Kolo Toure Has Malaria

"He has malaria but is in good spirits."

- Arsenal spokesman, about Kolo Toure

The bad news is that Kolo Toure has malaria. The good news is that he's in good spirits. It's nice to know. I would've been worried if he was a bit down-hearted about having malaria. Now I glad I don't have to airmail him a packet of Tim Tams and a pot of hot tea to keep his spirits up.

It begs the question, though - how the fuck does a millionaire, elite sportsman get malaria during the off-season? Granted, he's in sub-Saharan Africa in the middle of summer, but still... why didn't the doctor give him shots before he left? Why isn't he sleeping underneath a mosquito net? I'm going to Europe in a month's time and I'm going to get vaccines for things that haven't existed since the '70s. What's Toure's excuse?

Fucking hell.

However it happened, he's going to miss the start of the Premier League season. Which means that, unless we've got ourselves a truly ugly centre-half over the next few weeks, our line-up's going to include the pairing of Gallas and Senderos.

It's not an auspicious start to the season.

In more cheerful news, our Theo slammed an 18-yard shot across the goalkeeper and into the back of the net off the far post to equalise in the 42nd minute. Against Szombathelyi Haladás. The pride of Szombathelyi were humbled by our precocious youngsters.

Woo hoo.