International Break News (Yawn)

By: Martin | October 7th, 2009

Sigh. International breaks are so boring. Not too much going on in the lead up to the games over the weekend, but a few things have popped up so I thought I’d do a roundup/link dump of what’s been going on this week.

First, Adebayor said he “regrets” stomping on former teammate Robin van Persie’s face last month. Hmmm…I thought he said he couldn’t help himself, because his momentum carried him into Robbie and he had no choice but to step on his face? But this isn’t entirely surprising–the intent was very clear from the replay, and this tacit admission only confirms what we already knew. You’ve probably noticed I haven’t really written much about the Adebayor aftermath since the Manchester City game. The fact is that at this point, everything he does seems to me to be calculated to irritate Arsenal as a club and a fanbase, so paying him any attention is only giving him what he wants. It just doesn’t seem worth our time. He got suspended for 3 games for the stomp, received a “suspended” (as a lawyer, I can translate for you–”suspended”=”imaginary” since he won’t have to serve it unless he does something similar again) 2 game sentence for the celebration, and a hefty fine. I would have liked to see a real suspension for the celebration, but it didn’t happen, and it’s water under the bridge now. Since they’re not even playing in Europe, Adebayor now has a lot of time to sit around with nothing to do but pop off at the mouth about Arsenal–if he wants to do it, fine, but we’ve got more important things to worry about what a bitter, jilted, former player has to say. Time to move on. Still, I have to say I wouldn’t be displeased if Song were to kick Ade up in the air a time or two during the Cameroon-Togo match this break.

In other news, Theo Walcott won’t get a two-week break after all. He was left off the England senior squad, but was then called up to the England U-21s. I would have liked for him to get the rest to make sure his back is all the way healthy, but as long as he doesn’t re-injure himself, he’ll get some game action and regain fitness, which will only be a good thing.

Finally, Sol Campbell apparently wants to train with Arsenal after ditching Notts County ONE GAME into a five year contract. He was a great player for us and a key player on some of our best teams, but he’s not returning to Arsenal as a member of the team, so as long as he doesn’t hurt someone in practice or take time away from coaches, trainers, and physios that could be spent on our “real” players, it’s hard for me to care much one way or the other. He may even have a positive influence on some of the younger players.

Other than a bunch of fabricated transfer rumors that aren’t even worth discussing, that’s about it. Here’s hoping all our players make it through the international break unscathed. With 2 more weeks to heal, Nasri should just about be ready to start training again after the break, which would be a big boost to the side. I’ll drop back in with a post if anything interesting happens over the next couple of days.