Coral are offering 11-10 that Arsenal beat Liverpool. They are 12-1 with Skybet.
Betfred are offering 2-9 that Arsenal score on Sunday and 14-5 that they will not.
Tomas Rosicky was good value at 12-1 with William Hill to score the first goal. But he’s out two weeks with a damaged hamstring.
The Guardian, reports Tottenham have beaten Wigan Athletic and Arsenal, to sign the Brazilian forward Leonardo Vitor Santiago who will join in January from NAC Breda for a nominal fee subject to a successful work-permit application. Given Wenger says no-one is coming in January, this story may be a load of b … repeated verbatim in several papers, straight off wires no doubt.
However they do a great review of Perry Groves book: We All Live In A Perry Groves World. Key moments from this Gooner include being arrested in Portugal after a clash with Marines and being rescued by amongst others, Ken Friar. Perry’s unsung hero part in Anfield 89 – he distracted the Liverpool defence with his off the ball run; and of course his high shorts and haircut – and latterly his negative attitude to Ashley Cole. David Lacey coined the best phrase which encapsulated Perry Groves. “He ran around like a wasp in a jamjar.”
Talking of old boys, an envelope from UEFA arrived at Ray Kennedy’s home in Northumberland bearing a certificate that read: “In appreciation of outstanding achievement and contribution to European club football.” The 55 year-old is living alone and is crippled by Parkinson’s Disease. He has already given the certificate to his football mentor, and mate who survived cancer.
Ray won the double of League and FA Cup as a teenage centre-forward at Arsenal, played a critical role in the Fairs Cup win, and won the European Cup three times with Liverpool. Good if both sets of fans can remember him tomorrow.
Meanwhile Four-Four-Two Magazine run an interesting story about Arsenal fan Steve Brown who got exasperated watching Ashley Cole defect and Thierry Henry drag out his contract negotiations.
“I got sick of it – it felt unreal,” explains Brown. “…I wanted to try something different.” So he auctioned his football-loving support on eBay to the highest bidder. Bids came in from 10 countries, including Bayern Munich. But a group of Shrewsbury Town supporters who paid a combined ‘transfer fee’ of £102.63, won out.
He spent a day in Shrewsbury for a home match and was gobsmacked by the adulation. He swapped his Arsenal shirt for a Shrewsbury one with ‘New Shrew’ emblazoned on the back and was given a standing ovation by the 3,000-strong crowd. He was kissed by the local barmaid. And shaken by the hand in the town and interviewd on the local radio.
“Although Arsenal will still be my club, when it comes to watching regular live football, I’m in the process of becoming a well and truly adopted Salopian! I will be coming back for more,” says Steve.
It reminds me of the David Bowie song “if we could be heroes for just one day.”
In previous news of interest:
Only seven of Arsene Wenger’s 71 signings for Arsenal have been English. He has signed no Scots, Welsh or Irish. More than a quarter of his signings have been French:
18 French, 7 English, 6 Brazilian, 4 German, 3 Dutch Italian Ivorian, 2 Cameroonian, Czech, Danish, Nigerian, Spanish, Swedish, Argentine
Austrian, Belarussian, Croatian, Estonian, Greek, Guinean, Japanese, Latvian, Liberian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Swiss, Togan, Ukrainian
And to that lot maybe add a Chinese player. Wenger is keen on Chinese striker Mao Jianqing. The Shanghai Shenhua starlet is set for a trial with Arsenal.
Arsenal have deployed a wireless network at the Emirates Stadium. The Cloud and mobile networking company O2 will make make Wi-Fi available throughout the ground. The network will cover the stadium’s conference facilities, media centre and its 150 executive boxes. Up to 600 people will be able to access the network at any time, which will help the club benefit from conference revenues.
1,700 fans have signed a petition to get the club to bring back the clock into the Ashburton stadium.