More Injuries On The Internationals, And Diaby is Back!

Is anything more frustrating then playing two shite games against Hull and Sunderland, then going into an international break and having a bunch of you starting eleven get injured? No, there isn't. No Gallas, no Sagna, and no Bendtner for the match tomorrow, not to mention that Cesc has a broken nose and Djourou has a concussion. What is it with internationals and players getting injured? When they play for Arsenal Gallas, Sagna and Bendtner don't get hurt. Go off for a week and a half or so and they all come back set to miss games. As if our squad isn't thin enough, we now have a probable back 4 of Eboue, Toure, Silvestre, and Clichy. Not the worst defense I've ever seen, I think my Under 7's defense is probably worse but it's not ideal. And who will be on the bench as a defender? Justin Hoyte and Phillippe Senderos? Oh damn, they aren't on the team anymore, so that means we'll get Havard Nordtveit and the concussed Djourou probably.

The good news is Abou Diaby is finally back in the squad. Do we even know what injury he had? It took him about as long to recover as Eduardo and I know who's injury was worse. Arsene Wenger said he may have to go straight into the team because of injuries, which will be interesting to see. I thought Diaby could be the answer next to Cesc, but I think now he's more of the answer of "Who can keep Tomas Rosicky company?"

Arseblogger says Tomas Rosicky is practicing yoga now to try to qwell his injuries. I tried to figure out how that would look like and in my head it looked like this:

It's kind of scary and I don't know how that's going to help his injury, but hey if that's his thing then more power to him.

Arsene Wenger says we can still challenge for the title:

"If you ask me how many games you think we can lose, I would say zero because I always start a season thinking you cannot lose a game, but we have lost two already and we are in a position where we have given ourselves a handicap," he said.

"However, I still think it is manageable to get back to the top and I want to lead this team knowing that there is not a lot of margin of error left - but I still think we can do that."

Yeah, we have given ourselves a handicap. Problem is it's against teams that we are supposed to be able to beat like Fulham and Hull. Not to mention dropping points at Sunderland. It won't cut it. Now we have injuries and we already have a thin squad. It's going to be a real test for us in the next month or so. Will the team be like Cesc and rise to the challenge and refust to lose, or will they kick and scream on the pitch like Captain William Gallas.

Craig Bellamy says he is keen to guide Aaron Ramsey. Now you might think "Oh shite, what's that cunt Craig Bellamy said about our player now?" In fact though, he says some good things. He says Aaron has the ability to "glide and show balance." Wouldn't that be nice if we were all special like Aaron and glide? I don't think we'd worry as much about gas prices if we could all glide around. Except maybe in the rain. No gliding in the rain to work. Bellamy goes on to say that Arsene Wenger is "the best manager in the world" for him and that if Aaron ever needs anything he just has to ask. Surprisingly nice words from Craig and it made me hate him a few points less, but only a few.

That's all the news for the day pretty much. The rest of it is all made up, unimportant, or irrelevant. I'm actually going to do a podcast today. I want to hear what you have to say about the start to the season, international breaks, or just anything you want to rant about. Email me or post it as a comment. Best comment we get for every podcast episode will win some sort of prize that I'm still working out but it will of course be awesome. Almost as good as "Changes" by Tupac. That's really f'ing good. So get your emails in to ArseNole{at}arsenole.com and keep them coming. I'll read it on the podcast and you'll be famous. Cheers all.