Up For Grabs Now

So Arsenal can go top tonight if they duff Bolton by two goals or more. They can hit the heights, rule the roost, lead the pack, top the division and no doubt indulge in a number of other activities which make them sound like an accomplished and particularly dominant sexual partner, like Sting with more aggression.

Bolton may turn up with the vengeance mentality which saw Everton dazzle last week, and which saw Carlos Tevez mercilessly goad Ferguson and Neville last night.

For some reason Guy Mowbray kept indulging Tevez’s infantile benchward pouting by making it sound like some kind of redemptive justice was being achieved, just as he mysteriously described the pelting of Patrice Evra by City fans as ‘overexuberance’. Which is what you expect from an especially energetic bear-cub which accidentally cuffs its cuddly playmate, not some Manc bastard who throws a lighter at an opposition full-back from all of three feet away. But what do you expect when two such detestable institutions come face to face on live television? Dreadful.

Still, wasn’t it lovely to see Gazza Neville looking so pissed off? Let’s hope he gets banned. Banned from scowling on the bench beneath his revolting moustache, cos he certainly isn’t going to get a game.

In his current guise – slow, violent, hateful, nauseatingly coiffured - the Neviller would be better suited to the Bolton side we’ll be looking to dismantle this evening. What a snide and stroppy bunch they turned out to be, what with kneeing Cesc in the neck, elbowing Arshavin and all-sorts.

Coyle will surely have his men fired up, but after the callous disregard they showed toward our superstar skipper, let’s hope that our eleven are just as keen. With Denilson, Walcott and Clichy all available, I suspect we’ll start Almunia; HM The Right Back, Vermaelen, Le Gal, Clichy; Denilson, Cesc, Diaby, Rosicky, Eduardo, Arshavin.

But then, Arsene could always throw in a suprise. Like Sanchez Watt. What? Sanchez Watt. Oh, Sanchez Watt, of course. Is he available? It wouldn’t be the first time, not even the first time in three days, that Arsene has picked a young ‘un. Personally I thought Eastmond was pretty impressive, especially if you compare his performance with, say, certain of the early Outbursts of Song. Obviously consistency is the toughest thing at that age, but a very promising player I think and I won’t be complaining if he keeps his place in the side tonight.

If it’s him or Denilson anchoring then we can expect to see yet more Joyous Cesc, complemented by the throbbing force that is The Diaby Surge, which in recent months has more or less replaced the Out of Position Diaby to which we had become all too accustomed.

With Cesc back in the side, Diaby is no longer the fulcrum of our play, but he’s still an increasingly destructive attacking force, particularly when his Surge draws hapless tacklers and defenders towards him. This often creates the glimpse of space this team needs in order to break out of  the Islington Shuffle and cut through.

So maybe he is a fulcrum, of sorts. But then maybe a team needs more than just one fulcrum. Come to think of it, if we ever manage to field Cesc, Rosicky, Diaby and Nasri we will have no fewer than four bona fide fulcra, to which you can add Arshavin if he’s in the mood.

It’s all tremendously exciting.

I’m baffled. Let me explain:

Sunday May 10, 2009: Carlos Tevez explains his summer intentions to the News of the World – “I want to play in England because it is the best league in the world and it suits my style. Any club I join, whether it be Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool or Everton, will be a rival of Manchester United.”

Monday May 11, 2009: SPURS JOIN TEVEZ RACE.

Hmmm.

As the reaction to our draw with Liverpool became more and more confused – “Liverpool grab brilliant draw against 10-man Arsenal” (eh? how does that work exactly?) – Arsene was asked in his post-match about the prospect of Carlos Vela being loaned out, his interest in Andrei Arshavin and the possibility of a move for Carlos Tevez.

“No, no, and no“.

This is terrible news for the idle rumour-mongers across the web and in the offices of the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror, who last week ran screaming headlines about Arshavin and Tevez and followed them up with learned opinions about Arsene’s imminent change of heart. They talked with grave certainty about the enormous sums piled high at the Emirates just waiting to be splashed on a range of long-haired strikers. But they still couldn’t be arsed to fabricate a single quote from within the club or “sources close to Arsene”. What evidence for Arsene’s great epiphany? None, nada, diddly squat.

So it’s bad news for them. They’ll have to find new big names and big new numbers to fill their headlines. Heaven forbid they should actually do some journalistic research. But is it really bad news for Arsenal? Is it bad news for Arsenal’s fans? I’m not so sure.

It seems to me that this season more than any other has seen Gooners aligning themselves with tabloid transfer hysteria. We’re not having a good season, what do we need to do? We need to spend, and spend big. That’s the consensus.

It’s total bollocks. I don’t give a monkey’s how much we spend, I just want good players. We currently require the acquisition of good players on the wing, in defensive midfield and in central defence. Everybody agrees on that. As far as I’m concerned these players can cost 20 million or 20 quid and I wouldn’t care less as long as they’re good enough. Nor do I care if I’ve heard about them, or if I’ve seen them in major tournaments, or if “Sport.com” says they’re really really good. When Eduardo and Sagna signed nobody had the first scoobie who they were and neither of them were very expensive, yet they are both absolutely class players.

But that’s not the attitude most Gooners have right now. Many have bought into the tabloid myth that spending money brings success by itself. In fact it doesn’t bring concrete success to anyone other than the media, who have an easy story which will sell them lots of papers. It’s as if Tottenham’s high-spending and laughably disastrous last 20 years never happened, or we Gooners just weren’t paying attention. 

Where there used to be a certain pride in Arsene’s ability to underspend his rivals and still compete, there’s now a rather ugly antagonism towards him, an insistence that he spend very big on a really big name right now, as if any future success would then be down to every pea-brained nutter who’s been screaming hysterically for a headline signing for the past 9 years, and nothing to do with Arsene.

And this antagonism has spread to infect many fans’ attitudes to certain players, chiefly Denilson and Alex Song, forever the scapegoats this season for any of the team’s shortcomings. Now both of them have put in some pretty dreadful performances, but both of them have also had games when they have been – as yesterday – little short of magnificent. Yesterday was the second time that Song has effectively neutralised the threat of Gerrard. And their performances are recognised by the rest of the squad – yesterday Van Persie singled out both players for praise – so it isn’t just Arsene who rates them. Van Persie is a top class Dutch international who has played with great players at club and international level. He might be worth listening to on this one.

But instead of getting the credit they deserve as young players performing superbly in big games, they get slated yet again. In my opinion this is because these two have come to represent Arsene’s policy of buying very young players very cheaply, then blooding them very early. It’s a very risky strategy, and a strategy which has major flaws as well as major benefits.

I reckon if Song had been signed for £9 million from Lyon in the summer and Denilson had come in last January from Valencia in a nice exciting £12 million deal, you wouldn’t be hearing anything like the dog’s abuse these two get week by week. Nothing like it. People would have way more patience with them and they’d want to see them doing well. You get the sense that some Gooners approach the game wanting Arsenal to win, no doubt, but also wanting to have a right old go at Alex Song. It’s totally perverse.

I’m not saying that either of these players should be first team regulars or that we shouldn’t bring in better players in their positions, I just don’t think they’re getting a fair hearing from Arsenal fans right now.

That’s my opinion. You probably disagree. Let me know, and don’t spare the expletives.