A slightly later than usual blog for you today… well tonight. Given that it is Friday evening in the UK, I fully expect half the usual readership to be in a pub somewhere sipping on beers with the rest of their work colleagues. Including that Norwich City supporter who is still making jokes about the weekend result to Newcastle even though his team haven’t played top flight football since before time began.
Anyway, I didn’t have much in the way of time to write anything earlier, plus the fact that news were somewhat scarce, I thought I’d slam down the laptop lid and do something else slightly more constructive. Since then, Arsene has had his press conference so we have a little bit more to chew on before our rather important game against Wolves tomorrow afternoon.
Arsene was rather dismissive of the Barcelona game in midweek, he didn’t even contemplate talking about that game, he just picked up his bat and whacked it out of the press room. The focus is solely on the Wolves game and rightly so. I am kinda feeling that way myself to be honest although I have been frantically trying to gather up my Arsenal buddies and have an Arsenal lads Footy Feast of an evening but in terms of the football, the Wolves game is the only game that exists.
I hope the complete A team, minus Samir Nasri are selected and they give their all from start to finish. Should any damage happen to any of our players in those 90 plus minutes then we have to deal with it and think about the next game. The FA cup game at Orient is around the corner and that will be the time to stick important players in padded cells.
Wenger made sure he told the press room that Abou Diaby was injured as well as suspended to make his point about Barton’s tackle, which I thought was interesting. I still frown in amazement when people suggest that his tackle was hard but fair. I don’t want to go into the whole thing again but those with that opinion can easily get hold of the rules on the FA website.
Arsene has pretty much echoed my thoughts on his players actions. Diaby knew he was wrong to do so, yet Wenger understands why he reacted in that way. Hopefully it will be a lesson learnt. We know that fair treatment from the referee’s will sometimes be absent, so we will have to keep our heads and keep playing our football even when the opposition are going to follow through with intent, then get up and shrug their shoulders as if everything is hunky dory, whilst watching our players rolling around in agony.
I have read the Diaby wants move to Barcelona or Real Madrid quotes on the news feeds but I haven’t seen or read the full transcript so I’ll save the lambasting for others. What I will say that our players should really be aware of what they say a little bit more. It seems as if our players get found talking about other clubs more than most. It is not difficult to work out how an answer would come across in print before you answer the question.
Tomas Rosicky picked up an injury playing for his country in midweek, but hopefully it is nothing serious and to be honest, he was unlikely to feature, especially after his recent substitute appearance.
I had almost forgotten one of the biggest talking points of the weekend. Johan Djourou.
He is back available to for the Wolves game. The Metro really should feel ashamed of themselves for their ‘out for the season’ bull but I don’t believe that they will. They got the clicks that they were looking for.
Song and Denilson are back in the squad for tomorrow and that is good especially with Diaby and Ramsey unavailable for a few weeks.
Anyway, I shall talk more about the game tomorrow. In the meantime you should enjoy your Friday.
Back tomorrow.
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