Up For Grabs Now

Today we’ve got: Sweaty Eboue in Portuguese Romp Sensation, The Future of Cesc and a daring exposé of the extraordinary rationale behind Arsene Wenger’s transfer market tomfoolery.

First off, last night. It was a bit pants, wasn’t it?  A very under-strength team sent to Porto apparently with the frank instruction not to bother. Nobody playing last night did themselves any great favours, though Ramsey and Vela looked fairly encouraging and would surely have looked even better had they been part of a high-strength Arsenal team rather than the diet version.

There seems to have been a lot of internet credulity towards the sudden injuries afflicting our most senior players which meant none of them could even travel to the game. Concerned, 37, from Nuneaton wrote in to say “I’m so surprised that Fabregas, Sagna, Clichy, Van Persie, Adebayor and Toure are all injured – they looked fine on Saturday. I really hope they’ll be back for Saturday!”

Don’t you worry Concerned, they’ll be back for Boro sure as Gael’s a Gooner. Arsene was just playing silly buggers with Uefa.

Eboue’s return passed off largely without gaffe or aplomb. Not that I really know what aplomb actually constitutes – it just sounds sort of bouncy and flag-waving and since I didn’t see either of these things from Eboue yesterday I think it’s fair to say that he returned without aplomb. Though he did hurl his sweaty number 27 shirt into the crowd, so, erm, congratulations to the long suffering no-doubt delighted Gooner on the other end of that.

No originality points for pointing out that Bendtner had another poor game, losing the ball at important moments with chronic regularity. Would be interested to know just how thin Goonerish patience is wearing with him. I’m not really sure why, but I still think he’ll be worth it in the long run.

All of which means we’ll be playing one of AS Roma, Panathinaikos, FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich or Juventus. You’d obviously pick Panathinaikos as the one you’d want while Barca, fun as that would be, is probably not what we need at this stage. Some BBC chappie wrote that if we drew them we’d have no chance. Must be because the BBC doesn’t have the rights to the Premiership – didn’t he see us beat United and Chelsea, teams at least on a par with Barca right now?

Nothing to fear I reckon and as many people have been pointing out, we only play well against the big teams because that’s the only time when any of our players can be collectively arsed.

Talking of Barca, much quoted around the British press this morning is Captain Cesc who has unfortunately done another interview with Radio Marca:

Everybody knows that one day I will return to Spanish football. It’s an experience I want to live. I want to play in Spain as a professional before I retire. The idea has always been the same. That’s why I signed such a long contract.

If these remarks are not being hideously mistranslated and decontextualised, then this sounds like a time-frame – another 6 years at Arsenal then off to Barca. I reckon Cesc may well have a similar view of contracts to Arsene, that is, you sign them for a reason and you stick to them (remember Arsene joined us late because he wouldn’t shave even a couple of months off his Grampus 8 tenure?

Seeing as Cesc obviously does want to go to Spain at some point in his career isn’t it in Arsenal’s interests to know in advance when that is going to be so that the inevitable speculation can be brushed aside (at least within the club) and plans can be made to fill the huge gap he will eventually leave? A relatively neat solution to an awkward problem, the problem of a loyal player who really loves the club, but who naturally wants to play for Barca, the team that is in his blood, at some stage. 

I’ve always had a niggling suspicion that something like this might have been agreed upon, and it was a suspicion which grew wings when we signed Ramsey in the summer. He looks to me like a future midfield engine to be groomed under Fabregas as his long-term replacement.

Very interested to know your views on this.

Finally, yesterday Grabber pointed out that with Homer and Carl already involved, all we needed was a Lenny to complete the world’s first Simpson’s-based strikeforce. Terrifying indeed. Well, guess what? If the newspaper reports were right in November then that’s exactly who will be arriving in January – Palmeiras’ pint-sized scoring sensation Lenny!

So there it is, UpForGrabsNow has scooped the world’s media. This stuff about signing talented youngsters is just a cover for Arsene’s crazed attempt to assemble a team of Simpson’s characters. The next time you see a player linked with the club, you’ll know if Arsene’s really interested by his name.

Xabi Alonso? Don’t remember seeing him in Springfield Elementary too often, do you? Little known Bolivian hardman Barney Gumblinho? Expect to see his popular “Gumblinho 48″ shirt all over the Emirates come January.

The squad for the game tonight, perhaps predictably, has excluded lots of our big names, names such as Emmanuel Adebayor and Robin van Persie. It has also excluded some of our smaller names, but names nonetheless of important players, for instance Cesc Fabregas and Gael Clichy. The boss has, however, named eleven starters and seven substitutes, so I suppose we can all rest easy on that one.

Set to start are Homer and probably Carl. If only we had a Lenny, we’d be developing an entirely Simpsons-based attack force. If anybody can think of any more Simpsons related Arsenal puns I’d be grateful to hear them. My erstwhile friend Josh has suggested ‘Apubayor’ and ‘Robin van Barney’. How about Rosickentbrockman? (On reflection Robin van Barney sounds like an awesome Dutch footballing/darts playing hybrid victory machine. What a sight that would be. Maybe he’d kick the darts.)

With qualification assured it’s a nice opportunity for people to prove themselves against a side who are no mugs, proven by their ability to win cups (er).

Many will say it’s also an opportunity for Eh?booedhim to win back some confidence and some supporters after he lost on Saturday. Without meaning to cross the line my esteemed colleague drew under the issue yesterday, I want to have the last word so will anyway: the real reason everybody booed on Saturday was not that Eboue was rubbish, but that with every meaningless giveaway of the ball and tackle of his team-mates Eboue was reminding the world that he, and he alone (except for Song) Knows What Arsene Did Last Summer. The boos were, quite contrary to what everyone has been saying, a gesture of solidarity with Arsene – the sound of thousands of people articulating their discomfort at this flagrant Ivorian flaunting of Arsene’s vacation pursuits.

I, for one, say let Arsene’s secret lie. The rest of you feel free to carry on supporting Emmanuel through thick and thin (mostly thick). Judases the lot of you. All I’m saying is the next time the only people who know about your secret from last summer are a couple of West African utility midfielders, don’t come running to me.

Three points tonight please. Ideally a wonder goal. And a squirrel. Been a while since we had a squirrel. I’d post a link but you had to be there, really. But those who were please do join with me mentally in song: ‘Squirrel is a gooner, squirrel is a gooner, tra la la la, tra la la la’. Followed by ‘Lehmann, show us your nuts, Lehmann Lehmann show us your nuts’.

Come on the boys.

So the Eboo-ers have vanished into the night, nowhere to be seen or heard anywhere across the Arsenal blogosphere. Instead, there is a spectrum of opinion which ranges from regret to total embarrassment to real anger that an Arsenal player playing badly should be ridiculed by his own supporters during a game.

No-one will defend Eboue’s performance. It was indefensible. Arseblogger makes the crucial point when he observes that while the rubbishness of his performance was bad enough, what got people really worked up (and this is much less obvious to a TV audience) was that Eboue didn’t seem to care – shrugging and standing hands on hips after disastrously and needlessly throwing away possession yet again. This is bound to get anyone’s goat, and I suppose the best defence for the Ebooers is that if he didn’t care when he was on the pitch then he has no right to care when he is made to leave it.

So a regrettable incident, but one which could have been avoided by Eboue actually appearing to make an effort.

The other defence people are coming up with is that a lot of the booing was actually directed at Arsene Wenger so that’s ok. I’m sorry? It’s not ok to boo a player who doesn’t try, but it is ok to boo the club’s greatest post-war manager? I really struggle to understand how this is justification.

Or else, it was directed at the board, as some kind of bizarrely-timed protest at the lack of transfer activity. Perhaps this was a protest at Wenger’s stubbornness in not immediately signing an over-priced Italian winger we once saw do a trick on YouTube as soon as he saw Eboue was having a stinker? That’s how football works isn’t it?

There’s a great big scapegoating exercise which seems to run through quite a lot of fans’ minds when they don’t like a performance. Blame it on Eboue. Blame it on Song. In extreme cases blame it on Denilson. It’s a very easy way to deal with disappointment, to place all the blame on just one or two players, and the great thing is you don’t even need to watch the game properly, but it never really works as a way of explaining poor performance and other players who make big mistakes or underperform - like Toure, Clichy, Van Persie – their mistakes are always quickly forgotten to allow more time for yelling at whichever player you’ve decided to hate. Of course, football doesn’t work like this.

Song in particular continues to be singled out as the scapegoat. “He’s to blame for yesterday! If it wasn’t for Song we would have won… hold on… we did win? Right. Well I blame Song for the fact that the league chose not to magically turn our 3 points into 14. That was all his fault!”

BREAKING NEWS: Song actually played quite well yesterday. (NB this doesn’t mean I think he is better than Vieira or something).

One blogger yet to wake up and smell the 3 points is Le Grove. What a surprise! Ah, Le Grumble, that helpful support group for the bitter, the insane and the unloved in the Arsenal community. If they’re not complaining about the lack of a mid-season DVD celebrating Arsenal’s autumnal achievements, then they’re pining for the signing of Stewart Downing (as in today’s blubbing, semi-literate instalment). They must be the only group of fans who celebrate a victory by effectively calling for the club’s manager to be sacked. Literally, the only fans anywhere in the world who would see this as reasonable. Astonishing.

Next up it’s Porto away, and a great chance for the boss to try out that Eboue-Song strike partnership we’ve all been crying out for. Only joking! But it could happen, seriously… “I believe if you’re a good player then you can play in any position”…

So we scraped the 3 points in the end. My 3-points-sandwich isn’t going to come with extra cheese and they’re definitely not going to toast it for me, but it’s good enough for now.

Early reaction: I thought Song had one of his better games and that overall the Djourou-Kolo partnership looked pretty solid (though they looked a bit shaky in the final 10 minutes). In fact the whole team was so shaky for the final 10 that at one point I thought one of them might grab the bull by the horns and actually score for Wigan.

The guy who looked most likely to do this was Eboue, who appears to have entirely forgotten the most basic ideas on which the sport of football is based. Fine, he was playing on the left of midfield. Not his natural position, by any means, but you get to wondering whether this guy has a natural position or whether he might just be very bad indeed at football.

The key incident came when Kolo ran towards him with the ball and ushered him forward. Instead Eboue ran backwards, tackled Toure and fed a good pass to a Wigan player who looked grateful for this surprise gift and alarmed at the lack of Kolo or any Arsenal midfielders blocking his path to goal. He gave the ball away a couple of other times and kept finding himself on the wrong side of opponents or making very weak challenges in important positions.

As I say, it is unfair to judge anyone when they are so far out of position, but this was idiocy, and our fans weren’t having any of it, giving him a healthy dose of vitriol as he headed for the tunnel. (In his place, that renowned midfield general, Mickael Silvestre, incidentally).

Eboue looked seriously pissed off (though admittedly he always looks pissed off when he’s not dancing in carparks) and people are bound to have a go at our fans for attacking him the way they did. I’d be very interested to hear what people think about this issue. You can vote in the Arse-Poll (top right) and let rip in the comments.