Up For Grabs Now

I figured I’d blow the cobwebs off this old lady and take the time to respond to some of the pessimism surrounding the 4-4 draw away at Newcastle. I’m not going to defend the team’s performance in the second half. Arsenal should not be in the business of conceding four goals in a match, let alone one half, against anyone. However, I also think some perspective is called for. We had a bad half. A cataclysmic half. Every team has these from time to time – passages where the whole lot just fall to pieces, and your team seems to turn from Champions League contenders into kindergarten retards. It’s never fun to watch, as Saturday reminded us.

But but but. We still drew. Our worst passage of play of the season and we still drew. We conceded four but we’d already scored four, at a canter. If we had been 1-0 behind and equalised at the last minute, nobody would really be grumbling about a draw away at Newcastle – particularly not after they beat us at home. In fact, how many of us would have swapped a draw for a Manchester United defeat? Arsene spoke after the game about the potential psychological impact of the second half, but it won’t be nearly as powerful as the impact on Ferguson’s jolly band of smelly, er, professional footballers. Every team in the league will have a go at them now, and some of them will be successful. United will drop more points. Every team in the league was already having a go at us, and so far we’ve more or less batted them off.

We’re hot favourites for the Carling Cup, we’re still in the FA Cup and, as far as I’m concerned, we’re favourites for the Premier League too. We’ve arguably the best attack in club football, and though our defence is not what it could be, we still look much more up for a ruck than we have during the past few seasons. That said, if nothing else Saturday proved once and for all that Diaby will never be Alex Song. (And who, four years ago, would have imagined that sentence ever being credible?). But there is more to be happy than sad about.

Now all we’ve got to do is breeze over those Catalan chancers next week, and my Quadruple accumulator will be looking rosy once more. Chins up, Grabbos

It has been, friends, literally weeks since I (grabber) have posted. I am sorry for this. I had a conversation in the Duchess of Kent with a friend of my dad’s who said that he’d said there was someone in his office who said she read our blog. Since this was the first real-life fan I’d heard of, I was so amazed I nearly drowned in my leffe, and was so startled that I haven’t dared post since, for fear that my waffle might rebound into reality.

Quite a lot has happened since then. We beat Birmingham (yay), we drew with AZ Alkmaar(mmm), we drew with West Ham (grr) and we beat Spurs easily (hahaha). Van Persie’s been good. So has Cesc. Ho hum. We’re ahead of where we were last year. We’re Islington Shuffling less than is usual, except for typical culprit Abou Diaby. Actually on the subject of him – and regular readers will be aware of my strongly-felt prejudices in this area – did anybody see in the newspapers Abou Diaby ‘promising to curb his attacking instinct?’ What? Quoi? His ‘attacking instinct’ is totally irrelevant. It’s like Tom Vermaelen saying “I need to curb my urge to collect cashmere-lined antelope-leather driving gloves” – sure, I think we’d all sleep a bit easier at night, but it’s not going to affect his play one way or the other.

What Diaby needs to curb, put simply, is his shit instinct; the force in his soul which causes him to flatter to deceive season after season. I’ve seen little this season to disprove my previous thought about the man, which is that just before Eboue had his brain wiped, Men In Black-style, of his knowledge of What Arsene Did Last Summer, he whispered to Abou Diaby What Arsene Did Last Summer, meaning that the continuous tradition of players who have known What Arsene Did Last Summer remains unbroken. If readers are bored before the match, why not consider who was the first ever player to know what Arsene Did Last Summer – Remi Garde? Is it possible that we had players who knew What Arsene Did Last Summer even before Arsene joined the club? If this were the case I would nominate John Jensen and pineapple-headed attacking midfield legend Chris Kiwomya.

But that’s just my theory.

In other news myself and some chums attended a screening of “The Gooner Review” the other day, in aid of charity. I went because the film had been well-reviewed on other sites, and also because I like Arsenal. I hate to put the boot in, but rarely have I been so pleased that my money is going to charity. The film was, bluntly, terrible. I feel bad writing this – not nice to put fellow Gooners down, but this is a commercial venture and it’s not up to scratch. Its aim was to present an honest fans’ appraisal of last season, dealing with the lows as well as the highs. This is a noble aim, and for the first ten minutes the charity screening was hilarious – Paul Kaye, who appears as the presenter in the film, introduced it live to the cinema and got the crowd singing some excellent long-forgotten chants – anyone remember “You’re Sylvain… you probably think this song is about you…”

The film then lurched into a “top 10” rundown of moments from our season, as described by a variety of luminaries. There was not a single bit of football shown – we were told that the licensers had refused permission without reason shortly before the screening. But without any football the ‘talking heads’ had to be even stronger, and they were weak beforehand. The ubiquitous Nick Hornby and Amy Lawrence were wheeled out to not say very much, and were joined by a bizarre menagerie of random blokes (guitarists from local bands? ‘Arsenal fan’) and deeply minor celebrities (the percussionist from ‘M People’, anyone?). This would have been fine, had they anything interesting to say, but in the main they didn’t, instead spouting inane clichés about Arsenal’s youth policy, the effect of Arshavin etc. It was like being in a pub full of slightly old boring drunk men after an Arsenal match, when you yourself are completely sober, and have somewhere else to be. The production was clunky, and the video seemed to have been edited who had little experience making, or indeed watching, films. Again I can’t emphasise how guilty I feel about this, but without the football, and some quality insight, I can’t understand why you would part with your hard-earned lucre in a recession to do it. Sorry, Gooner review. I truly wish you better luck next season – it’s a great idea, but this version wasn’t up to it.

Right. Off to the Emirates now. I am taking a friend who trades derivatives at RBS. Can you think of a worse job title this year?

Come on you reds.

So a slim 1-0 lead to take to Rome but, I feel, a lead which ought to make us strong favourites to progress to the quarter finals.

It should have been more. The tie should be over.

Let’s get the missed chances out of the way first off, principally a howler from Eboue who decided to fanny around inconsequentially when one-on-one with Doni before sidefooting wide. Then there was Bendtner who somehow managed to clear the crossbar from about 8 yards and loads of time. There were other good chances, of course, but those 2 were the ones that you really have to nail in a tie of this magnitude.

I thought we’d be punished tonight, let’s just hope we don’t regret those misses too much in Rome.

Yet apart from their glaring misses, Bendtner and (especially) Eboue had played well. It was a strange decision from the Boss to start Nasri inside with Bendtner wide left and Van Persie alone up top, but it unsettled the Italians and while Bendtner’s individual performance left a bit to be desired, the tactical threat which he carried was considerable. Eboue had a strong game defensively and seemed to have got over the concentration deficit which has plagued him so often. His charges forward were pretty regular and, like most teams, Roma didn’t really know what to do.

Unfortunately, neither did Eboue once he got himself into a position to really cause some damage.

You sometimes get the feeling that people who talk about Arsenal’s ‘Total Football’ have got it all wrong. Total Football is about players who are comfortable in loads of positions and can basically execute whatever skill is required of them. Many of our players simply don’t have this. They are passers and providers who have worked so much on that aspect that they seem to have lost the ability to shoot, or simply drive past the final man when you’re charging forward and he’s backpeddling. Surely it’s not that hard, and if Wenger did a bit of shooting practise with the likes of Denilson, Eboue, Clichy, Sagna I think we’d see quite a few more goals.

Obviously they’re never going to be our main scorers, but in situations like Eboue found himself in this evening, it would be nice to be hoping he would score rather than waiting for him to miss.

Also, and I know a lot of fans will have had this thought, but since we have a player with such extraordinary close-control and ability to shoot on the turn as Van Persie, the Islington Shuffle is especially counter-productive as an effective way of scoring goals. We got the penalty after 2 quick, central passes ended up at Van Persie’s feet and the defender couldn’t deal with it. We always used to pass quickly, but right now we aren’t trying to walk the ball into the net (the common misconception) but are in fact executing a complex routine of goal-threat avoidance. I just wish they wouldn’t.

Still, a strong performance overall from the boys, who made Roma appear very ordinary indeed.

Their defence looked pretty suspect and Mexes should really have been sent off with a second yellow for the penalty. Roma will carry a definite attacking threat in 2 weeks time, but without an away goal or the suspended Daniele de Rossi, they will really need to come at us, which should provide lots of counter-attacking opportunities for the MAJESTIC Robin Van Persie to blast contemptuously into the net and then repeat his dandruff-brushing routine.

We always play well in Italy.

PS Don’t forget to enter our brilliant Philosophy Football competition. You could win an extremely elegant t-shirt.

A disappointing performance at Everton. We failed to sustain any meaningful threat on the Everton goal (or penalty area) as the Islington Shuffle just sort of fell apart. Directionless in recent games, this goal-shy rambling around approach to the game would at least have been better than what we saw last night.

Everton are a good side, strikerless or otherwise, and their midfield made it tough right from the start. We defended fairly reasonably, but we’re lucky they didn’t have Yakubu or Saha to call upon.

That said, there’s something about this Arsenal team, isn’t there? They’ve got something. Admittedly they don’t have Thierry Henry, a ridiculously long unbeaten run, a love of going 3 goals up in the first 9 minutes of home games, or any chance of the title, but they’ve got something else which some much grander Arsenal teams in recent years haven’t really had. The ability to score at the death in crunch situations. Could come in handy in the Cups.

The draw wasn’t what we wanted, but a defeat would have been disastrous. Step up Robin Van Persie with yet another quality goal for the compilation-makers. If Robin had been doing this for the Invincibles, you’d be hearing a lot more about it in the press. I think it’s important to appreciate the top class players we do have regardless of press coverage (though you can see how far that can get you in public esteem - witness Ronaldo’s gong show) rather than simply bemoan the team’s performance and conclude that none of the players are as good as they were ‘back in the day’. Which day? Circa February 2004, probably.

On UpForGrabsNow, we don’t mention Arshavin unless Arsene mentions him first, which he did last night, saying the deal is “90%” done, but sounding a note of caution, essentially that Arshavin might change his owlish mind and have his head turned (geddit?) in other directions and bigger pots of cash. I’m not sure whether to believe the media on this one. They’ve lied so many times on this story that for once it really is a case of waiting for the official website to start giving away complementary Arshavin desktop backgrounds showing the owlish one grinning coldly at London Colney.

I rather suspect that, while wages may be a minor issue, it is rather Arsenal’s insistence on naming rights that’s holding up that extra 10% of the deal. That is, the right to rename Arshavin as ‘Arse’vin’ in accordance with our policy on staff whose names are considered to be (and I quote club statute here) “phonetically related to the name of the football club sufficiently that their existing name could be altered to include the word “Arse” without causing undue confusion.”

Incidentally, I’d like to register what may prove to be a historic disagreement with Grabber on Arse’vin.

I think he’s going to sign, and I think he will prove to be a class signing for the club. I’ve had enough of Eboue on the wing and am pining for a winger who’ll get us 10-15 goals a season. Arse’vin looks like a good solution to me. Not the only one. Perhaps not the best one out there. Perhaps quite an expensive one in the end. But his signing will be very good news for Arsenal.

Don’t forget our fantastic Philosophy Football giveaway: you can win a fantastic and strictly unofficial Arsénal t-shirt. Grabs and I both have them and they’re brill – to enter simply answer the question:

Who was Arsene Wenger managing when he joined Arsenal?

Email your answer to admin@philosophyfootball.com with the heading Up For Grabs Now Competition – deadline for entries is 28 February. In the meantime feel free to visit their website: lots of good stuff on it… http://www.philosophyfootball.com/new_win.html

And finally do please remember you can now sign up for Up For Grabs Now emails, delivering you the most eloquent and intelligent Arsenal waffle straight to your inbox, so you no longer have to worry about checking to see how lazy we’ve been: sign up using the box below.

Very many apologies for the silence from our end this weekend.

Fictional excuses: Grabber was getting a few of his choicest bonsai trees ready for an agricultural show this week, and I was engaged in a gruelling shampoo testing programme.

After some humming and hah-ing and a chronically timid piece of defending from Gael, we finally managed to crush Hull City beneath our imperious Arsenal heel. A goal of happily Piresian economy from Nasri and then a box-busting one-two between Van Persie and Bendtner gave the scoreboard the warm and fuzzy glow of dominance, an aura which was probably merited over the piece, however tardily it might have been achieved.

At this point, I’d like to reiterate that Alan Shearer is an imbecile of Daniel-Levian proportions. He ‘talked’ last night on MOTD (where we were scandalously on after Man City) about the home fixture between Hull and Arsenal, and said that Hull had been “dominant” on that occasion. He can only be describing the sort of dominance where you park not so much a mere bus as a bona fide East Coast mainline express train (with a quiet coach and a serviceable cafeteria) in front of your goal and then score a wondergoal and a header from your only two tentative sniffs at goal. Idiot.

I hope Shearer finally plucks up the balls to finally take the Newcastle job just so we can watch him oversee a disastrous implosion which gets them relegated having been hailed by hysterical Geordies everywhere as the messiah. We’ll see how far his lazily-informed, smugly expressed, know-all hindsight gets him then, won’t we?

Though I must applaud Johan Djourou for his innovative, and potentially homicidal, last minute upwards-headering technique, yesterday really belonged to the man possessed of 3 assists, the goal of the month for December and the balance of Natalia Markarova Rudolf Nureyev (who, my researcher informs me, is a ballet dancer with ’sick’ balance).

Yes, the man on form right now is Robin Van Persie. When he isn’t injuring himself or butting the unfortunate goalkeepers of lesser teams firmly on the bonce in seemingly unprovoked attacks, then he’s crashing rasping free-kicks against the bar and ripping opposition defences firmly asunder. More crashing and ripping and less injuring and butting, thanks Robin. He’s an absolute joy to watch right now, and long may it continue.

Something else which will hopefully continue is our ability to score late goals. Arsene, never one with a head for figures, helpfully pointed out post-match that:

I think we have scored 16 goals in the last 15 minutes of the last 33 games, and we did that again today.

I’d be very interested to see a proper analysis of how many of those goals were in some way related to the substitution of Emmanuel Eboue in favour of a player with a working knowledge of the sport. I’d wager a fair few.

As ever, we love to hear your thoughts, shouts, groans, cheers, yelps, farts, screams and laughs. Stick ‘em in the comments section where the sun don’t shine and we’ll have a right old chinwag.

So a nice comfy 3-1 against Plymouth, a team known as ‘The Pilgrims’ and not, as one irate ‘Pilgrim’ pointed out to us yesterday, as ‘The Posh’. Peterborough United are ‘The Posh’. Barry Fry, trains to the North and that sort of thing. Not very ‘posh’ at all, so you can see why we were a bit confused. It’s sometimes difficult to keep on top of the nicknames of *so-called lesser* clubs especially when their names aren’t so good for rhyming headlines, so we’re deeply sorry for any difficulties which may have been caused.

Our performance was characterised by skipper for the day Van Persie trying his oranje balls off, scoring 2 and brilliantly making another. Gallas must have been overjoyed to see Van Persie wearing the armband. Wenger made a good point that when Van Persie arrived you wouldn’t have immediately guessed that he was a future captain. Scrawny arrogance with a brill-cream quiff and some unsavoury headlines – all in the past, eh?

We also saw Bendtner being crap, Eboue revelling in his free role and Nasri pulling some pretty slick strings as he cut inside in the second half. This has got the inevitable “Can he replace Cesc?” whispers going. Maybe, and yes he did play centrally for Marseille and France. The thing is we then have absolutely nobody to play on the wing which is what we lacked so much before Cesc got injured. So yes Nasri in CM is definitely an option, but it would need to be accompanied by one or two signings for the wings.

There was also our stubborn refusal to defend, fast becoming a jaw-droppingly painful aspect of the season. Plymouth launched a rare attack straight after our second goal. Our back-four had a brief meeting and took the extraordinarily bold decision not to bother defending the goal at all, preferring a revolutionary new conception of the role of a ‘defender’ as a man who stands in the space traditionally occupied by so-called ‘defenders’ and wears all of the kit necessary to carry out defensive work but in fact fails to do any of it.

I saw the minutes of the meeting. They said “we the undersigned declare that during this next bit of pressure, when Plymouth are likely to attack more forcefully than at any other stage in the game, we will neither tackle, nor mark, nor block, nor make any movement to impede opposition attempts to score which might reasonably be construed as constituting defending. Signed, Messrs Gibbs, Gallas, Djourou, Sagna.”

As a response to enemy aggression, it’s not even appeasement or diplomacy – it’s just sordid, inexplicable slothfulness. I’ve had enough of it and I suspect I’m not alone. Please defend.

While we’re on the defence, I notice that not a single Gooner has batted an eyelid at Silvestre’s 3-week lay-off. Well, I’d like to be the first. I’m not that upset, but it’s a bit annoying purely in terms of squad numbers. So Mickael, this bat is for you, son.

The News of the World is a silly organisation, isn’t it? If you didn’t know anything about it you might see the title and think “Wow, that’s good! News! From the World! I must purchase this informative gazette and peruse it at my leisure!”

If you did that today you’d be in for rather a nasty shock. Far from reporting world events by, say, detailing Israeli military aggression towards the civilian population of Gaza, this so-called “newspaper” is instead concerned with peddling heinous untruths about Arsenal Football Club and apparently celebrating the very existence of the human mammary gland.

They claim we’re signing Steven Ireland! I wouldn’t mind, but you just know it’s cock-rot don’t you? They then claim that Theo is desperately unhappy with not having a new contract. Pish. They quote “a source close to Walcott”. Here’s a World Exclusive: “a source close to [insert professional footballer's name here]” is nearly always actually “a man sitting next to the hopeless tabloid hack in his crumby office”. Don’t believe a word.

Similarly, don’t believe a word of the Daily Heil, who carry the bizarre claim that Arsene is in a massive tizzy with the board because they won’t put up the cash for Arshavin and that he’s off to Real Madrid. Arsene denied all this roughly one day ago. Maybe they got a bit confused?

UPDATE: 4th ROUND DRAW: We’ve got Cardiff away. Which is fine to be honest. Certainly preferable to Tiny Totts, who are going to Old Trafford. Point and laugh. No end in sight for their major trophy drought.

Well, that was angry, breathless, and, purely as a football game, a bit bollocks wasn’t it?

You all saw the key incidents, I’m sure.

An explosive goal of rare grace and ingenuity from Van Persie. The sort of goal only he can score. The kind of footballing brilliance where you pretty much punch the ceiling as the net bulges, your mouth hangs open and your guts jump for joy, but part of you can’t help thinking “why can’t he do that all the time?” Probably because it’s really really hard to do – even for him.

Liverpool hit back with their first decent attack of the game - a high-bouncing hoof caught out Djourou as Keane snuck in front of him and finished magnificently. The guy’s a pillock, but what a well taken goal. I won’t blame Djourou or Almunia. Keane hit it so early that there was little they could do from their starting positions, where normally a touch or an extra bounce would have allowed them to recover.

Cesc hobbled off and will be a major concern. The TV cameras showed him holding his shirt to his face and the great man looked very frustrated. Let’s hope it was just a heavy knock and he hasn’t sustained a profound injury. His frustration could simply have been because he knew he wouldn’t be able to play the second half, not necessarily anything longer. Fingers crossed. We need him.

In the first half Arsenal had a surprising amount of joy playing high, direct balls for Adebayor whose knock-downs into the midfield gave us several decent attacking platforms in an advanced area of the pitch. This seemed to dry up in the second half as the reshaped midfield struggled a bit without their injured General.

Adebayor had been looking pretty pissed off all game and put in a really stupid challenge considering he was on a yellow. Of course the Liverpool prat made a meal out of it so big you could have added a few sprouts and called it a Christmas Dinner, and our fans were rightly outraged (as was Arsene). Still, a silly thing for Adebayor to do when he’s on a yellow card. Very silly in such a big game which looked there for the taking with 11 men. The boy needs a rocket up him if you ask me, and fast.

From then on the game got even scrappier, the moronic Howard Webb booking our players at every possible opportunity and Liverpool showing the kind of lack of ambition which could well deny them the title. Pretty much 35 minutes against 10 men missing their captain and heartbeat. A chance, you’d think, to kill off a rival’s fading title hopes and compound their Christmas lead. No attacking substitutions until Babel on 70 minutes and still no real thrust to their attack. !Rafa, no me jodas! Donde esta los cojones?

Finally, a word on the performances of Song and Denilson, two players much maligned who will doubtless have to face all kinds of misguided criticism after this result. Rarely has there been such a gap between Arsene’s belief in a player and the fans’ suspicion of them as there currently is with these two.

Well, I’ve got news for their haters. I’m not saying that they have both been consistently outstanding this season or anything like that, nor am I saying I’d want them in a first-choice midfield every week. But today they played superbly against a vastly more experienced Liverpool midfield and both of them out of their natural position. Where was Stevie G? Song had him. 

For once, let’s just stand up and give them a bit of credit, shall we. Two battling performances (not perfect, by any means) but certainly well worthy of the shirt in my opinion.

What did you think of the match then? Post your views underneath and we’ll have a right old chinwag.

Would do very nicely today. Apart from the death bit. I don’t wish that on anyone.

The biggest match of the season, apart from the matches we’ve already had including Manchester United and Chelsea, and the matches we’ve yet to come, including Manchester  United and Chelsea again.

But seriously (although it feels as if we have to say this all the time) this is a make or break moment for the side: win and we’ll close the gap on Liverpool to five points – a lead which everybody knows is completely conquerable, particularly given the shiny new squad members which are undoubtedly going to arrive in January.  Lose and we’re sunk, and the rats will start leaving in January.

Nasri’s back, which might make a fair bit of difference: he gives us the Piresian width we lacked so badly against Boro. Whilst he’s looked promising so far his injuries habit is becoming very irritating. I hope he grows out of it, and doesn’t end up dead like Tom Rosicky. It’s also high time Cesc had a big game, if you’re asking me. Which you’re probably not. But then again, you’re reading this, so you can at least pretend to for a bit. Cesc ought to be doing that thing he did at the start of last season where he scores lots and lots of goals.

There isn’t much to report on the Bracers shares debacle, although with time from the event everything is predictably calming down quite a lot. I’m hopefully meeting my top-secret inside source tomorrow, from which point I’ll no doubt be able to give you Grabbers a unique inside-track on what’s going on.
Until then, come on you reds. I’ll take a couple of goals like this, thanks very much…

In other news, yesterday I felt like my life was becoming too purposeful so I reinstalled Championship Manager 2000-2001, and I must say they did get quite a lot of things wrong. I mean quite a lot right, too, but quite a lot wrong. For instance, the game doesn’t feature, on any level, Cesc, Ronaldo, Drogba, Messi or lots of other great players. Given the amount everyone talks about how comprehensive their databases are, those are four pretty big omissions for players who looked good from a very early age…

This is, you’re right, slightly sad of me. But if anyone can remember any really good players from 2000-2001 I’d be delighted to hear them…

Some areas of the media have spent the last fortnight suggesting that Arsenal are a a bunch of overrated, too-young flimsies with a tendency to self-destruct and massive issues with commitment, talent and self-belief band of maverick gypsy-footballing geniuses who only needed an occasion and a bit of luck to prove themselves potential world-beaters. Those areas have just been proved correct.

What a !

It wasn’t easy; it was never going to be, but our team delivered the goods this afternoon and we continue our 100% record against the big sides. 

Lots of people were sceptical about the optimism going into this match, but the team showed once again the talent they have, and offered a glimpse of the team they could be if they applied themselves like this all the time. 

Robin stepped up when he had to, and Cesc showed that he’s got the stones to be the captain in the games that really matter – Djourou was very unlucky with the own goal, I felt. It was a challenge he had to make, and the test of a player (and his teammates, more to the point) is how they respond when these things happen.

It wasn’t perfect – there are still lots of questions to be asked of the defence and midfield, but as against United we made the most of our luck. Better to be a lucky team than a good one, to paraphrase Napoleon.

More on the match tomorrow, and also more on those blogs who’ve seen fit to start criticising our greatest postwar manager for myopia after a few dodgy games…

But for now let’s enjoy the victory. Have between twenty five and a million beers.

It’s the £64,000 (a week) question. He won’t tell us anything. Oh, except that ‘it happened during an attacking move’ and the player is ’six years younger’ than him.

You have to hand it to him – he is a very clever little captain of Arsenal.

I, however, have prehensile thumbs, and consequently have been able to deduce from google and my imagination that there are currently four players on the squad our Cryptic Captain could be talking about: Eh?boo-him, RvP, Sagna and Eduardo. I’m counting Eduardo out, unless he’s become so aggravated by the itchiness of his cast that he’s taken to sitting in the dressing room and dissing the tastes in gangster rap of former Arsenal captains. 

And I suspect Sagna is ok too. Sagna seems to me like the kind of guy who is quite happy doing his job as well as he can, and occasionally gets frustrated by the incompetence of those around him (the central halves, say) but mostly puts his head down and gets on with it.

This leaves Eh?boo-him and Van Persie. Now, I have to say that during their time at Arsenal I have had mixed feelings about both of these players in terms of commitment and approach. However, I have come to the conclusion that Eboue is basically a running, diving definition of the words ‘hapless muppet’, and whilst he might make the odd bad French rap about money, he is basically too dense to be a problem.

This leaves RvP. I can completely see why RvP would be a problem. He’s a battler, yet equally gets frustrated. He was also the one creating most of the attacking against Spurs, where the problems were alleged to have surfaced.

My money is on RvP. What do we reckon?