un jour heureux!

They're Back

Finally…

After what seems like an ice age, the hundred years’ war, and the occupation of Iraq all rolled into one, Arsenal have gone back to training. Of course notable for their absence are Adebayor, Hleb, Nasri, Gallas, Fabregas, and well, a whole bunch of guys but the training got underway none-the-less.

It’s good to see the boys in red back, and even better to see our new no.14 smiling and buddying up with teammate Clichy. Ok, now I’m excited about the season. I’ve got a season kickoff party to plan, the annual mecca, lots of stuff, work work work!

Speaking of Hleb and Adebayor, they both made the columns since yesterday morning, albeit for two totally different reasons. Hleb, because he said some “very bad” things, and Ade because I ran across a rather comical article.

First, Hleb had this to say to the press yesterday

My view of how I should be playing didn’t coincide with the manager’s. I told him last season I wanted to leave and think he was quite upset about it. But ask him. It may turn out he’s happy to see me go.

If Wenger isn’t happy to see you go, I’ll be double happy for him! We’ll turn that frown right upside down!

All kidding aside, this isn’t really as shocking of a statement as the press folks are making it out to be. It was clear to everyone with eyes that Hleb didn’t like playing on the wing and that he was often unhappy on the pitch. Anyone with a brain could have guessed that Hleb spoke to the manager about playing him more centrally and anyone with a brain could see that that desire was in direct conflict with the fact that Arsenal have one of the best central attacking midfielders in the world already at that spot. There was no way that Hleb was going to usurp Fabregas in that role and that’s really what this all seems to be about because he follows up that statement with a “blast” at Fabregas

When we get scoring opportunities, Fábregas is much more selfish than me. Given a chance to shoot, he always goes for it – unlike me.

And much like his few shots on goal, this “blast” is ineffectual and raises nothing but guffaws from the opposition.

He’s actually saying that he feels that he’s a better player because HE PASSES UP ON OPPORTUNITIES TO SCORE. BWahahahah ahahaha hahaha. Dude. We already knew that about you and it’s the quality that we (and I speak for all Arsenal fans) HATE about you. What the hell is wrong with you, you moron?

Of course this could all be lies and mistranslation, it is a story broken by The Sun, but still you have to have a laugh at the idea that Hleb fancies himself the better teammate because he passed up on open looks. He might even have an argument is Cesc wasn’t the team’s leading assist man and is widely praised for adding goals to his bag of tricks. Too funny.

Second, there’s the ongoing saga of the “Adebayor non-transfer” and it’s looking like Milan are out of the race for his signature… again. Yawn. In “real” news I did run across an inadvertently funny article in the Telegraph that mentions Adebayor. The paper took 4 “experts” and asked them their views of the top 5 EPL transfer targets (Barry, Ade, Ronadinho, Ronaldo, and Lampard). Typically this wouldn’t be a cause for reprinting here in the blog but I ran across this quote and thought it was funny

Fan’s view: Another who’s been linked with Chelsea, as well as Milan and Barca. I hope we miss out on him. I get the impression he’s a guy who believes he’s bigger than the club. He also has a discipline problem, as many Arsenal players tend to have.

Wh wh what? Many Arsenal players have a discipline problem? I was confused, so I looked at who the fan was, giving their all important view on this topic.

The fan: Trizia Fiorellino is the chairwoman of the Chelsea Supporters’ Group.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH BNEHAYEHHEHEHAH (choke) hah aha hah (gasp) (cough). Ahem. Excuse me. Uhh, yes, it’s the Arsenal players with the discipline problems. Let’s see, what objective measures would we like to use to measure the relative discipline problems of the two teams. I know, how about the Fair play table? Oh looky, there’s Arsenal in 4th place and there’s Chelsea in 19th place. Or how about the whole Ashley Cole incident with the ref? Or, let’s compare off the field adventures… That woman is seriously demented. Good for a laugh, but seriously demented.

That’s really it for today, there’s some press about a few players that are not signing for Arsenal, a story about Arshavin being valued at £400 billion or some such nonsense but I’m going to leave you on that high note; how much you want to bet there’s a signing this week?

Update: See, the whole Hleb thing was a lie manufactured by The Sun.  You gotta love them though for trying and for providing us with some brief comedy.

Related articles