Up For Grabs Now

Barring something very surprising it looks as if the great Patrick Vieira will be returning to England, accepting the luxuriant Eastlands grass as a new pasture. Who can blame him? If I was an overrated footballer (as opposed to cruelly underrated, which is the truth) with my best days behind me (this is perhaps true) I would head to Manchester City quicker than Andepaymor?’s mother can say sorry. Unlimited cash, low expectations, a new manager – what’s not to like? A team in which well-known violently misogynist moron Craig Bellamy is regarded as wizened elder is one harboring low expectations.

I suspect along with other Gooners, I have mixed feelings about Paddy’s return. Unlike Bergkamp or Pires, I don’t look back on his departure with unbridled affection - his prolonged courtship with Madrid rankles slightly. And ‘Vieira, wohohhoo, Vieira, wohohoo’ won’t have the same ring to it if he’s wearing light blue alongside Andepaymor?, Bellamy, Tevez and the whole sorry panoply of City’s overpaid, granite-idle strike force.

It’s also unclear whether he’ll be able to do a job. He was effective in Serie A, but the games in the main less intense, and he’s never hit his Invincibles-leading peaks. Having said that, with the current state of our midfield I’d welcome him back with a friendly, exposed bosum were he offered. At least for a few weeks.

But while I know that Arsene was reported to have been toying with resigning him at the start of the season, I find it hard to imagine it ever having come to fruition. As Thomas Wolfe said – you can’t go home again. There’s a reference you won’t get on Le Grove. It’s good to be back.

So mixed feelings, all in all. What do you lot think?

In other news the expected weather did materialise, and the club wisely decided to pospone the match. As I suggested below, the was a strong risk of the Bolton fans suddenly feeling at home, running amok; reducing house prices, stealing electronic equipment and brawling with one another in the road. It would have been horrible to see. There is now also a likelihood that we’ll get to play them with the ACN crew back, and possibly Cesc. Satisfactory all round – if matches must be postponed, you want them postponed when our best players are out anyway.

Nice Thursdays?

My apologies for the lateness. I was having a steak.

Spurs, rather sweetly, have released the first images of their proposed new stadium, which is to be called ‘White Elephant Lane’. I know this sounds like a joke, but it’s all been explained. Apparently the Elephant was Spurs’ original heraldic symbol, but was replaced at the beginning of the century because it gave a false impression of the team’s stature, and also was considered racist by people living under British colonial rule in India. Club chairman Daniel Levy said:

‘We hope that by calling the stadium ‘White Elephant Lane’ we can prove to the supporters that we have a sense of humour about our stadiums as well as our squad selection, and also tap into an important part of the club’s heritage.’ Harry Redknapp has yet to comment.

I didn’t read it in detail, but the gist of the bumf seemed to be that the ground would be a fitting museum to a once-famous football side, and also (and this is equally clear from the pictures) the architectural equivalent of a tribute band to our own stadium. If the Emirates is Abba, White Elephant Lane will be Bjorn Again. If we’re Oasis, they’re Noasis. If we’re Madness, they’re badness. And so on, and so forth. People will disagree, but I think the whole spectacle is quite endearing, somewhat reminiscent of a small boy trying on his father’s shoes and suit jacket, and then clomping around the house talking about how he’s ‘going to work’.

Oh well – it’s just a phase, they’ll grow out of it soon. You’ve got to hope that there’s some amused Arsenal fans on the board for planning applications who let it go ahead, if only so we get the plaintive cries of twenty thousand Spurs fans echoing around their vast empty stadium as the club gently haemorrhages cash to death. Surely no Spurs fan would ever support the venture…

In Arsenal news, Rio Ferdinand has written off our title hopes. Given that many of us fans (though not myself) have written off our title hopes, this is not too surprising, but then again what kind of a scoop were you seriously expecting from the retarded-Egyptian looking bastard? Whatever Rio Ferdinand wants for Christmas, I hope he doesn’t get.Vieira has also dipped his oar in (origins, anyone?) by suggesting that we have quality but not experience. I guess that makes us the footballing equivalent of the really good looking fourteen-year old who’s not done much pulling. All we need is to go out on the town a bit, perhaps find an old lady who can show us the ropes, and we’ll be good to go.

Here’s to hoping that Liverpool can provide the proverbial old lady of our title ambitions, and that we can duff them at the weekend. For some reason I’m more apprehensive about the Liverpool match than I was about United and Chelsea. I might be wrong. Anyway enough on that for the time being. I’ve got to go and pen a strongly-worded letter to whichever confederation of charlatans organised the vote-rigging of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award and gave it to that fat-legged pedal-pushing humour-bereft Scotsman Chris Hoy in favour of the love of my life Becky Adlington with her wonderful swimming shoulders.