Bolton Preview: Polar Bears are endangered
126 comments September 24th, 2011
In the build-up to today’s crucial match with Bolton Wanderers, Arsene Wenger has compared himself to ursus maritimus – that cuddly killer, the polar bear.
“Since I arrived in England there have been a lot of things said.
Personally I do not complain. I am supposed to take the bullets and absorb them. Like a bear, a polar bear.
In fairness, they don’t hurt me too much. You worry more about the young player who gets in the team at the moment and gets slaughtered. I remember when I was 19 that was much more difficult for me to take.”
Whilst I understand Arsene’s intention – to depict himself as a shield for his players, taking the weight of criticism upon his experienced shoulders – I would question some aspects of his chosen analogy. I’m not sure where Arsene’s got his info, but I’m not convinced polar bears are “supposed” to take bullets at all. When plucky Tommies went over the top in the Great War, they did not send a squadron of polar bears out first as cannon fodder. Shooting a polar bear is, I’m pretty sure, illegal. They’re endangered, after all.
It’s here that Arsene’s analogy begins to right itself and come bobbing up on the side of truth once more. The threat of global warming has led scientists to suggest polar bears could be eliminated within 100 years. Lose against Bolton today, and Arsene could find himself under an even more immediate threat of extinction.
The team will be very similar to the one that started at Blackburn. Tomas Rosicky has recovered and is back in the squad, but is unlikely to dislodge any of Song, Ramsey and Arteta. The only possible changes are on the flanks – Arsene Wenger will have to choose between Kieran Gibbs and Andre Santos, and is likely to reintroduce Theo Walcott, most likely at the expense of Andrey Arshavin.
Alex Chamberlain is in the squad, and Arsene insists, “ready to play”:
“With the ball, he’s ready. Off the ball he plays now like a young talented boy and he has to take responsibility in the senior team.
That will demand two or three months and after he will be there.”
If we’re in a winning position he might get off the bench today to make his home league debut.
I’m optimistic we’ll begin to turn out form around this afternoon, but the day’s undoubtedly been clouded by some bad news: Jack Wilshere will undergo surgery on his ankle and is likely to be out until Christmas at the earliest. It’s huge blow. With Cesc and Nasri gone, Jack is comfortably our most accomplished and inspirational midfield player. This team ought to be being built around him – instead, he’ll be absent for half the season. The only positive spin I can put on it is that I’d rather have him fit for the second half of the season than the first, when we reach the crunch period and the accumulation of points is all the more vital.
Whether or not we get Champions League football, there are already ominous signs for next summer. The quintet of Andrey Arshavin, Thomas Vermaelen, Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott and Alex Song all have less than two years to run on their existing deals. If new contracts aren’t tied up this season, we could find ourselves over a barrel as we did with Samir Nasri. Arsene doesn’t exactly sound confident of reaching agreements with all players concerned:
“We will try to convince them. Our desire is there to do it and we are ready to sit down with them.
After that we see where we go but the gap on that front has become bigger for us so, today, I cannot say that if we go to the maximum [deal] we are sure to sign a player – even if we do that we are not sure.”
To compound your distress, Arseblog reports that Darren Dein (the machiavellian marketeer behind the exits of Henry, Clichy, Cesc & Nasri) is now representing the interests of both Song and Van Persie.
All that fun can wait for another day. For now, we need to focus on beating Bolton – who we’ve just been drawn against in the League Cup, as fate would have it. Come On You Gunners.
