The North Bank – “It’s got va-va-voom” (An Arsenal blog)

Saturday has finally arrived and we are just a few hours away from the return of football. Well, football that actually matters anyway.

Yesterday saw the announcement of yet another injury, that of Tomas Vermaelen, who is set to miss today’s game with an achilles injury. Let’s hope that he isn’t struck down by RvP Syndrome and that he returns for the game against Braga. My joy at us having a fully fit defense for the first time in bloody ages didn’t last very long! It was only about 6hrs after writing the post when the injury was announced.

I’m not sure why we seem to pick up more injuries than other teams, but I hope that it is something that the club can analyse and try to implement a fix for. Of course, not all injuries can be legislated for but, the muscular injuries we pick up may be because of something that is done on the training ground because we seem to pick up more of that kind of injury than other teams. I know that injuries like Walcott’s, and Van Persie’s last year, are just a bit unlucky but frustrating nonetheless.

The injury to Vermaelen should see us line up in defense with Almunia, Sagna, Koscielny, Squillaci, and Clichy. Midfield may be comprised of Song, Diaby, Fabregas, Arshavin and Eboue, with Chamakh being the sole striker up front. It will be interesting to see whether or not the manager starts with Eboue or if he decides to go with one of Rosicky or Vela instead. Perhaps Wilshere will get another chance to get a run-out.

Today’s game will be a big test for our central defenders as they will have to deal with the aerial fouling of Kevin Davies. It will be a baptism of fire for Squillaci on his debut for the first team. Fingers crossed he can deal with Davies’s elbows and all-round c*ntiness.

It’s interesting to see the amount of recent Eboue-related Tweets, I can only assume that there is still a bit of guilt floating around after the hammering that he took before. Yes, he has done really well to fight back from the low of the Wigan game but he hasn’t turned into the new Pires. Though it does seem that there is now a kind of Cult of Eboue picking up, which is kind of funny, I suppose, and if it helps boost the player’s confidence and helps him to improve even more, then that’s great. If you compare what Eboue went through with us and yet had the character to stay and fight his way back into the hearts and minds of the fans versus the likes of Diarra, who buggered off after just a few months because he wasn’t getting enough games, then you must admit that Eboue deserves whatever adulation he gets.

Elsewhere, I almost swerved off the road when hearing that Tottenham may be about to make Gallas their captain. Oh, how funny that would be. Please let it be true.

Hleb has been talking about his regret about leaving us for Barcelona and that he has been in contact with Cesc since returning to England. Let’s hope that he was telling Cesc how Xavi et al are a bunch of w*nkers with c*nt DNA.

The manager has also been talking about Jack Wilshere and his dropping for an u21 game:

“I was surprised and I don’t think it needs any more comment. Jack is quite focused on training and he wants to do well. From what I’ve heard Jack hasn’t done a lot wrong. If I go out with you and you have a problem, do you want me to run away?

If I have a friend with me and I’m in trouble I prefer that he stays. Sometimes for me a guy who goes out is not a footballer only. He’s a friend of a man who is there – why is it just the footballer who is completely different in that kind of situation? If I go out with you and you have a problem with somebody else I am not a footballer, I am somebody who is just trying to sort something out.

Ideally, footballers should be at home in bed at 3am…none of us were angels when we were 20 … we all made mistakes…you don’t make a career at the top level if you don’t know how to behave, it’s impossible.”

Just like he did with Walcott, I think Pearce has made a bit of a c*nt out of Wilshere and the way he treats our players really annoys me. Either a player is an u21 or a full international, they shouldn’t be d*cked around by being moved between the two squads. That is more so the case with Walcott, given his age. The dropping of Wilshere for the u21s last week and the reason given was a bit weak, to say the least, especially when you consider that Rooney played in both of the full squad’s qualifiers.

Although the game is an 11pm JST kick-off, the TV Gods are being a bunch of sh*tbags this week and the game won’t be shown until 1:24am on J-Sports Plus (J-Sports and Sky Perfect channel listings) I’ll be streaming this one, methinks.

That’s about all I have for today. Here’s hoping for a good result against Bolton today to help us forget about our injury worries. Fingers crossed that those journeymen cloggers don’t injure any of our players.

Take it easy.