On my way to work yesterday, I dropped in to a cafe to pick up the obligatory coffee for anyone enduring office hours on a Saturday morning. Waiting for the foamy goodness to emerge from behind the counter, my eyes were drawn to a garish tabloid front page about the personal life of our manager.
I have no comment on the allegations. All I want to say is this: it’s interesting to note that not one single credible sports news outlet has referenced the story. Not the BBC, not The Guardian, not even Sky.
All I have to say is this: there are plenty of crap newspapers peddling crap stories. There is only one Arsene Wenger. Remember that, and sing it loud this afternoon.
Manchester United scraped another win yesterday, meaning it’s vital we pick up three points at home to Newcastle. How are this United side still unbeaten? They’re the worst Fergie team in years. Wayne Rooney is out-of-action and out-of-sorts. Yesterday they gave a start to a reanimated corpse called Owen Hargreaves, and when he disintegrated after less than ten minutes, they brought on a player who looked like a homeless competition-winner. Partly because that’s almost exactly what Bebe is. What’s worrying is that United teams usually pick up form in the second half of the season. Their performances up until now should have them adrift, and yet there they are, right in among the chasing pack.
All of which means we’ve got no room to slip up. Fortunately, we go in to the game on the back of some good injury news. Cesc Fabregas, Andrey Arshavin, Alex Song and Denilson are all fit to return to the squad. Koscielny, Sagna, and Chamakh, none of whom started in the Ukraine, can also come back in to the team.
It means that Arsene could plump for several different permutations. The defence should be fairly straightforward: Fabianski behind the French quartet of Sagna, Squillaci, Koscielny and Clichy. In midfield, Fabregas and Song are certain starts. In the continued and concerning absence of Abou Diaby, Wilshere seems the obvious choice to complete the trio, but Arsene might go for the physicality of Denilson against Newcastle’s robust outfit. Upfront Chamakh and Nasri are both automatic picks, and then it’s a straight choice between Andrey Arshavin and Theo Walcott. On form it’d have to be Theo, but Arsene might be loathe to give Walcott’s recuperating limbs two starts in a matter of days.
You’ll remember we faced Newcastle not too long ago with a rather different team. A 4-0 win at St. James’ Park exaggerated the gulf between the two sides – in truth it was a closer contest in which we capitalised on a couple of lightening breaks.
That wasn’t Newcastle’s strong team either. After adding the likes of Andy Carroll and Kevin Nolan back in to team, they recovered from their League Cup lashing with a stunning 5-1 thrashing of neighbours Sunderland. Carroll in particular was outstanding, and Squillaci and Koscielny will have to be at their best to keep him quiet.
Still, score an early goal and we know that Newcastle can be vulnerable to the counter. A win is essential. For our position and the league, and perhaps for Arsene.
Come On You Gunners.
ill comment on the story about arsene……..its rubbish and heres why.
1. the papers have said the club has issued a statement. ive looked on arsenal.com no statement has been issued. so either they completely made the statement up or they asked one of the cleaners and took that as a credible source.
2. they said arsene made a statement too. again not released on arsenal.com he apparently said he’d deal with this matter privately. now he wasnt in a press conference this weekend although lets say he wanted one he could of just confirmed or denied the story. he did neither because you cant really deny a crap story. so the papers have been talking out of their **** and done pretty good at it.
team for tomorrow will be
fabianski
sagna squillaci koscielny clichy
fabregas song wilshere
nasri chamakh arshavin
subs: szczesny, djourou, eboue, rosicky, wilshere, bendtner, vela.
oh and wenger cant sue the papers because of the fact the papers said “allegedly”.
allegedly is the word papers use so they dont get themselves into trouble.
I have a suspicious feeling about the story of Arsene lol. Even though no one of the big boys picked it up or paid attention to it, I still think it’s of their construction. Could it be that they’re testing to see what kind of response it recieves since it has to do with someone like Arsene??? I get the feeling that if the crowd at Emirates tmro sing his name the whole match in support, sky and the rest will pick it up from there, which is a cunning way to do it lol…..they might say that since the crowd are behind him, there must be something true behind it and use that as a reference lol…..weird thoughts I know, but you can never trust em
You think your story is bad? Just wait til you read the latest Toon “scandal” threatening to come out in – where else – the NOTW! it reads like it was written by a 12 year old, and you gotta wonder about the timing! F’in hate the press in this country
actually Arsenalisto that makes sense. england has the worst journalism in the world. ill be surprised if they dont try and have a go at wenger tomorrow
wenger has been proved right on many levels and the media hate that. and anytime hes wrong or arsenal dont perform the media have a go at him.
We don’t know if the Arsene story is true or not. But i belief this sort of story don’t just come out of no where(as we have seen with rooney et al case). I just hope it is not true because the media will have a feed day with it(since they are always looking for ways to bring arsene down)
Wenger pls newcastle match most be 3point
i suppose one good thing to come out of all this is that this latest smear on wenger should put to bed that vile song all the scum of manchester, west london and the crap half of north london sing…
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I will never pay for the sun news paper again. its not because of the Wenger story its because of a cater-log of ante arsenal storeys
My sympathes to you all re the crap being dished out to Arsenne. We at newcastle are well used to this sort of sh!t from the more sensationalist rags especially the Mail who seem to delight in stirring up the crap without foundation. However, down to more pressing matters.
The lucky Arsenal tag seems to keep following you around, but I don,t thinkyou,ll get the two goal start we managed to afford you in last weeks affair. Given the form we,ve been in recently, I fully expect this to be a much tighter encounter and see the Toon making much more of a fist of it this time round.
We at Newcastle seem to have dispensed with the rose tinted glasses these days,and are under no illusions as to the task facing us thisafternoon with us possibly missing out by the odd goal (perhaps 3-2 ). We have a footballing side these days which if allowed to perform, may just help to provide for an exciting match.
Heres to proper football and believe me, beating the Gooners is not as important as staying in front of the unwashed from Sunderland.,,,HWTL. Peter fro Cyprus.
Good article but one major “dig your own grave” statement… You made a big mistake by calling Bebe homeless… Being homeless is indeliberate part of the victim just like being handicapped or physically flawed… Obviously you have not been homeles before so you dont understand the negative feeling of being one… This abuse is also a form of discrimination… No matter how much I dislike Man Utd, they are still a very successful club with good management and relationship between players and staff… A big, strong family, I could say… So, Bebe is not homeless anymore… Club rivalry should not prompt anybody to be unfairly discriminated… Im sure Arsene Wenger had brought class and humility to the club and taught the club the meaning of dicipline and generousity so we fans, supporters, bloggers or whatever you are should carry on the name in a genuine manner… It takes one drop of poison to spoil the whole bucket, so I hope your comments will not come and bite us in the future… Im a Arsenal fan and Arsene is role model by the way…
I haven’t called him homeless.
What’s more, I’ve worked as a volunteer with shelter.
It’s a joke.
Anyway, let’s put that to one side and get behind the Gunners.
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