The snow has affected the football world too, with a few games being called off during the week. For us, the main postponement was, of course, the Cardiff game. This has been rescheduled for Monday 16th February and may give Arshavin hat extra week to gain some fitness.
Talking about the Russian, according to the BBC, he is included in the squad to face Sp*rs on Sunday. Although they have published a 19 man squad... as follows:
Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Toure, Clichy, Nasri, Denilson, Song, Eboue, Adebayor, Van Persie, Fabianski, Djourou, Gibbs, Wilshere, Vela, Bendtner, Ramsey, Arshavin.
It will be interesting to see how Arsene handles the defence, with Toure, Djourou and Gallas all fit.
There has been a bit more reaction to the whole Arshavin saga, with many clubs querying why it was allowed. Arsene has explained recently that everything was completed prior to the deadline.
“It was done in the last minute, but regularly. We have nothing to hide. We just did the deal very late in the afternoon, sent it to the Premier League and they ratified it. If the deal was not right we would have cancelled the transfer and accepted it. We have done nothing wrong. In every transfer window you have at least ten or 15 clubs who have to wait until the next morning usually to get agreement from the Premier League. We just didn’t want to announce it as long as it wasn’t officially accepted.”
And that’s always the way a club like Arsenal will work – we’d always wait until it was completed, 100% and signed on the dotted line before announcing it to the world.
Adebayor has been self critical and has talked about his recent form. The Ivorian Togolese said:
“To be honest, no [I am not happy], because I am a striker and I have only scored 12 goals up to now. I know I have missed some chances and need to do a bit more, but that is football – there is no player who scores 10 times out of 10, not even Pele. For me the most important thing is to keep believing that I can do it and keep helping my team-mates to win games. That is what we are here for and I think at the moment I am doing that quite well.”
And he’s right when he says “he needs to do a bit more”. In fact, “do something”, “anything”… is the cry from the fans. Ade’s form has been so poor, many people wonder why we didn’t sell him – well apparently, no one bid for him, that’s why!
Ade’s been talking about the game against Sp*rs on Sunday and had this to day:
“Spurs is always a great occasion – nobody has to motivate you, this comes on its own simply because we are playing Spurs. I hope to do something good and that we can take the three points. It is always great to do that against Spurs, especially for our fans. What is nice about this derby is that it is always a good game on the pitch, regardless of anything off it.”
It will be a great game on Sunday. I won’t be at the game, but the JATmeister will, so I’ll be interested to here how the game goes from the “being there” point of view.
I’ll be back tomorrow with a Sp*rs preview…]]>
