Up For Grabs Now

1. Fabregas. You’ve gotta love him. He’s one of the very few footballers who seems to understand what it’s like being a fan and how terrified we are when someone starts claiming that your best player wants to leave. I thought the Out of Contextness of the comments yesterday was so obvious and the jump from Cesc saying “Milan are a great club” to headlines like ”CESC WANTS OUT!” was so big that it was very obviously bollocks. Soon there will be a whole industry (hold on, there is, it’s called the Spanish media) dedicated to asking Cesc innocuous questions and then twisting his polite replies into dire threats of his imminent departure. It really isn’t going to go away as it’s a perennially big story which the papers can run over and over again without doing any actual work, which is exactly the kind of story journalists love.

Yet still, great man that he is, Captain Cesc takes the time to issue a short statement on Arsenal.com effectively saying “don’t worry, it’s all bollocks I’m staying here”. Thierry Henry used to say he wouldn’t respond to every story about his future because if he did he’d have to be doing it all the time and the stories would just come back next week. Well, Cesc does it all the time and it doesn’t exactly seem to be a full-time job, Thierry, and yes he is balancing brief statement-making with the captaincy. Cesc seems to realise that though the stories won’t go away, what matters when Arsenal fans see these stories is that they have some kind of confirmation that they are the same old guff.

Captain Cesc, we salute you. You are a warrior and a gentleman.

2. Eduardo is coming back! Arsene has said he’s been playing training matches, will be back as quickly as possible and should be getting games soon! I think we all know that we shouldn’t expect too much of the boy especially when he first gets back, but I can’t really stop myself thinking about how great it will be to see him back in the shirt and how incredible it would be if he got back to his pre-injury level of performance. It could also be vital for our season, though the icy realist in me (he’s called Olie and he’s been having a great time all season) keeps insisting that we’re unlikely to see him back at anything like his best until next season. Still, haste ye back, Dudu.

3. We’re going to annihilate Wigan. I can feel it. I know as I write this that I might end up eating a My Words roast on Sunday with a My Words sauce and My Words dumpling but I’ll go for this anyway: I think we may have turned some kind of corner. I know we’ve had more than a few false dawns and I don’t expect everything to suddenly be hunky-dory again, but I don’t think we’re going to see as much utter piffle as we’ve been subjected to in recent weeks.

My confidence for the Wigan game is based on two things. Firstly, Wigan are really bad and Titus Bramble plays for them. Secondly, the kids got duffed in the Carling Cup and two of our most abject first team displays have followed triumphant Gunnerlings victories. Not so this time. I expect a three-points-sandwich for Saturday’s supper.

4. Veet-hair-removal-cream-nemesis Ryan Giggs, a player for whom I have infinitely more respect than the detestable Roy Keane (see previous post, the guy resigned by text message – what a clown), has hailed Aaron Ramsey as the future of Welsh football. If this sounds a bit like saying that consonants are the future of the Welsh language it’s because it is, a bit. There’s not much competition from the vowels, admittedly, but I reckon Giggs has seen enough promising young players to have a pretty shrewd idea when you’re looking at a future great and this is what he seems to be saying with Ramsey.

5. Finally, today’s your last chance to enter our Sagnatastic Chant Composition Competition. Write us a top new Arsenal chant and pop it in the comments section and if yours emerges on top from the bloody struggle with all the other entries then we will richly reward you with a crown of laurels* and a photo of Bacary Sagna, signed by His Majesty The Right Back himself. You might as well give it a go.

* the crown of laurels aspect of the prize is purely metaphorical, an e-crown of laurels to be worn with pride.

Update: An additional reason why it’s great to be a Gooner today – Ronaldo almost signed for us but didn’t. Hmm. Don’t know how much support that’s going to get as a reason to feel great, but you will admit that the guy is a complete tool whose victory in the Ballon d’Or was a shame for football. Plus we had Reyes instead, didn’t we. Hmm. I can see this is going to be difficult, so let’s move on.

Can anyone make a whole team of players we nearly signed who then went on to greatness? This might be a bit painful, but off the top of my head there was Cech and Ronaldo (both of whom we were very close to), Terry might have been on the cards before Abramovich arrived, Robinho was fairly close before he went to Madrid and Torres was looked at very seriously when he was 17. Wenger almost signed Makelele before he went to Spain. God, this is depressing – anyone remember any others?

Tags: Aaron Ramsey, Bacary Sagna, Cesc Fabregas, Eduardo, wigan

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