From : Steve Phillips
Subject: Mark Jacob is right….
I, too, would like to see Denilson play with the first team. The times we’ve seen him, he looks very composed and very skilful. Holding midfielder, crap ! If Fab4 missed a game, I would play him in Fab’s spot and tell him so. Let him run the midfield.
Baptista is no midfielder. His touch is loose, and even clumsy.
He’s a striker. A bull in the china shop barging bumbling goalscorer. He manages to scramble in goals, seems to know where to be, and has a great shot, even from set pieces. If he could get that first touch right, set the ball for the other foot to shoot, he’d get bags of shots, and more goals. I reckon Wenger is getting the feel of where to play him.
4-3-3, anyone?
Regards,
Steve
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Myles replies:
There is a helluva lot more to come from Denilson, a tidy, brainy, energetic,evolving midfielder.
Baptista? Let’s wait and see.
Arsenal is a wonderful club to play for, and he knows that now.
Five-star facilities, very enjoyable training sessions, the manager doesn’t bawl you out when you have a bad game, the crowd are patient with new players – it’s the best job in the world at possibly the finest football club in the world.
Of course Baptista would like to stay. And now that Hleb and van Persie are crocked, he has the opportunity of a lifetime.
Four weeks ago I reckoned Baptista needed a terrific four months to persuade Arsene to buy him. Now he needs a hot three months.
If you’re reading this in north London, you might fancy Molotov Jive at the Dublin Castle tonight, Saturday.
My pal Chris took me to see Roger Waters in rehearsal, so I took him to meet Molotov Jive and Ian Hunter, their manager, at a showcase at RMS rehearsal studios near Putney Bridge yesterday.
Lovely see the boys again.They have 19 new songs but they only played me Sorry To Call, which I’m sure is a hit. The chorus is so catchy and Anton’s voice sounds fantastic on it. I hadn’t realised drummer Johan is only 18. The others are 20 and they’ve been together since they were 16.They love the Clash and the Beatles.
They’re starting to make waves in Germany and Japan, and some girls emailed them to say they can’t go to next month’s gig in Hamburg, as they will be cramming for exams, so they’re flying over to see them in London tonight.
When the boys took a break, and went out to a cafe with Dave from Universal, Chris had a chance to rap with Ian and they got on very well. He told us some amusing stuff about Swedes and Norwegians.
Then Ian went out, leaving us in the spacious rehearsal room with the group’s Marshall amps, drum kit and guitars. Oskar plays a crimson Telecaster and Anton plays a white American Strat.
No, we didn’t touch the instruments.
But Chris, a singer/guitarist/roadie/sound engineer, could not resist saying, “One two, one two,” into one of the microphones, as most roadies do.
I thought of the laconic Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock and spoke into the mike : “We’re just jammin’, you can leave if you want to…”
My voice didn’t sound American, and I can’t sing, so I said, “Talkin’ bout my g-g-generation….”
Then Chris let rip in full-on rock shouter mode with, “PEOPLE TRY TO PUT US D-DOWN / JUST BECAUSE WE GET AROUND !”
Wow! His voice sounded incredible and he was bang in tune.
The lads came back and played some more, and we chatted a bit more, I told them that when they’re huge I wanna write their book, and we left at five and got a District Line tube to Kensington High Street, and I jumped on a 452 bus to Ian Grant’s office, then a 52 home, where, eventually, much later in the evening, I told Jan about this tiny miniscule microscopic moment of larking about.
She said it was men behaving badly.
Molotov Jive are on at 10.30 tonight and we might go. If so, I’ll be yelling for Sorry To Call.