Up For Grabs Now

So it seems like there are a few things that need to be set straight.

Firstly, the self-styled Militant Tendency amongst the moaners have got to sit down and be quiet. Now. If they need an outlet for their misguided fury, they should join UKIP, where they can fight it out with harmless others.

Put up, or shut up! … In fact, no, just shut up.

Terrifyingly, some of them even got to speak to Wenger directly this week, clearly an experience he did not enjoy. And why should he? He is the club’s greatest post-war manager, having brought untold success and stability to the club and maintained elite performance despite having bugger-all cash and rotten luck. He shouldn’t have to deal with this sort of shit. Of course he’s made a few mistakes, but that doesn’t give any gibbering idiot with a copy of SuperGoals and a reading age of seven the right to have a go.

Such people are not Arsenal’s affliction alone. You only need to look at the behaviour of the United fans who, on the day that they won the title against one of their bitterest enemies, chose to celebrate by whingeing incessantly about the future of one member of the club’s stellar strikeforce and throwing beer-cans at the front of the stadium. A protest about transfers. On the day they retained the world’s most prestigious championship. From which tree etc…

We need a massive show of support for Wenger this weekend to let him know that Arsenal are not a club supported entirely by psychotic Football Manager fantasists, and that some of us know a good thing when we see it.

Wenger leaving would be a catastrophe. If he were to do so as a result of the people who’re meant to be supporting Arsenal, it would be truly, truly shameful.

Secondly, Guillem Balague (the man vilified by many for this whole Arsene to Madrid thing) is not an idiot, nor is he a bad journalist. He’s a very good and very well-connected one – especially about anything involving Real Madrid or Spaniards in the Premiership. Back in December it was Balague who was first to report the full extent of Fabregas’ injury, when the rest of the press thought they were doom-mongering by putting him down as out for only 3 weeks. He has clearly got a very interesting phonebook.

However, he is Spanish and he is a Madridista. The Spanish style of football journalism, as anyone who read Marca during Henry and Vieira’s various on-off transfers can attest, makes no bones about launching into extensive, detailed speculative accounts of what could happen, given recent news-flow. Balague’s more imaginative claims at the end of his piece on Wenger, where you can pretty much hear 5 being made out of the addition of 2 and 2 between every sentence, is really more of a stylistic flourish than anything to get het up about. You’d be unlikely to find a British journo mapping out a possible course of events with such confidence and precision, but that’s just a cultural preference.

While suspicious of sure-footed prognostication, British hacks certainly do a fine line in bare-arsed, shame-faced fabrication. The Daily Heil, for example, has a proud history of racism, sexism, Nazi-sympathising… and talking complete and utter codshit about Arsenal FC (apologies, James from The Apprentice). This week they tossed in the figure of £13 million and announced that this was to be Arsene’s summer transfer pot. Not 2 days previously, Arsene had told the shareholders meeting (which was right after a board meeting):

We spoke about funds and yes there is money available.

There! Right there! He said there was only £13 million and so he’s going to leave! He said it in front of everyone! Now it’s true!

“Money available” = “£13 million”. Fact of the British Press. Baffled? You wouldn’t be the only one.

Arsene has confirmed that Cesc has injured his medial knee ligaments and will miss between one and three weeks. He said the injury was “difficult to assess”, admitted it was a blow, but that the team would “have to cope with it”.

They certainly will. He’ll be missing at Villa Park for sure. A three week lay-off would also rule him out of home fixtures against Portsmouth and Bolton in the league, games which should be very winnable with or without Cesc. And he would surely have been rested againt Plymouth on January 3rd in any case.

It’s a big big blow, but the positive angle would be that he’s only going to miss one really big game and at least Cesc will finally get a rest and we could see him back to his imperious best in the New Year as a result.

On today’s evidence, it will be Diaby who steps into the breach. He needs to take this chance to nail down his status as an important player in the squad.

We’ve never needed him more and he’ll never get a better opportunity to prove himself in his preferred position. Over to you, Abou.

Latest Update: Guillem Balague, the well-respected Spanish journalist has claimed that Cesc’s injury may be much worse than originally thought. He describes “private fears” within the dressing room that in fact Cesc has torn a cruciate knee ligament, a severe injury which would see him sidelined until well into next year. He’ll have a scan tomorrow, a prognosis which could well decide our season.

I hate to say it on this occasion, but Balague is a top journalist with excellent connections and astute instincts. Let’s just hope he’s been talking to the wrong people.