Farewell Dudu and onwards

Firstly to Eduardo who has left the club for a fee of around six million pounds, I wish him the best of luck for the future and am truly sad to see such a talented player leave. In truth he never recovered from that Martin Taylor leg breaker, I am sure part of it was mental but a significant part of it was physical as a result of the long term damage to his ankle. He has been but a shadow of his former self in recent months and hopefully he can build some confidence at his new home. If he hadn't been injured that day we may well have seen a very different story unfold, Arsenal could well have been league champions and Eduardo may well have been one of our key players in the last few years. We were robbed of a great player by that tackle and I am sure a lot of us will never forgive the media for their pathetic role in it all. Farewell Dudu.

Onto the footballing action and Sturm Graz were fairly convincingly beaten 3-0 tonight. I caught most of the game and was fairly impressed with what I saw. The stand out figures included Samir Nasri with a lovely free kick for his second goal and JET who had a very good second half with some decent dribbling. Overall thought it was just about the fitness, the sharp passing was there and no one let the side down, you really can't read too much into these games. Certainly some of the youngsters like Nordtveit, Gibbs, Frimpong, Wilshere, JET and Lansbury have matured nicely over the last year and are valuable members of the squad.

Finally a word for the mighty Barcelona, that football club that appears to have no morals and absolutely no shame at all. Amazingly Xavi's recent comments have surpassed earlier efforts from almost the entire Barca squad, incidentally have a look at this dive from Iniesta in the world cup final, without doubt one of the worst bits of cheating in the whole tournament. The 'Holic covered the way in which FIFA reported this on their website, what a bunch of corrupt cretins this governing body is, they really should be doing something about the systematic tapping up of players by clubs like Barca. Some people seem to think Barcelona have done nothing wrong, these people are morons, the systematic abuse of the rules and the rank lack of respect that they have shown to Arsenal Football Club puts them beneath contempt in so many ways. Shame on you Barcelona, no amount of success on the pitch can make up for the morally bankrupt way in which your shabby club behaves off it.