Up For Grabs Now

The last two days have resembled less a serious attempt by the footballing world at a convincing series of events subject to such traditional vagaries as divine providence, chance, and Sod’s law, as a spectacular forty-eight hour long play staged across a series of venues and with a cast of hundreds of thousands, a play scripted and directed by an Arsenal fan as full of wit as he is empty of compassion.

First came the dismissal of Orange Brown. One of our most belligerent irritants has been banished from the Premiership into footballing oblivion. And all because of Nicklas Bendtner’s finishing ability.

‘Gardening leave’ is the most bizarre way I can think of of telling someone to bog off, but bog off Brown has.

And Brown’s afterlife? Not so much the little Match of the Day studio in the sky as a call centre somewhere nasty up north, I suspect.

The Lord Almighty? Former Arsenal goal-getter Henry

To their credit, Hull City will almost certainly now escape plunge deeper into the relegation mire after their cost-cutting appointment of Iain R. Dowie, a man whose middle initial stands for ‘Revival‘ ‘Relegation’.

Bye Hull! Brilliant.

And then, to cap it all, said Drogba gets sent off for almost no reason, the referee conned into punishing one disgusting Mourinho-schooled cheat by the shameless skullduggery of another, Thiago Motta.

Marvellous.

Where were your flip-flops tonight Didier?

I think it’s fair to say that we Gooners have seen better Christmasses.

Of course we’ve also seen worse ones too, but I think I’m not alone in saying that hearing the extent of Cesc’s injury confirmed made me feel physically sick. Cesc, our new captain, our engine, and the most loved of all our players, effectively out for the rest of the season. With his time at Arsenal apparently limited to just a few more years it’s difficult to stomach any of that precious time being snatched away.

So in the immediate future we face what suddenly looks a massive game against in-form Villa, without Adebayor or Cesc. And in the longer term we face the rest of the season without any sort of midfield to speak of. There will have to be a lot of gritting of teeth, puffing out of cheeks, and squaring of shoulders from fans and players alike.

Arsene has great, great faith in players like Bendtner and Diaby. Now, more than ever, we need that faith to be repaid by these players. We need to see that they were worth Arsene’s investment of trust. You’d struggle to find an Arsenal fan who honestly believes they are, but we need them to surprise us – and soon.

Today seems to be all about the Great Cesc Replacement Suggestion Extravaganza. So far, we’ve seen names like Parker, Inler, Veloso, Noble, Arteta (an astute shout from the Arseblogger, that one), Barry, Senna, Alonso, Toure Yaya, Defour, Arshavin, Arda Turan and Mouyokolo. You can add UpForGrabsNow’s name to that list. We are willing and ready to fight for Arsenal… jusht ash shoon ash we’fe finished thissh mincshe pie.

Of course, some of these names would obviously not compensate for the loss of Cesc because they play in completely different positions.

The Arshavin saga will rumble on with the bizarre tabloid logic seeing him (a forward who can play on the wing) as the solution to our gapingly empty central midfield. Having heard Wenger yesterday, I think there’s definitely something going on with Arshavin and I wouldn’t be too surprised to see him arrive in January, though as a winger, not to fill Cesc’s boots. Arsene was very canny in the press conference on the topic, saying that it was not worth discussing “now” because it was not a ”realistic solution right now”.

To me this just sounds like he wants him but Zenit aren’t playing ball with a realistic price, holding out for an Abramovich-scale bidding war which just isn’t going to materialise. The good thing is that since he is in a big strop (saying he’d only be a Zenit player on paper if he doesn’t get a move in January) they have absolutely no bargaining power and no-one else (of any stature) wants him. If he does come in, expect it to be for a fee some way short of £10m, which is probably not much more than he’s actually worth.

In terms of actually replacing Cesc, I think Wenger will definitely bring someone in from outside the club, “internal solutions” or no.

There’s been some pretty perverse reaction from some of our fans. I’ve read people writing things like “Cesc’s injury is really bad, but at least it will force Wenger to spend money in January”. This is a totally warped point of view, twisted by hours spent impotently ranting against Wenger’s management, an activity which makes the ranter lose all sense of proportion and reason as their whole life-force seems to be channelled towards demanding big-money signings at Arsenal FC.

Forgive me for pointing out that the ultimate aim of football is not to force visionary managers into spending money at the expense of the outstanding footballers they already possess, and that maybe, just maybe, it would have been better not to have lost our best player and be forced into an unpromising market for a stop-gap solution. But at least the bleaters will get their signing at long last, which ought to quieten them down a bit (but probably won’t).

From the names being bandied about at the moment, I like the sound of Arteta in particular. Veloso and Inler are players who seem to be much admired around Europe and who would both be available at a decent price. I haven’t seen either enough to properly form an opinion of them, (and would be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who has) but they are both still very young and I feel a more experienced player like Arteta or Alonso is more like what we need right now.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts, though of course the only thoughts which really matter right now are those of Wenger and he’s probably got pretty different thoughts to the likes of us. He doesn’t regret selling Diarra. Gotta say I do regret that. A wee bit.

He also said he was looking forward to everyone coming over very “imaginative” in their speculation. So we can expect to see the Daily Mirror staging an open-air Nativity play in which a wise man, a shepherd and one of the cows are unmasked one after another as expensive South American solutions to Arsenal’s mid-season malaise smuggled into the UK by Arsene under the pretence of popular seasonal drama in order to avoid work-permit complications.

Of course the best thing would be if we could sign God Incarnate, who was rumoured to have been shown round London Colney last Thursday and who would certainly provide a bit of steel at centre-half.