Same old Arsenal

As Ted pointed out yesterday, there is certainly no cause for concern as regards our financial situation, and given the global financial disarray that is excellent news indeed. If our club had been run a la Risdale we could be in a very different position to our current one that looks both solid and secure. There's no way it would have been sensible to throw money around in a reckless fashion like the Chelseas of this world, unsustainable spending cannot go on for ever, gravity will out in the end, I hope.

Armand Traore seems to be having quite an impact down on the south coast, and is flourishing in his attacking role. No wonder Pompey are keen to try to steal him, if this is the case then I only hope that they are met with a firm 'bugger off' from Arsenal. In my opinion he has the ability to go all the way to the top and is not someone we should be letting go until he's been given a few chances at the Emirates, luckily he's only just signed a long term contract with us. It turns out that Cristiano Ronaldo was rather unfortunate in his early days, he missed out on the opportunity of working with a manager who would have taught him about humility and modesty, unfortunately I doubt the arrogant twat would have listened.

"Almost every team that comes here knows it will be physical because that is the way we are. Teams know we will be in their face because that is what we do."

Fabrice Muamba has been speaking before today's trip to the northern Mensa confederation that are also known as Bolton Wanderers. He's done very well since proving himself in the premiership with Birmingham and then being snapped up by Bolton in the summer. Bolton are a team that few would miss if they were relegated, they typify everything that is regressive and negative about 'good old' English football. They routinely foul, bully and intimidate, while playing their own unique brand of dire long ball football. Their side is also full of some very negative and over physical players such as McCann, Davies and Nolan. The Bolton crowd love indulging in their 'Same old Arsenal always cheating' chanting as their team of hatchet men go about trying to break our players' legs, they either have a great sense of irony or they are incredibly stupid neanderthals.

I have no problem with being pressed and hassled when it's within the rules of the game, however with Bolton it's consistently been done outside the rules, McCann's studs, Nolan's lunges and Davies' elbows have frequently been guilty of this excessively violent approach. Steve Bennett is in charge of today's game and needs to clamp down on any filth early on if a decent game of football is to be encouraged, rather than Bolton's usual brand of negative clogging. However if he lets the Bolton filth go without punishment early on then we may well be left in an unfairly tricky position, hopefully he's be as strict today as he was with the lippy Diouf in 2005. I hope that Arsene goes for Eboue and Walcott in the wide areas, playing three in the middle leaves us without enough width going forward, the choice will be between Song and Denilson in the middle.