The End For Hleb? + Cesc Competition Winner
Add comment May 9th, 2008
Hello all. I’ve missed you, having had a barely-earned day off from blogging yesterday to facilitate a thoroughly enjoyable lie-in.
We’ll start with the news that Aleksandr Hleb will seemingly be on his way within the next fortnight. Allow his agent to explain:
“Alex is preparing to make one of the most important moves of his life.
He is leaving even though Arsenal want to offer him a new long-term contract.
Only time will tell if it is the right decision but there’s no way back now. Everything will be settled in the next two weeks.”
He doesn’t leave much room for doubt, does he? Whether or not Hleb will invoke the Webster clause and leave for around £3m, or whether Inter will come in with a more reasonable offer and preserve the gentlemen’s agreement struck between the former G14 clubs not to abuse the ruling remains to be seen. Either way, it would be a significant surprise to see Hleb at the club come August, despite Arsene’s protestations.
Something about Hleb’s departure leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I suspect it’s the fact he will presumably cite our failure to win trophies, ignoring the fact that his plain refusal to score goals is a major factor in that failure. Whilst he is extraordinarily technically accomplished, I think the Belarussian would be easier to replace than Flamini – the Frenchman has a mental toughness that Hleb clearly lacks.
To be honest, I’m feeling pretty excited about who Arsene is looking to bring in this Summer. The AST revealed that he is looking for a powerhouse centre-back and a creative player (possibly to replace Hleb). Throw in a replacement for Flamini, and our team could be surprisingly different come next season. Hopefully ‘good different’ – ‘bad different’ is the kind of different teachers use to describe odd children that grow up to become serial killers.
Speaking of difference, who knows if we’ll even have the same captain next time round?
Anyhow, on to the Cesc Fabregas Show Competition. Congratulations to Tom Watt, who correctly answered that the shirt that Fabregas was just too cescy for on his debut was adorned with number 57. By a horrible coincidence, that was the same question that was posed over on The Cannon. I hope Tom didn’t win there too – that’d be rather unfair. Regardless, your tickets are in the post – enjoy!
I’d like to finish by offering a hearty congratulations to my pal arseblogger, who is about to make arseblogging his full-time, real-life ‘proper job’. At this point, I’d like to say that if any mildly idiotic (and overtly generous) businessman wants to pay me vast sums to write this garbage for half an hour each day, I might just be available. Thanks.
