Slaven Bilic reckons Eduardo will thrive on what is almost guaranteed to be a hostile atmosphere at Wembley tonight. I know I’m not the only English Arsenal fan who hopes that he does.
Of course, you would be forgiven for thinking that this was the only piece of international business on the radar tonight, but that’s not the case. Russia are playing and Guus Hiddink has said that his captain, our star man, Andrey Arshavin will play whether he is injured or not. Hang on, wait, no, that’s what Raymond Domenech would have said isn’t it? Hiddink speaks of “significant” improvement, but that “stupid risks” will not be taken. So that’s good news, sort of. It does, though, call into question Comrade Arshavin’s likely availability for what it sure to be a tough game at the City of Manchester stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Of course, Manchester City are not without their own injury woes, Robinho and Tevez joingin Roque Santa Cruz on the treatment table. I notice that Adebayor has been voted the City fans player of the month- the fools! Don’t they realise that will most likely be all from him now. Of course, Saturday provides its own special motivation for the man we used to call “Adebarndoor”, as it does Kolo Touré. I think, though, that we have our own motivation to go up there and give them a spanking. Not least Mark Hughes’ comment about Adebayor playing with good players “again”, as if he’s taken a step up by leaving Arsenal. I suppose I shouldn’t get too het up about a man who spent weeks trying to convince everyone, including the man himself that “honest John” Terry was about to sign for Citeh and then, when that failed, threw money at Everton until they caved in, whereupon he declared Joleon Lescott as “arguably the best centre back” in the country.
I tell you one thing, I’ll never complaing about Arsenal’s ticket purchase system again- much improved from the Ticketmaster days anyway. But I logged onto the site at 9.45 this morning to buy a Carling Cup ticket, concluding my business relatively quickly. At the same time, I logged onto a site called CrowdSurge to buy tickets for the Arctic Monkeys at Wembley Arena (of all places). I left the browser open all morning, even when I had to go elsewhere for an hour, and came back to find that my queue position had not altered for approximately two hours. No tickets and a complete waste of time. We will have to take our chances abroad, I think. Which will, at least, give us a chance to watch the band without being surrounded by idiots.
Anyway, I know there’s big difference between 60,000 tickets to watch the Arsenal youth on a Tuesday night and limited tickets to watch the youth of Sheffield take the Wembley stage, but I just wanted to say our system ain’t that bad.
Further disappointment today with the news that Ivan Gazidis will be unable to attend the planned Q&A at the AISA AGM – what an ugly sentence, sorry – on Friday evening. I was quite looking forward to that. Though it was nice to see, on yesterday’s members mailing, that there was a link to my blog detailling my correspondence with Manchester United.
Tomorrow, y’all.