Stretch Out And Wait.

Saturday, 25 July 09, 07:30 AM
Three weeks from today we will all be at the heigth of our anticipation with the new season only a matter of hours away and the boring tedium of the off season will be banished for another 9 months. Until then we will just have to make do with the little bits of news that we can get and reports on pre season friendlies. Today is a day just like most of the others so far and there is very little happening. I will do my best to report what I can but it will have to be brief.

The boss has been talking about the international recession yet again and his belief that football is going to suffer as a result. He thinks that within 8 to 10 months football will suffer much more than people think. There are obvious exceptions to the current situation as Man City and Real Madrid seem to be exempt for their own reasons. It's interesting that Chelsea seem to be taking a back seat this summer as their owner has lost a fair deal of his vast fortune and they claim that they will be breaking even in the near future. Man City are loaded due to their owners having bottomless pockets and Madrid seem to be propped up by local authorities in Spain. If UEFA and or FIFA can get their house in order these clubs will have to get their books in order but that seems highly unlikely. If the manager's prediction comes true there could well be a number of fire sales as clubs try to clear their debts and I can't help but wonder if he is waiting for that scenario before he spends his money that he has available. There could well be a two tiered transfer market quite soon(if it doesn't exist already) wher players have a Real Madrid & Man City price and then another price if those clubs don't want the players. Wenger is a very shrewd operator but nobody can be sure how the markets(be they transfer ones or not) will go today, tomorrow or in the future.

We are still being linked with both Huntelaar and Chamakh but I don't think we will be signing either of them. It appears that Cana might just be a Sunderland player and he's one player we probably won't be signing. If it's true that his price is £5 million then it's obvious that our manager doesn't want him as that price is well within our range. A lot of Arsenal fans had wanted us to sign Cana and I'm sure they will be disappointed. I have only seen a montage of him on Youtube and I don't feel fully qualified to judge him but I would have to trust the manager's judgement on him.

Ex Gunner James Dunne who was released recently by the club has joined Exeter City. There are rumours linking Fiorentina with a bid of £10 million for Eboue and if it's true we should bite their hand off and add the money to our transfer fund. I know a lot of fans have come around to Eboue after his problems against Wigan last December and to be fair to him he has worked hard and put the effort in that Adebayor failed to do. I still think that his defensive abilities are poor, his concentration wanes and his temprement is a liability at the best of times. His diving and kicking of opponents have cost us in the past and they will again.

Carlos Vela came back from injury to play the last 10 minutes as Mexico won through to the Gold Cup final. He even managed to score the winning goal in the penalty shoot out and he put it away very calmly. Henri Lansbury scored a penalty to help earn England's under 19s a 2-2 draw Ukraine in the European Championships. Gavin Hoyte also played from the start and Rhys Murphy came on as a sub. Fran Merida played for Spain in a defeat against Serbia and both he and Lansbury are players who I hope will have a very bright future at the club. Lansbury has had his problems with injury in the past but he had a very successful loan spell at Scunthorpe last season and he has a lot to offer. Merida is another player who looks like he could have it all but because he hasn't stepped up to the first team at the same young age as Cesc some people are writing him off but he is still young and time is on his side. Well I've managed to babble on when I thought I had nothing to say so I'll leave it there for today.

Here's a clip of Eboue at his worst but at least it was Evra he was kicking.

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And to finish today's title track from The Smiths. We have 3 weeks to the start of the season and all we can do is stretch out and wait.

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See You Tomorrow.