Our seventh greatest run in history!? + Wilshere ‘tells pals’ what Arsene Wenger already told press
March 29, 2012
Things do start to drag when there’s no midweek game. I realise how heavily I rely on Arsenal matches just to mark out time. When there’s no match to plan for or or think about I have to start planning or thinking about other less important things like, I don’t know, work. And with Arsenal out of all the cup competitions and only one midweek league game between now and the end of the season I’m in serious danger of massively boosting my career by thinking about it all the time.
I know, it’s probably a good thing because we get a proper week’s worth of preparation time before each game. Not long enough for the players to get stale, plenty of time for minor knocks to heal and the squad to be in perfect physical shape. It’s just…we’re on this seven game winning run! I want to see what happens next!
The run itself is no mean feat. The official site has an interesting piece about it and reveals that it’s only the 11th time in history that we’ve managed to win seven on the spin in the top flight. In fact it’s our joint seventh best run of all time. Even more amazing, of those eleven top winning runs, seven of them have been achieved under Arsene Wenger. That’s staggering. Another massive achievement from a man who always talks about the importance of momentum to a team’s success. Clearly he speaks from experience.
What’s odd about this run is that it comes in what has otherwise been an extremely disappointing season. But that almost makes it feel like a bigger achievement still. Strangely while decent runs like this have often understandably coincided with league success (the Invincibles year and the ten game march towards the end of the 1998 season particularly spring to mind) our joint second best ever run of ten wins came in the 1987-88 season in which we only managed to finish sixth. A warning there from history not to get too carried away with this streak then as we know the job this season is far from done. Still, bring on QPR and let’s see if we can make it 8.
Not a lot to talk about today. Following yesterday’s incisive report on the likelihood of an Arsenal clearout this summer The Mirror suggests that Paris Saint Germain are keen to sign Marouane Chamakh for around £6 million. Now, I don’t know a massive amount about French football but I do know that PSG are the ones with tons of cash to wave around which means two things: 1) They’re always the club mentioned by the press when they need to make up a story about a player being sold and 2) It’s possible they could afford a striker on better form than Marouane Chamakh. So I’d suggest this one’s unlikely. The story also mentions Firorentina being interested as well as former club Bordeaux. Can’t imagine they’d be too willing to fork out the big bucks for a player we stole from them on a free transfer only two seasons ago though.
There’s a story in The Star that Jack Wilshere has ‘told pals’ he could be back in ‘two or three weeks’. It doesn’t say whether being back involves playing in the first team or just being back in full training. I suspect it’s the latter because that’s exactly the timeframe that Arsene Wenger gave for him last week. In which case it’s not much of a story really. It’s just a rehash of what Arsene Wenger said but with the added spin that Jack told it to ‘pals’. Which is usually the tabloid equivalent of ‘we made it up’. I mean, how are these tabloid journalists always so aware of what footballers have ‘told to their pals’. Oh wait! We know exactly how! And they’re kind of in trouble for it if memory serves. So you wouldn’t have thought they’d brag about it in the story itself.
And who says ‘pals’ anyway? It’s up there with ‘romp’ as word that only exists in the minds of tabloid journalists. When have you ever said ‘I’m just off out down the pub to meet my pals’? Or ‘Thanks so much for not telling my boss I defecated on his desk chair. You’re really a very good pal’? I’m willing to bet you’ve never said that sentence.
Right. I’m off to spend another day with nothing to distract me from my job. Great.
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Actually Marble, you’re wrong once again. I said that exact sentence only yesterday. I followed it up with “Right, i’m off for a 3 hour romp so just get off my case!” My colleagues sat agog.