Up For Grabs Now

No, I’m not talking about the Arsenal team, though you can find worse things being written about them this morning. I’m talking about the response of journalists and bloggers to Arsenal’s current loss of form. In what follows, I’m going to include links to the offending articles – don’t feel you necessarily need to click on them as that’s what keeps these morons in business, but by all means do if you are interested.

I’ll start with Piers Morgan, who has taken it upon himself to demand that Arsene be sacked or resign. Before addressing what he says, it’s worth remembering exactly how abject a slimeball we are dealing with here.

Since being forced to resign as editor of the Daily Mirror after he was responsible for some of the most shamefully innaccurate journalism ever published in this country, Morgan has shown his loyalty by moving from a left-leaning tabloid to the far right Daily Mail (spit) where he now works as a bloated bile-merchant peddling his pathetic brand of reactionary nonsense somewhere on the darkest recesses of page 54. He’s seen his career crumble in front of him as he has become by turns a national disgrace then a national joke.

This is why it’s a bit rich for him to complain that Arsenal in their current state are a “lauging stock” when this is exactly what he has been for the last 5 years. If it wasn’t that the Mail are themselves an institution entirely without principle, he’d never find another job.

Having built a career on misrepresenting the facts, stealing the ideas of others and trotting out pompous populist bullshit, it’s no surprise that Morgan’s case against Wenger contains absolutely nothing new. Morgan doesn’t do thoughtful, and he doesn’t do original – he just does whatever he thinks it will take to keep him in a job. As we saw when he printed fake photographs which he claimed depicted members of the British military torturing Iraqi civilians, he isn’t very good at knowing what’s right and what isn’t, and he isn’t even good at keeping his job.

And it’s funny, isn’t it that throughout his article he uses images of soldiers, of “bleeding for the cause”, of being “shell-shocked”. He also can’t stop himself using the language of torture, of “fear”, needlessly comparing Wenger to ”a Death Row inmate waiting to be taken to the electric chair” (do you get paid extra at the Mail every time you mention capital punishment?) Something on your mind, Piers, something to do with torture and soldiers perhaps? Still haven’t got over your public humiliation? What a shame. Why don’t you at least have the decency to piss off and cry about it privately?

So, fuck off, Piers Morgan, fuck right off. You have no dignity, no loyalty and no clue.

Next up, it’s Le Grove, with an article so childish I had to read it twice to make sure I wasn’t missing some kind of irony. But no, I’m afraid whichever half-wit wrote it is entirely serious. Yes he really does mean it when he claims Arsene is “a great coach but a lousy manager”. Really? Lousy? Just like that? Now of course he’s made mistakes and this season he has made many more than in previous seasons, but you don’t just turn into a lousy manager just like that. The fact that people take seriously the opinion of someone who claims (apparently sincerely) that he would do a better job than Wenger simply beggars belief. Such people understand nothing, actually NOTHING, about football. It’s incredible that they can be so interested in something they understand so little about.

Then there’s this: 

I won’t mention Ramos, but at least he won them a cup. He gave them something to cheer about, and a DVD, when was the last time we got a DVD?

My response is best summed up with this.  I can only agree with McEnroe, Le Grove – you are the pits of the world. I won’t insult anyone’s intelligence by beginning to explain why what you have written is so idiotic. You are a blogger so astonishingly stupid that I am seriously considering coming round and slapping you until you promise never to publish anything again.

Let’s hope Arsene’s got thick skin for all this. Anelka’s comments over the weekend are a reminder that people at the club read what is written about them and can react angrily. I feel sure that Wenger is strong enough that he won’t do this.

Arsene needs to make changes to this team. I think he must know that by now. He’s not stupid, he’s our greatest ever manager.

The main thing we must do, now more than ever before is get behind Arsene and the players we do have.

William Gallas is back, eh? 

Why, Arsene, why? 

Actually I can think of a couple of reasons. I mean, he has been on occasion a world-class defender. He is also hugely experienced, more so than perhaps anyone else in the current side. Although that said I’m probably more experienced than most of the current side. Certainly at some things.

Who knows what’s going on at the moment with Gallas. To be stripped of the captaincy and then return to the dressing room - as chastening for him as it would be odd (and perhaps satisfying) for the other players. Some players might respond to this kind of pressure, but I suspect LeGal is not one of them – he’s already decided he’s the best player and Capi in the world, so I doubt being dropped will make him better. 

Anyway. I suppose I’d rather have him defending against Kiev than Gavin Hoyte.

Golly. I type this with the benefit of hindsight, but without the benefit of regular sight, as I went out with only the contacts in my eyes, and some clothes. I then expressed my frustration with the Arsenal team in the form of between twenty-five and a million beers.

Lots of doom today. Doom and also gloom. Yesterday in the forced optimism of the moment I wrote that we needn’t completely despair, but thinking back there are so many causes for concern.

Cause for concern 1:

The teamsheet. In yesteday’s game the problems began before kick-off. Gavin Hoyte and Alex Song should not start in a team with serious ambitions to win things, except if the competition is to see who can put out the most unsuitable team in the world and still charge one and a half thousand pounds a season. It’s funny how your perception of players alters with whose available. Last year Alex Song was, to more or less all fans, a joke player, and now he’s a player we have to take vaguely seriously because he has become a serious squad contender. This is not good. We need some established talent. Players who have played at the highest level and who will not be daunted by the prospect of an away trip to Manchester City.

Cause for concern 2:

Morale. Tricky one this. You can’t really buy it. It sounds ridiculous but we won’t start winning until we start winning. The risk increasingly is that we mess the whole season up – we need to qualify for the next stage of the Champions league as a priority (this should be fine, but you never know…), and then start beating people. Who would swap victory against Man United for victory against Villa, City, Stoke, Fulham and Hull at this stage? I know I would. Part of the morale issue is definitely the captain situation. Whilst Wenger didn’t cause Gallas to be a knob, he did watch him knobbing around for quite a long time before acting.

Faith is a two-way street, I suppose, in that if its misplaced it looks like weakness or stupidity, but if its successful looks like genius. We’re lucky to have a manager who has, over the years, tended to be right in where he’s placed his faith.

Cause for concern (or possibly not) 3:

The corporate situation. I’m not the best placed to comment on this, but it does look like Usmanov is closing in on what he needs to gain a blocking vote. Like it or not, this guy seems here to stay. Who knows his motives. If I were him, with no personal interest in Arsenal, there would be hundreds of other clubs better-placed for a takeover. Why go up against a long-standing and popular board who are going to fight you tooth and claw for the company? Why not just buy another team, one which will be delighted to have your grubby Boss Nass cash-filled hands all over it? You do worry that the worse the team does the more attractive he’ll seem to the shareholders…

Anyway. Lots to think about…let’s hope we beat Kiev, and that we get some progress on the captain situation.

Man City 3. Arsenal 0. Sure, on the face of it this is a bad result, but this match was always going to be a huge struggle. Even before the Gallas furore, we were a massively weakened side with low morale. 

The defence were far too weak, but look at who we were starting: they’d probably never even played together and were then expected to hold out against a Man City side with arguably the most attacking flair outside the top four.

Wenger has played down the Gallas stuff, as well he might. I expect we’ll hear more about it in the near future.

For now thoughts turn to Kiev on Tuesday, and a chance to perform away from the glare of the Premiership and cement our place in the next round.

More later.

On the BBC’s ‘Football Focus’ programme, John Motson has reported that Emmanuel Adebayor has returned from international duty with Togo carrying an injury and will be ruled out of today’s match. He gave no indication of the seriousness of the injury and it is not yet known how long he may be out of action for.

This leaves us with Bendtner and Van Persie up top, with Carlos ready to pounce from the bench. A big game for Bendtner.

Still only eerie silence coming out of the Emirates this morning with no official confirmation of Gallas’ ignominious dismissal. Arsene is expected to deal with the issue publicly after the match today when it will no longer be very easy to pretend that nothing is going on. If the Arse-Poll (top right) is to be believed, we can expect Adams to start polishing his cannon as soon as he’s finished playing Hull.

Gallas didn’t even have the decency to do his dirty at the beginning of the week, which would have given the team some time to get their heads together for today’s game against City. As it is, they will all be suffering a bit of a mind-fuck as they prepare for the match. We can only hope that Gallas’ absence serves to unite the team – perhaps a bit of siege mentality is exactly what we’ve been missing so far this season.

Our injury list would stand a pretty good chance against most teams: Kolo Toure, Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Emmanuel Eboue, Bacary Sagna, Tomas Rosicky and Eduardo. Though the defence might be a bit iffy that lot would certainly be a pretty decent 5-a-side outfit, as long as Eboue agreed to be the kind of rolling sub who rolled straight off as soon as he rolled on.

So we’re likely to start with Stallone and Djourou at the heart of the defence (we may also have to endure Inappropriate Outbursts of Song). Our right-back position has been well and truly scuppered by the scuppering of all possible candidates – Eboue, Sagna, Toure, and even Gallas all ruled out. Our squad depth in that position is better than most others, actually, and yet we still find ourselves completely bereft of an experienced right-back. Young Guns reckon we’ll see Gavin Hoyte, and if we do, the team will really need to get behind him and help him settle.

A big game for Diaby today. With Fabregas in the side, you often get the sense that he isn’t really allowed to run the show as much as he’d like and often finds himself notoriously Out of Position, gangling around rather aimlessly, or occasionally brilliantly (witness United, Fenerbahce away). Today we should see him firmly in position at the heart of the midfield and it will be fascinating to see how he gets on against a very competent City engine room.

One story which deserves a bit of attention is this from the Guardian, who report that today’s opponents are eyeing up Kolo Toure with a view to a January move. At one time this would have been unthinkable and Wenger’s obvious affection for Toure and Toure’s immense loyalty to Arsenal and Arsene make any such move very unlikely, I think.

Some of our more reactionary fans would do well to note that Hughes is reported to be considering this because two of his current centre-halves (Micah Richards and Richard Dunne) have not been good enough, making costly errors in key games. We have regularly been linked with both players and I have heard more than a few fans moaning about Arsene not bringing in Dunne in particular when he was available. Well, the grass isn’t always greener and Arsenal’s defenders aren’t the only ones who make mistakes.

Forza Gooners.

Gallas is off, it seems. It’s the exclusive which EVERYBODY seems to have as Arsenal blogs unheard of on the banks of the Nile suddenly sprout an “insider source” with whispers of team meetings, coach travel and altercations between players.

There was no exclusive – everyone has simply read this from the well-respected France Football and eagerly dived in pretending they knew before anyone else. Even I could understand the French – the headline quite clearly states “Exclusive: Gallas is a complete bastard”.

Remember though, there is yet to be any official confirmation and Arsenal.com will be worth watching for developments this evening. It was a story which was waiting to be reported all day so it may be that everyone has rather jumped the gun and no such sacking has taken place – stranger things do happen at Arsenal FC.

That said, it would seem like the right decision, even an imperative one. So what is Gallas’ beef exactly?

Well,  it seems to come down to him feeling like he doesn’t get enough respect from younger teammates (for both Arsenal and France). I’ve read stuff quoted from his autobiography about how annoyed he got when 20 year-olds (Samir?) didn’t call out when passing the ball, spoke to him in a “cheeky” tone of voice and, worst of all, sat in Thierry Henry’s seat on the team bus.

If this sounds like the whining of a busty-but-idiotic college netball captain from a low-budget teen movie, it’s because that’s exactly the kind of pettiness, vanity and childishness with which Gallas seems to have been consumed. Of course there has to be a level of respect for senior players at any club, but it seems like Gallas took the whole thing way too seriously, especially when some of your twenty-year-olds are players like Cesc Fabregas, players who have played in major finals, scored big goals and won big trophies. Respect in a dressing room isn’t always just about a player’s age. 

How on earth was this clown captain in the first place?

So despite what I said earlier, it seems William Gallas has not been stripped of the Arsenal captaincy, and will not play against Manchester City tomorrow. 

In terms of captaincy, good riddance to bad rubbish. His shortcomings were becoming clear long before his antics against Birmingham last year, but since then he has lurched from bad to worse. In hindsight it will no doubt be said that after his outburst yesterday his position was untenable, but as is clear from below I’m not convinced this was completely the case. 

Still, this is where we are now. Twelve games in, four defeats, all to opposition we ought to have beaten, and an away game against one of the up-and-coming and stronger sides in the league with no captain and no Fabregas. 

Immediate thoughts suggest Almunia will take the armband – Nigel Winterburn, no less, thinks so. Though he was with me earlier today in not thinking he would go, so who knows what’s going on. Almunia wouldn’t be my long-term choice, but for tomorrow he is the oldest in the squad, and also seems to be a popular figure.

He’s suspended for tomorrow, but thoughts will turn to Cesc Fabregas. My theory behind not making him captain is that he’ll have a set list of objectives to complete as an Arsenal player, and being captain might well be one of them. Hold out on it for a while, and perhaps he’ll hold on for a couple of years. We also saw with Henry how being made captain can affect personal performance. Cesc has struggled for form this season anyway, and whilst it might perk him up, it would also put even more pressure on his already burdened shoulders. On the flip side, one suspects that he’s one of the few players in the dressing room whose talent inspires universal respect, and that could be an important unifying factor (as it occasionally worked with Thierry).

That said, I’m completely aware that this theory sounds like a complete load of bollocks, and also that my alternative candidate, Gael Clichy, might struggle for respect in a dressing room with more experienced and already antagonistic heads in it. 

Of course, people will be tolling the bells. But it’s important to put things in perspective. A senior player has stepped out of line and been punished, but it has not come completely out of the blue. We are also high in the league, at an early stage of the season, with a young side bristling with talent but lacking something in belief. This kind of adversity can breed triumph. Let’s not jump to any conclusions before we’ve seen how the dust settles.

It’s not all doom and gloom, gooners. Heads up.

Somewhat calmer today about our captain. But not calmer in a ‘oh, he’s ok really, the poor chap, he was just trying his best’ kind of a way, more calmer in a steely-eyed, finger on the trigger kind of a way. Gallas is a weapon. A good footballer on occasion (in the olden days occasionally a great one), but stupid, vain and proud. No captain of Arsenal.

However, part of what makes his behaviour so unacceptable is that there’s no way it’s a good idea to get rid of him at this stage of the season. If he was going to be a complete asshole, this is the best possible time for him to do it – as Nigel Winterburn has come out and said, there’s no way Arsene can get rid of him now, with the club in turmoil. In the first place, the last thing we need is more disruption whilst we try to get the season back on course, and in the second there’s no obvious replacement. The blogs have been discussing it, and consensus seems to be that if anyone were to step up Toure would be the most obvious choice. This isn’t completely ridiculous, but I feel slightly that if Arsene were going to go down that route he’d have done it by now.

The other candidate people have started to suggest is Gael Clichy. This is an idea I’m much keener on in the long run: he loves the club, is intelligent and would give his own every much. It remains to be seen whether he’s quite spunky enough when the chips are down, and whether he can do the motivational speeches. Still, since I have my reasons for not wanting Cesc to be captain of Arsenal, he gets my vote.

But not now. Gallas is a weapon. City away is not going to be an easy ride. They have some famously good footballers, and no doubt Arsenal are exactly the sort of scalp the richest club in the world will be looking to claim as they go about their campaign of world domination.

Anyway. We must wait to see what emerges about the skipper’s situation from Arsene’s press conference. I don’t know what I want from it. I hope Arsene knows.

It’s the £64,000 (a week) question. He won’t tell us anything. Oh, except that ‘it happened during an attacking move’ and the player is ’six years younger’ than him.

You have to hand it to him – he is a very clever little captain of Arsenal.

I, however, have prehensile thumbs, and consequently have been able to deduce from google and my imagination that there are currently four players on the squad our Cryptic Captain could be talking about: Eh?boo-him, RvP, Sagna and Eduardo. I’m counting Eduardo out, unless he’s become so aggravated by the itchiness of his cast that he’s taken to sitting in the dressing room and dissing the tastes in gangster rap of former Arsenal captains. 

And I suspect Sagna is ok too. Sagna seems to me like the kind of guy who is quite happy doing his job as well as he can, and occasionally gets frustrated by the incompetence of those around him (the central halves, say) but mostly puts his head down and gets on with it.

This leaves Eh?boo-him and Van Persie. Now, I have to say that during their time at Arsenal I have had mixed feelings about both of these players in terms of commitment and approach. However, I have come to the conclusion that Eboue is basically a running, diving definition of the words ‘hapless muppet’, and whilst he might make the odd bad French rap about money, he is basically too dense to be a problem.

This leaves RvP. I can completely see why RvP would be a problem. He’s a battler, yet equally gets frustrated. He was also the one creating most of the attacking against Spurs, where the problems were alleged to have surfaced.

My money is on RvP. What do we reckon?