Odds & Ends While We Wait for Word on Walcott

Let’s put down our rabbits feet and lucky pennies, uncross our fingers, cease mending our Arsenal voodoo dolls, and stop knocking on wood for just long enough to look at what else is going on in the Arsenal world today:

First off, the big news on Theo Walcott is that there’s . . . well, no news, really. He was stretchered off in yesterday’s game after getting a pretty ugly-looking tackle to his ankle, and we can be forgiven for fearing the worst. But he was taken to the hospital for an x-ray, which was negative, thankfully. That was the worst case scenario, and we managed to avoid it. I’m no doctor, but I have actually had several ankle injuries of my own, and as far as I know, really, this pretty much has to be a sprain. If it’s an ordinary ankle sprain, he’s probably out only a couple of weeks, but if it’s severe and there was ligament damage, he could be out a month or more. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Fabio Capello said he thought Theo would only be out around 2 weeks, which is encouraging until you realize this is coming from a man so fucking stupid he took Shaun Wright-Phillips, among others, ahead of Theo Walcott to the World Cup (England is now 14-0-0 in Walcott’s appearances — brilliant move, Mr. Cabbage Man Capello!), and thus we shouldn’t listen to what he has to say about what he had for breakfast this morning, let alone matters of medical diagnosis. But I assume Arsenal has learned its lesson from the van Persie diagnosis fiasco last season and gets him back to London straightaway to let our physios diagnose him. Maybe he should take a page from the van Persie playbook and just rub some placenta on that ankle — after all, Robbie did it and hasn’t missed a single game through injury since.

Anyway, elsewhere, a bunch of other guys played for their countries and ohgodi’msouninterestedinthisican’ttypeanymore. The official site has a full roundup here. A couple of interesting things:

– Spain got shellacked by Argentina
– France actually showed up, played, and won. Sacre bleu!
– Some pretty poor losses: Rosicky’s Czech side lost to Lithuania, Arshavin’s Russia squad lost to Slovakia
– Granted, it was against the Bosnia & Herzogovina U21s and the Wales U21s, but Vito Mannone played 90 minutes in both matches for Italy’s U21s, and kept clean sheets in both. Italy has produced a decent keeper or two over the years, and Mannone may have a future at the club yet.
– Other than Theo, I’m not aware of any injuries picked up by guys on international duty, but it’s not uncommon for us to discover on the Thursday or Friday after players have returned that someone has picked up a knock while away. So keep an eye out for that and let’s hope it doesn’t happen to any of our guys this time.

Okay, enough of that. On to actual Arsenal-related stuff. The Reserves played last night, which was notable mainly because it represented new signing Sebastien “Psycho Squilla” Squillaci’s first time in Arsenal red. Here’s a free video from the official site, which is notable for two main unintended reasons — (1) I continue to maintain that whoever is in charge of putting the background music into these free videos either has singularly terrible choice in appropriate music, or is some sort of comic prankster genius who effectively deduces what single piece of music would be worst for any given video and throws it up there; and (2) it looks like JET was straight running shit in that match — great run to set up the one goal, and a great move to take on his man, create a foot of space, and lash the ball inside the near post. Judge for yourself:

Arsenal Reserves beat Blackburn’s Reserves (which featured some experienced players like David Dunn and Benjani) 4-3 behind some good performances by the youngsters. Benik Afobe (whom I profiled in a “Who’s Next?” post here) scored a brace, Chuks Aneke (whom I profiled in a “Who’s Next?” post here) grabbed the first goal, and JET netted the winner in the 87th minute. Ages 17, 17, and 19, respectively, and 3 of the brightest young talents at the club. Hopefully a sign of things to come. I’m no scout and don’t know much about anything, so take this with a football-sized grain of salt, but I really, really like all three guys. I think we’ll see JET make his first-team bow this season sooner rather than later given the injuries to van Persie, Bendtner, and Walcott, and think we may even see him on the bench and possibly in a late-game substitute cameo on Saturday.

Elsewhere, speaking of young players, Wellington has returned to Brazil to play for his club Fluminese after spending a pretty substantial amount of time “on trial” at Arsenal. The reason I used ironic quotes there is because from all reports, Arsenal and Fluminese have agreed on a full transfer deal for the promising Brazilian attacker, and agreed personal terms with Wellington, but cannot join the club until he turns 18 in January. According to the Mirror’s John Cross, when that happens, Wellington will skip the Reserves and come immediately into the first-team. He also said that:

“The experience in London was perfect. I can now dream of playing in the Premier League and I don’t think it will be hard for me to adapt. Mr Wenger has spoken with me and has helped me with my work and training. I am really looking forward to this challenge. It’s a great opportunity for me in my career.”

Well, I suspect that it’s going to be harder to adapt than he thinks, but he seems to have a great attitude and seems to really be enjoying the atmosphere around the club, which is a great sign. He has apparently been really impressive for our Reserves while on trial here, especially against the Manchester United Reserves in the Platinum One Challenge last month, so while I’m sure there will be growing pains, he may really be able to offer us something in 2011-2012. While he hasn’t gotten a full international call-up yet, he has been called in to train with the Brazil squad, which is a good sign for a kid his age. I’m really excited about seeing this kid play.

In conclusion, our senior players keep getting hurt, and our young players are showing great promise. Same as it frakking ever was, eh?

And thanks for everyone’s kind birthday wishes yesterday, it was much appreciated.

***************

Don’t forget to follow the Arsenal Offside on Twitter for the latest news, links, and updates: www.twitter.com/arsenaloffside

Kanye West Tweet of the Day: Do you know where to find marble conference tables? I’m looking to have a conference… not until I get the table though

Some Related Stories:

Category: Arsenal News, Injury Report, Internationals, Theo Walcott, Transfer News and Player Movement, Transfers, Video