Supposedly, Arsenal are going to sign Goekhan (Gokhan, Gökhan) Inler. I say “supposedly” because the only indication that Arsenal are signing him is that the player’s agent claims to have had talks with Arsene Wenger. What makes me extra wary about this story is that Wenger publicly denied being linked to a player yesterday:
I said many times we are one body short. And if you ask me who can come in, I cannot answer the question because I don’t know more than you.
Maybe he’s just playing coy, maybe he just got roaring drunk with the agent and forgot that he talked to him, and maybe, just maybe, the agent is angling for a better contract for his client.
That said, as I pointed out yesterday, Arsenal seriously need a midfielder. I’ll take just about any body in midifeld right now, well, OK, any quality body because right now the boss is saying crazy things like
We missed Nasri tonight who has a little knock. We missed Diaby and we missed Song who’s at the Olympics. I don’t know if our midfield tonight was ideal but it’s certainly not far from the midfield we’ll play on Wednesday night. I’m not concerned about that. But I would have been very concerned tonight if we had one or two injuries in midfield. We can’t afford that at the moment with Nasri and Diaby out. It’s very positive for us that we have no injuries tonight.
There’s no cause for concern for the boss until Arsenal suffer one, two, maybe even three more injuries in midfield. And why isn’t he concerned? Because Alex Song, that’s why. Alex Song.
Meanwhile, yesterday Arsenal scraped out a 3-2 win over Ajax. Sure it was a friendly, sure Kolo Toure is recovering from malaria, but Arsenal’s defense look jaded in the first half. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can watch it yourself. Kolo looked weak and slow and William Gallas failed to close out his opponent not once, but twice. Wenger tries to spin it, calling both goals “unstoppable” but the reality is that the defense looked tired, slow, and insanely disorganized. Watch the video, the Arsenal players are tripping over each other in defense. I actually got shivers watching the match. The defense is that bad right now.
Fortunately, Adebayor saved the team. I don’t care if the big fella missed 50 shots that were all tap ins that a one legged drunken midget could make (he didn’t) the criticism of him as wasteful in front of goal needs to stop. It’s old, like jokes about Britney Spears, and if it keeps up, I swear to your god that I am going to put on some makeup and make a YouTube video — “YOU LEAVE ADE ALONE!!!”
But seriously, he saved the team yesterday with a brilliant performance and all credit must go to Ade for the comeback. If he plays 50% as well as he did yesterday for the whole season there is no doubt in my mind that he will be the best striker in the EPL, if not the whole world.
Today, Arsenal play Sevilla at 10am local time and Doyle’s Pub is supposedly playing the match live. I can’t see anywhere on Setanta or on Fox Soccer Channel where that time is confirmed so I am marking it down as “probably not going to happen.”
Anyway, that’s it for today, I’m hoping for a much improved Arsenal defense today. We shall see.
