News Round Up

By: Martin | November 18th, 2009

Okay, I know, 3 posts in one day is a bit excessive. But one was part of a planned thing, the other was new injury news, and there are several things here that I thought you find interesting.

First, and most importantly, Kieran Gibbs did not break his foot, only suffered brusing, and is expected to be back and ready for action against Chelsea on the 29th. That still leaves us scrambling for cover on Saturday, but the Chelsea game will be very important, and we’ll really need him at left back. Good news.

In other news, Eduardo signed a new long-term contract with the club. Terms (both in terms of years and wages) were not disclosed, as is common with the club. I’ve been skeptical of how helpful Eduardo can be given that he seems much slower than he was before the injury, but given that it wasn’t that long ago that it was a question whether he would ever come back at all, you’ve got to be happy for him. And I think he’ll always be a useful guy to have around in reserve and as an impact sub. Also, judging from the picture accompanying the story, Eduardo met with Gazidis to sign the contract at what appears to be my grandparents’ house. Weird.

Young midfielder Henri Lansbury has extended his loan with Watford to the first of the year. He’s not making it into Arsenal’s first-team this season, and is playing well at Watford, so it makes sense for everyone involved.

The club is auctioning off four of the shirts featuring the rememberance poppy worn against Wolves. Cesc’s shirt is already at over £3,000. And once again I curse myself for not being an eccentric, foolish millionaire.

Eboue claims he wants to go into acting after his football career is over, and he wants to be “the next Eddie Murphy.” This is, of course, ridiculous, but you know what? (a) Eboue couldn’t possibly make movies any worse than Eddie Murphy has made the last 10 years; and (b) if anyone from Hollywood is reading this…if you remake “48 Hours” with Eboue and Bendtner playing the Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte roles, I will TOTALLY pay $10 to go see that. Probably 2 or 3 times. Let’s get on it. Between how appreciative Eboue always is of the fans who travel to watch the club on the road, the fact that he is always the first guy to sprint over and join the goal celebration with a huge smile on his face, and the fact he’s just generally a bit loony and lives on his own planet, I can honestly say he’s one of my favorite players on the club. It makes me feel guilty for writing this on my old blog. Sorry, Eboue.

Wenger has also addressed the issue of Song’s absence from the squad in January. As you know, I’m very worried about this–we’re a different squad when Song doesn’t play, and missing him for a month is going to hurt us. I had speculated about who might play the holding midfield role, but according to Wenger, it will be Denilson, not Nasri. It’s still a bit worrisome, but it’s the right choice–I never quite understood why Wenger seemed to want to play a player of Nasri’s skill and attacking capability as a holding midfielder.

Finally, there’s this:

It’s the video of the charity event I posted a pic of last week. It’s kind of cheesy, but has some good moments, even if a lot of it looks to be at least semi-staged. I liked the dog chewing Sagna’s arm (or is it wing?), and the slow-mo “badass” walking together shot cribbed from “Reservoir Dogs”–dear god, I hope they were being ironic when they included that. I also enjoyed Theo scratching his ass at the very end. The way things were going, I guess we should just be glad they didn’t find a way to injure themselves in the stunt.

Okay, unless something really monumental happens today, that’s it until tomorrow.