Chelsea: “We don’t want to lose Diarra to one of our rivals”
216 comments August 4th, 2007
Chelsea assistant manager Steve Clarke has denied the club are on the brink of selling Lassana Diarra to Arsenal:
“Last January he came to me and spoke about his need to get more playing time. After that, he came in to the team and did very well. But we don’t want to lose players to one of our rivals. Last year William Gallas joined Arsenal, but that was because we were getting Ashley Cole in the deal.”
Clarke certainly implies that we are interested in the player. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with this one: Chelsea have a history of denying possible sales, only for the deal to be concluded in the following days.
Arsene Wenger has given his reaction our Champions League qualifying opponents, Sparta Prague. I have to say that all things being equal, we really should beat them. Especially when you remember that they have Tomas “Super Tom” Repka. Our own Super Tom, a certain Mr. Rosicky, will enjoy a trip back to his former stomping ground.
At 8.15pm GMT we face Ajax in our final pre-season game of the Summer. I’d expect the new back four of Sagna-Toure-Gallas-Clichy to play in front of Jens Lehmann, with Cesc and Diaby in the middle. Eboue and Rosicky might be the wingers, with Robin van Persie partnered by one of Aleksandr Hleb or Eduardo da Silva. Basically, it will be a side very close to the one that faces Fulham in just over a week’s time.
In that respect, it should make for some very interesting viewing. I’m off to a wedding. Ciao.
