Ok, seriously, this isn’t funny any more
Guess what? Diaby showed up for today’s practice with a knee injury!
Yep, that’s right, Diaby played all 90 minutes of last night’s game and showed no real sign of injury but when he came in to practice today he complained of knee pain. Scans revealed that he suffered medial knee ligament damage and he will be out for Sunderland on Saturday. There’s even some hint that this is worse than just Saturday’s match and he could be out for several weeks.
But that’s not all! A clearly exasperated Arsene Wenger gave an interview on the dot com (free video) and also revealed that Arshavin’s hamstring injury is worse than expected and he’s now expected to miss Sunderland and Stoke, Gallas’ calf injury has pretty much ruled him out for Stoke as well and Eduardo’s very very small, slight, minuscule, hamstring injury is going to keep him out of Saturday as well.
The good news is that Almunia is 50:50 and there’s an 80% chance of Song on Saturday.
Arsene claims to have looked at why Arsenal have picked up so many injuries this season and couldn’t find a reason. I have maintained since van Persie’s injury that there isn’t just one reason but rather a combination of four things: the size of the team, their age, their foreign-ness, and Arsenal’s style of play. It seems I might need to add a fifth, their post match fitness and training regimens.
Pompey begs to open the transfer window
Portsmouth have asked the FA to open the transfer window just for them so that they can sell some players and make wages this month and several sources are reporting that this plan is being greeted rather positively. Rumored players on the offer are left wing-back Nadir Belhaj, Kevin Prince Boatang, and 22 year old defender/midfielder Marc Wilson. Also, don’t forget that Calamity James is set to receive a huge contract if he plays one more League game for Pompey and could also be available for teams to look at.
I’d be surprised if Arsenal didn’t at least run the rule over the squad and see which players might fit the team. After all, Wenger loves a bargain and nothing screams bargain like the fire sale that looks likely to happen at Pompey very soon. That said, none of the players will likely be allowed to play this season as FIFA will sanction their transfer but then blocks them from playing. And even if they did allow some of them to play, a guy like Kevin Prince Boatang has already played for two teams this year and isn’t supposed to be allowed to play for a third. This last bit is a sticking point as well because all of these players want to play ahead of the World Cup and so someone like David James would almost certainly put the kibosh on any transfer which saw him languish on the bench not even eligible for Reserves games.
That said, if the FA don’t allow the transfers, then Pompey can’t pay their wages, again. This could possibly lead to liquidation which would result in a major shakeup of the table as all results scored against Pompey would be wiped from the record. In this nightmare situation Arsenal and Manciti would lose 6 points while Liverpool wouldn’t lose any, since they got beat by Pompey in their only match so far this season, keeping Arsenal in third place by just 2 points over Liverpool.
All of which would make me damn near literally tear my hair out.
Arsenal News 24/7
This result wiping is one of the most absurd rules I’ve heard of. I mean – I understand giving free 3 pts to any team that still has fixtures with Pompey ahead, but erasing what had already happened? WTF is this? Orwell’s 1984? Will Avram Grant’s pictures be erased from newspapers archives? Vaporizing?
What if we have played a game with Pompey, which would’ve resulted in a hard fought victory paid with 4 season long injuries? We’d lose points, but would anyone give us players back?
February 18th, 2010 at 10:36 am
@Miko_Gooner, worse, West Ham could get relegated because they took 4 points off Pompey.
How’s that for an actual kick in the teeth? Oh hey, yeah, sorry about that whole “you trying to win games thing” but Wolves, who didn’t bother to even play against Man U, get to stay up because they lost to Pompey?
That make ZERO sense.
February 18th, 2010 at 10:45 am
@Tim, that does sound worse, indeed, with the tiny exception that I don’t give a fiddler’s fart about where Hammers end up.
But agreed – it is a pure nonsense.
February 18th, 2010 at 10:51 am
@Miko_Gooner, Believe he was making a point about the absurdity of the rule.
February 18th, 2010 at 11:09 am
@Shobo, I know
And on second thought, I might even feel for Hammers, should they be relegated this way. Particularly if that meant Wolves, Bolton or Hull staying at their cost.
February 18th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
@Tim, West Ham U have been on borrowed Twilight Zone Time since illegal Tevez saved their bacon. They’re just getting what should have happened 2 yrs ago.
The league will step in to save the whole thing being a farce. No chance points will be taken away. Watching wolfsburg at min,id love Dzeko and Diego Lopes from Villarreal
Ugh. Someone wipe this season from my memory banks please.
After this injury news, my vote is to start the offseason early. I’d suggest our players wave the white flag, but I’m afraid their shoulders would be dislocated doing so.
tim – arseblog said on his podcast last week that when he feels let down by the arsenal, he listens to starship’s “we built this city” to cheer him up. maybe you could find a song to serve you the same purpose instead of pulling out your hair? othwerwise you may have nothing to pull out pretty soon. just a thought…
This is getting to be quite ridiculous. I mean, I agree with Tim that there is a number of reasons for this continuous visit to the treatment table, but at times I seem to think that we are cursed. As far as I remember, in the last four seasons, we have always had several key players missing huge numbers of games through injures, and I think I’ve had just about enough. Eduardo’s injury is small, small, small, and yet he takes a one month holiday, Diaby will probably be absent at least two or three weeks, then will come back likeadamndsadjdnewcrapsigning, spends a couple of games regaining his fitness and eye for avoiding to shoot the ball, but of course in the meantime someone else also pulls a hammy or two, and round the merry-go-round we go. I don’t remember seeing any of the other big clubs having this many fragile players, and if Arsene’s obsession with these technically gifted players is so big that he fails to see that a team built on porcelain legs can’t last a whole season, and definitely can’t waltz through tough English leg-breakers, than he is more stubborn than I thought.
I hope it happens. We could use David James in a World Cup year.
Poor defending let us down but I’m sure with a full strength squad we can win the return fixture.
February 18th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
@Paul Jeffrey, Did you read this blog son? We don’t have a f**king team any longer because any player that actually is effective has been injured, is about to become injured, already injured and they don’t know it until they wake up in the AM, will become injured in practice, will become injured going to the grocer or their middle name is ‘Injured’.
Today on Espn soccer’s front page: Laporta rules out Cesc pursuit.
I hope this is the case. Cesc needs to give us a few more years, and we need to give him support.