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2010 FIFA World Cup: Song Going Home, Vertonghen Linked, Gallas on His Way
Joseph MillardJun 19, 2010
Good morning, it's all a bit quiet as the media focus remains squarely on the World Cup. The tabloids are preoccupied with all manner of things relating to England's possible elimination from the World Cup on Wednesday, and I must say I'm finding it very hard not to laugh. Only a week or so ago this was apparently Englands year, and now it's all "Fabio will go if England flops fail to qualify!", "Roo MUST be axed!" "England in Crisis!"
Fleet street must be loving it, after all they can get far more mileage out of England going out of the World Cup than they can from England winning it. Despite it being the better part of fifty years since England won a trophy (and you think us Arsenal fans have it bad?) if it were finally to happen for them this year the press would get perhaps a week of coverage out of it. However if they go out, in disappointing and controversial circumstances then the press can string that out for months. The ridiculous inquests into what went wrong could keep the press busy for a long time whilst they do things like publish referee's home addresses and so on. And whilst they're doing that there's a good chance they'll ignore the real reason for England not winning the cup which is that they're not really that good.
Elsewhere at the World Cup yesterday we had a couple of Arsenal firsts for this tournament, Nicklas Bendtner was the first Arsenal player to score at the tournament whilst Alex Song was the first Arsenal player to be eliminated from the competition, as Denmark beat Cameroon 2-1 to put Cameroon out. Commiserations to Alex, but at least he can take heart from the fact that he didn't have as bad a World Cup as Nicolas Anelka, who followed his abject performance with getting himself sent home early for abusing his equally abject coach.
Earlier in the day Robin Van Persie provided the assist for Wesley Sneijder's goal in Holland's 1-0 win over Japan, and I do think that we've not seen the best of Robin, or Holland in general, in the two games they've played so far. Robin is one of the players I was most looking forward to seeing at this World Cup, there's still plenty of time for him to get in the groove though as Holland will be progressing to the knockout stages.
The Star links Arsenal with Thomas Vermaelen's mate from Ajax, Jan Vertonghen again. I think our next defensive signing is almost certain to be Laurent Koscielny myself, but given the departures we're likely to experience in central defence it wouldn't surprise me to see Arsene move for another defender as well as Koscielny.
One of the many departures we're likely to see in central defence this summer is that of William Gallas , who has seemingly used this World Cup to reassure Arsenal fans that we won't be missing too much when he moves on. Apparently Juventus and Roma are the current contenders for his signature, and the Mirror reports that Gallas at thirty three years of age, having not been satisfied with the one year deal on offer from Arsenal, is now not satisfied with the two year deal Juventus are offering. Of course Arsenal chairman, Peter Hill-Wood did remark on Gallas' extravagant demands not too long ago so I suppose greed is to be expected from him.
There's not too much else going on. Today does see the blog branch out a bit as it can also now be found on bleacherreport.com so that's one more place you can keep up with my ramblings, and if you really can't get enough of me there's my twitter as well.
Have a good Sunday, more from me tomorrow.
Fleet street must be loving it, after all they can get far more mileage out of England going out of the World Cup than they can from England winning it. Despite it being the better part of fifty years since England won a trophy (and you think us Arsenal fans have it bad?) if it were finally to happen for them this year the press would get perhaps a week of coverage out of it. However if they go out, in disappointing and controversial circumstances then the press can string that out for months. The ridiculous inquests into what went wrong could keep the press busy for a long time whilst they do things like publish referee's home addresses and so on. And whilst they're doing that there's a good chance they'll ignore the real reason for England not winning the cup which is that they're not really that good.
Elsewhere at the World Cup yesterday we had a couple of Arsenal firsts for this tournament, Nicklas Bendtner was the first Arsenal player to score at the tournament whilst Alex Song was the first Arsenal player to be eliminated from the competition, as Denmark beat Cameroon 2-1 to put Cameroon out. Commiserations to Alex, but at least he can take heart from the fact that he didn't have as bad a World Cup as Nicolas Anelka, who followed his abject performance with getting himself sent home early for abusing his equally abject coach.
Earlier in the day Robin Van Persie provided the assist for Wesley Sneijder's goal in Holland's 1-0 win over Japan, and I do think that we've not seen the best of Robin, or Holland in general, in the two games they've played so far. Robin is one of the players I was most looking forward to seeing at this World Cup, there's still plenty of time for him to get in the groove though as Holland will be progressing to the knockout stages.
The Star links Arsenal with Thomas Vermaelen's mate from Ajax, Jan Vertonghen again. I think our next defensive signing is almost certain to be Laurent Koscielny myself, but given the departures we're likely to experience in central defence it wouldn't surprise me to see Arsene move for another defender as well as Koscielny.
One of the many departures we're likely to see in central defence this summer is that of William Gallas , who has seemingly used this World Cup to reassure Arsenal fans that we won't be missing too much when he moves on. Apparently Juventus and Roma are the current contenders for his signature, and the Mirror reports that Gallas at thirty three years of age, having not been satisfied with the one year deal on offer from Arsenal, is now not satisfied with the two year deal Juventus are offering. Of course Arsenal chairman, Peter Hill-Wood did remark on Gallas' extravagant demands not too long ago so I suppose greed is to be expected from him.
There's not too much else going on. Today does see the blog branch out a bit as it can also now be found on bleacherreport.com so that's one more place you can keep up with my ramblings, and if you really can't get enough of me there's my twitter as well.
Have a good Sunday, more from me tomorrow.
