Nine Jimmy Rimmers – Arsenal and Football

Our main rivals have played match 33 and sit two and four points behind us. Tonight we have the chance to make that five and seven. Wolves lie six points from safety. Do they still believe or have they given up? Either way, Arsenal’s biggest threat tonight is complacency. Hopefully the QPR game had driven out any chance of that.

As for the team we will see at least two changes tonight. Gibbs’ groin is apparently fatigued and Koscielny is suspended for the next two games. Gervinho is also out. So Squillaci and Park join the squad. Clearly Santos will play at leftback, but who will pair up with Vermaelen? I think that Arsene Wenger will stick with the obvious and put in Djourou.

That leaves the question of who plays out wide left? Wenger pulled a bit of a surprise on Sunday and played Benayoun with excellent results. But I don’t believe that he will start two in a row so it’s going to be Ramsey or Oxlade-Chamberlain. I hope that it’s the latter. He’s due a start this is surely a good game to do it. One antidote to complacency is a player with a desire to prove himself.

So I expect to see:
______ Szczesny ______
Sag _ DJ _ Verm _ Santos
________ Song _______
__ Arteta ___ Rosicky __
Walcott __ RVP __ AOC

Meanwhile I’m still fuming over the spineless Football Association for all the good it will do. They are hiding behind FIFA now. Nobody believes you guys, they see other football associations acting and you doing nothing. Victory to the leg-breakers and your fault.

Last night Liverpool scraped a 3:2 win over struggling Blackburn despite going 2:0 up in the first fifteen minutes. Kenny Dalglish still manager. Flanagan was hopeless but he’s just young and cost Kenny nothing. Henderson was laughable and cost millions. Hard to believe now that his capture by Liverpool was held up at the time as another example of what Wenger couldn’t achieve!

So, Pep Guardiola promises to battle for a Fabregas deal up until 31st August and says that Barcelona has enough money stuffed down the back of the sofa to do it.

Except of course that their idea of enough money has so far been way short of what Cesc is worth and Sports Director Andoni Zubizarreta says that their number one priority is signing Alexis Sanchez.

All of this they describe as approaching Arsenal and Fabregas with ‘complete respect’.  What complete rubbish.  They won’t respect Fabregas or Arsenal by paying what Fabregas is worth and they will leave Arsene Wenger worrying about needing a last minute transfer deal to replace him, so screwing up the club’s transfer strategy.  Barcelona are just trying to get the pressure Arsenal into giving up Fabregas for less than he is worth.  Well fair enough, they’ve got their job to do, but please don’t call it respect!

Fabregas doesn’t say anything decisive publicly because he doesn’t want to offend either manager.  It’s a mess and it makes it very difficult for Arsenal to know what they need in midfield.

Meanwhile, we still don’t have the signing we need at the back.  The Mirror has reheated the Cahill story today, although only as a throw away line at the end of their Fabregas piece, and elsewhere suggestions are that Arsenal have baulked at the idea of paying £20 million for Phil Jagielka.

Jagielka surely can’t be worth £20million and yet this summer we’ve already seen Phil Jones move to Manchester United for something over £17million and Jordan Henderson go to Liverpool for £20million.  So maybe in this crazy football world he is!

Kyle Bartley has been quoted as wanting first team football at Arsenal and you can’t blame him for that.  He wasn’t one of four central defenders to go on the far east jaunt and it isn’t clear where he stands relative to Miquel.

Given that Arsenal did put in a big bid for Jones, I assume that Wenger is in the market for a central defender.  That would make Bartley sixth or seventh choice, so hardly surprising that he’s making some noise.

After last season’s performance I suspect most Arsenal fans would move him above Squillaci in the pecking order and some are beginning to wonder about Djourou.

Oh for goodness sake, now I’m debating who our seventh choice central defender is!  Bring on some real hard news and some football.

At last some real transfer action after a couple of weeks worth of rumour. The Arsenal deal is the smallest, with confirmation that 19 year-old Carl Jenkinson is joining from Charlton. At least he’s a tall defender even if it wasn’t the most exciting of announcements. It will be interesting to see where he comes in the pecking order relative to Squillaci, Ignasi or Eboue. He looks a decent buy and we may not see any big Arsenal deals until the futures of Fabregas and Nasri are sorted.

Meanwhile Manchester United look like they have won the signature of defender Phil Jones, despite a big bid from Arsenal apparently. Jones will have to fight his way past Evans and Smalling to break the partnership of Vidic and Ferdinand. Not that Ferdinand looked that special for England the other day!

Liverpool have taken Jordan Henderson from Sunderland for £20million. That’s about two thirds of what Barcelona reputedly want to pay for Fabregas!