Can Arsenal's Players Survive the Midweek Internationals?

The controversy surrounding Ramsey's horrific injury is still the major talking point in the world of football and with international friendlies this week I just hope that we don't get any more of our players injured.

From what I can see most of our players will be playing for their countries in some meaningless friendly and in the last round of friendlies we lost RVP  for more or less the rest of the season. I will be anxiously waiting for news of the safe return of all of our players on Thursday and Friday mornings.

With Burnley paying us a visit on Saturday we have to hope that we can keep all the players we have at the moment fit and that we can hopefully add Gallas and Diaby to the squad if they can recover in time. I could live with Gallas missing the game if he can return for Porto next Tuesday but with Song suspended and Ramsey out of our plans for the rest of the year we need Diaby in the team.

I'm lucky enough to be going to the game and thankfully the weather is looking like it's getting a little warmer at last. Anyone who reads my blog regularly will know what happened when I tried to go to the game against Everton on January 9. I managed to see Arsenal twice last season and they were both very poor affairs with a 1-0 win over Wigan and a 0-0 draw with Fulham.

The Fulham game was like watching paint dry as we struggled with Cesc out injured and Arshavin only starting to fit into the team. I'm hoping for a display of attacking football that we are famous for this Saturday and a goal fest as well but in the great scheme of things I would take a 1-0 drab affair as long as we get the win. 

The latest rich list in football was published today and Arsenal have moved above Chelsea into fifth place with a 7 percent rise in income while their income fell by 3 percent. The figures quoted don't include transfer fees and if we were to include our profits from transfers and property development I'm sure we would be even further up that list.

As expected, the top two teams are Real Madrid and Barcelona with the huge amounts of money they get from negotiating their own TV deals and their stadiums which take enormous crowds. With Manure in third place we are the second highest placed English team and I would imagine reaching the Champions league semi-finals helped our cause although Chelsea did make it that far too.

From the reports I saw published about Chelsea's wage bill recently it looks to me like they are getting closer to 100 percent of their income being spent on wages rather than further away and the £750 million interest free loan from their owner is the only reason they are still in existence.

If he were to leave tomorrow and cancel any debts they owe him I'm still sure that they would be broke almost immediately and I wonder will he eventually tire of his plaything.

The club have set up a form on the official site where messages of support can be sent to Aaron Ramsey and a selection of them will be given to him at an appropriate time. I'll be giving him all my best later today and hoping that he can make it back to the level he was at as soon as possible.

There have been plenty of words of encouragement and support for him from all quarters already and the general consensus among the players would seem to be that we need to go out and win the league for him. I know it won't heal him any faster but I'm sure a league winners medal would be of some comfort to him as he goes through the pain of his rehabilitation.

I was accused of whining about my perceived unfair treatment of Arsenal players yesterday by a Man City fan and I was told that those three devastating injuries that we suffered in four years are sheer coincidence and could happen to any team. They didn't happen to any team though—they happened to Arsenal and to suggest that teams don't attempt to rough us more than they do other teams is naive.

A blind man can see that the likes of Stoke, Blackburn, and Bolton set out to intimidate Arsenal when they play them and referees generally let the game flow and let them away with all the niggling fouls until they commit worse ones.

When we visited Stoke last season we were kicked up and down the pitch and had three players taken off injured from kicks they receive. They got away with it then so why should they have been any different this season.

I don't think Shawcross deliberately shattered Ramsey's leg but he knew he could amend for his mistake in over running the ball by fouling him and not getting punished appropriately. However it went wrong and we are left to deal with the consequences as he trains with England at our training ground.

I believe he left for home in floods of tears with his mother after the game on Saturday and we should all feel sorry for him. By the way how did Ramsey leave the stadium again?

Here's a video of Cesc at Stoke on Saturday that a fan of LadyArse put together.

See you tomorrow.