A pal phoned this morning.
He saw Arsenal beat Atletico Madrid 2-1 yesterday in an Emirates Cup friendly.
My pal got to the point straight away.
“Is there any chance that Arshavin will be at Arsenal beyond this season?” he said.
“No,” I replied “It’s insane than he earns the same as Van Persie. Wenger played Van Persie at centre forward to keep him out of the way, to stop him slowing the game down. But he had a nightmare. His first touch is terrible.”
“I agree.”
“Jack Wilshere should start at Everton. He’s far better than Walcott.”
“A few people said that to me yesterday.”
“Overall, what did you make of it?” I asked.
“Our movement was good but the final ball was crap till the last four minutes.Nobody else at Arsenal could could have scored those two goals.The second one – desire, ability, anticipation. Fantastic.”
“I don’t think Ian Wright could have scored the second one from that angle.”
” I assume you know that Senderos has gone?”
“No. Where? ”
“Everton, I think it will be announced today.”
“There’s still speculation about Vieira, some stories say he’ll have a coaching role, then become manager.”
“Arsenal don’t employ virgin managers,” I said.
“Bertie Mee? The physio.”
“OK. But Bertie broke up the double team far too soon, got rid of a player as soon as he gave Bertie a problem. Charlie George, Ray Kennedy. Frank McLintock gave four great years to QPR, he wasn’t finished. He captained QPR and they finished above Arsenal. Frank had an opinion – Arsenal didn’t like opinions.”
“Still don’t,” he said, laughing.