According to the News of The World, Arsene is still interested in Alou Diarra of Lens, who could cost as little as £4m due to a buy-out clause in his contract. Anyone who saw the world cup final, would probably have noticed that Diarra plays, or at least tries to play, in a similar mould as our old Paddy. For £4m I think he'd be worth a punt. He'd certainly add more bite to the midfield than Gilberto.
Also in the NOTW was an interview with Sol Campbell. He seemed to suggest that he had chosen to leave us as he had entered a 'comfort zone' as he could no longer sufficiently motivate himself to play in England as he had 'nothing left to prove' here. Hmm. He also ascribed his exit against West Ham to fears of aggravating an injury that could have seen him ruled out of the world cup. Nice to know we were on your mind Sol. While I can partially subscribe to his view that 'After all I've done [for Arsenal], this negative stuff about me is shameful', a bit more of an apology for his gallavanting around Europe at a time we dearly needed him would have been nice.
Paddy's appearance at Dennis's testimonial, and Dennis's subsequent comments that he'd love to see Paddy playing for us again have, for some hacks, equated to us wanting to re-sign Paddy. I can't really see it happening. The only real chance Paddy has of playing for us again would be if Arsene decides to re-sign him for, say, the final season or so before his retirement to add some experience to the squad. And I think that that's pretty unlikely as well.
Finally, in The Times today, the 'Fink tank' [a bizzare statistician whose number crunching produces invariably incorrect predicitions] has claimed that we are the third best team in English footballing history. This is based on some co-efficient of points per game and number of wins, draws, losses, goals, shirt colours, pies eaten, prettiness of pitch conditions etc. Liverpool are first, the Mancs are 2nd, spuds 7th, and the Chavs, rather hilariously, down in fourteenth. ha.
Edit: Yes, I forgot to put this in: the 90-91 winning team is apparently the greatest English league team of all time, according to the same statistical analysis. This was followed, again bizzarely, by an article by Catherine Ridley in which she alleged that the 90-91 team was not even the best team in Arsenal history. So, who's better? The invincibles or the 90-91 pedigree? Are either the best team in English league history? I would say the average standard of opposition in 90-91 was higher, but the invincibles played the best football I've seen in the English top-flight. Debate!
tata.
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6 comments:
Yes, but you left out the happy bit where the 90-91 team was determined best side of all time.
Fixed.
The competition was greater in 2004 , in 91 Liverpool were in transistion, Man Utd were crap , we were a good side at the right time
I think that in 90-91 because there was less money in the game, the gulf between top and bottom was less emphatic. Therefore there were more difficult games numerically than there was in 2004.
Never ever speak ill of the co-efficient
haha.
'There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.'
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