I think Hleb for example has played alot of football lately as has Flamini so Gilberto and Walcott could be pushing for starting places. Arsene will not want to disrupt the team that much either to keep the momentum so he has to balance his choices correctly.
In other news Arsenal have 3 players on the short list for the Ballon D’Or 2007. Cesc, Kolo and Van Persie have all made the short list. I couldn’t see Song in that list which is just absurd. But as he is missing I think it will go to Kaka.
Right, that’s it from me. More tomorrow.
EXAMPLE OF AD POSITION
