Nasri, Robinho, Meteor in Moscow

Good morning all. Incredibly, I am still sick, which makes it like five days straight now. I've also been working massive hours at the ACC baseball tournament so sorry for not posting the past two days. Today there isn't any massive news that I can find so I'm just going to go through even more transfer news/rumors/rubbish, etc.

We'll start off with a post from Online Gooner that caught my fancy. He talks about how nobody was calling for the signing of Samir Nasri before the transfer rumors started and now everyone is talking about him like he's the best thing since sliced bread. Nobody really knows what he will be able to do in the Premiership. He's only twenty, he plays in the French League and it's expected that he'll switch positions to winger once he gets to Arsenal. Does that sound like he'll make an immediate impact? He makes a valid point about the Bergkamp and Campbell signings too. They were big names when we signed them and we knew they could come in right away and play and look how they turned out. Wonderfully, if you didn't actually know how they turned out. If Nasri is the "established player" that Wenger said he was going to bring in, then maybe he really is losing it. We've signed big players under Wenger before, and we need to hope we do again. (PS: I'm not asking for Villa, Robinho, and Kaka, just a player that we KNOW can play at this level already.)

Robinho's agent was in London this week, which of course led to rumors of him heading to Arsenal, Chelsea, or Sp*rs. Not sure what to think of this one. I like Robinho as a player, I really do. I'm just not sure if he'd be the right fit for what we're doing at Arsenal. If somebody who watches the Spanish league could give some insight on what they think in the comments or something that would be great.

Several sources have reported that Arsenal have signed 17 year old Francis Coquelin. He is from Laval, a small Ligue 2 French club. He spent 7 days on trial with the club last month but it was cut short due to injury. He is a defensive midfielder and is definitely one to watch for the future. Young Guns wrote a good article on his reasons for signing with Arsenal over competition from Lyon and Nantes.

Arsene Wenger spoke about Lasagna Diarra, saying that he panicked and couldn't handle not being first choice in midfield. It's pretty funny reading, as apparently Diarra refused all loan moves and said he could handle not being first choice before complaining about exactly that for half of a season before pissing off to Pompey. Whiny little cunt.

Thierry Henry says he may quit International Football after the Euro's, which would be a shame because I love watching him in the French team. He'll be 31 in August so 2010 would be a long way away so he said he'll wait and see after the coming tournament what he wants to do. He also used his old fashioned line he used at Arsenal for all that time, "I have a contract at Barcelona, therefore I am a Barcelona player for now." At least he didn't only do that at Arsenal.

And last but not least I suppose I should comment on that cuntfest Wednesday night in Moscow. I'll admit I was working for the most part of it, and I only got to see extra time and the shootout. I hear it was a pretty good match, but I can't agree. Anytime you have that many people who's heads you want to bash in on one pitch it can't be that good of a match. I, like many, was hoping for a meteor or tornado or something to hit the stadium but it just didn't happen, which was highly disappointing. The shootout made me laugh though, as Ronaldo missed his penalty and Terry missed his penalty. That was the best part for me. I didn't watch the celebrations, I couldn't. On the bright side, Chelsea losing means we can still be the first London team to win the Champion's League. On the downside, ManUre won the double. I hope they all are hit by buses.

Remember to join the forums so we can get something going on there, or leave your input in the comments, or whatever else suits your fancy. Cheers!

Oh and try out this Brazilian nickname converter I just discovered. My name translated to "Sayreca Pau." Interesting...