The Arsenal Medical Team has it in for our players

"Arsenal's medical team will today assess the extent of the ankle injury Theo Walcott picked up during England's 3-1 win over Switzerland in Basle."

- the Guardian, reporting about Theo’s rolled ankle

Theo Walcott rolled his ankle when England played Switzerland last night. He’s going to be taken to the Arsenal Medical Team to be assessed. The consensus seems to be that it’s a two week lay-off. However, that’s before the Arsenal Medical Team get their hands on him...

I’m beginning to suspect that the Arsenal Medical Team are suffering from some weird sort of Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome. Our medical team must be doing something to sabotage our players. There’s no other explanation for the serial mis-diagnoses, ineffective treatment, poor rehabilitation and recurring injuries. There’s no other way that Gallas could’ve been out for four months for a hamstring tear. There’s no other way that van Persie can keep getting the same sort of injuries for the past five years and not have any sort of treatment (other than have his wisdom teeth removed) to strengthen his legs or protect his body. And there’s no way that Theo Walcott would need two weeks or more to recover from a rolled ankle.

Then again, I suppose two weeks isn’t that bad. Knowing the history of the Arsenal medical team, it could very well be something that stretches off into the new year. And that’ll be a real shame, because Theo’s just beginning to come good.

In related new, Robin van Persie will be out until October. With Walcott out, and Bendtner out, it’s down to Chamakh to lead the line. Turns out out nicely-padded squad on paper is paper-thin in real life. Isn’t it interesting that the players who have been with us most (i.e. the ones with the most contact with the Arsenal Medical Team) are the ones who are the most injury-prone? van Persie’s been with us since he was 21. Bendy and Theo have been with us since their teens. Chamakh has been with us a couple of months. And who’s the only striker left standing?

Someone, please investigate the Arsenal Medical Team!

In unrelated news, Rafael van der Vaart is “despondent” that he was taken off during the Netherland’s qualifying game. He has the novel thought that a player who is playing well should be allowed to play out the game. He forgot the rule of thumb when it comes to picking international sides - anyone who plays for Spurs is shite. Sorry Rafa, but you’ve got to get used to it. You’re a talented player and deserve a spot, but this is what happens when you become a Spud.

So on the 229th last day of my 20s, I had dinner with a mate. I’d invited the GOMD to come along as a way of sending her off before her trip, but... she was busy. This time around, I think she was genuinely busy, but I don’t know. I’m getting to the point where it doesn’t really matter one way or another. But the restaurant’s on a hill, with a view of the city. And I spent most of the night looking out at the city, wondering if I could see her in her office building if I squinted hard enough. And when we left, I glanced back at the city and wondered if she was still slaving away at 9:30pm, or whether she’d given up and had taken the train home. She’s apt to very long workdays, is the GOMD.

364 days of my 20s left....

"You realise it's the last year of your 20s? When you turn 30, you start to have to grow up."

- Siew Yee, scaring the shit out of me on my 29th birthday

I'm paraphrasing. Truth be told, I can't remember what she said on Friday. All I can remember from that conversation was the wave of cold horror sinking down my spine as I realised she was right. My 20s are nearly over. In 364 days' time, an unspent lifetime of misspent youth will have to be quietly folded up and stowed away - not to be touched until I'm in my 40s and able to indulge in a bad mid-life crisis.

I'm 29, and life is rushing past me.

I'm 29, and I'm about the same age as Tomas Rosicky and Andrei Arshavin. I'm a couple years older than Robin van Persie and Bakary Sagna. I'm about three years older than Emmanuel Eboue. I'm saying this is illustrate that there's a whole generation of Arsenal players slowly creeping towards their 30s, with nothing to show for their time at this club. This team of ours, which we see as young, naive and immature, has as spine made up of guys who are at the peak of their careers. They've all spent years marking time at the Arsenal, waiting for the chemistry to be right for success. And what do they have to show for it?

In ten years' time, when these guys are long retired and sleeping on top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies, I wonder if they'll regret not spending their 20s at a club that's aggressively pursing trophies? I wonder if at 40, they'll join a veterans' league and try to win those titles that eluded them in their 20s. There comes a time when money and material stuff can't drown out that nagging disappointment that you've never had the guts to try and be all that you can be.

It's already cheesing a few of our players off. Andrei Arshavin's in the press every other day agitating for better players. Arshavin realises that without a major European trophy, he'll never be considered in the elite bracket. Interestingly, Robin van Persie loves the club and he'll probably resolved to spend the rest of his career with us. He's decided he belongs at the Arsenal, and come what may, he'll stay. So what if he's never going to win a major European league title? At least he'll always be known as an Arsenal legend.

I admire van Persie's stance, but admit I feel a bit like Arshavin sometimes. There's a part of me which wants to act out. There's 364 days left to pack in as much reckless, stupid 20-something behaviour as possible. But I doubt I will. There's a time and a place for that kind of stuff, and it's called backpacking through Europe. I've had my chance to relive my youth, and maybe it is time to put it aside and just let go. As St Paul once said, "when I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."

I thought I should try and document every day of the last year of my 20s. My reasoning is that an accurate account of my 29th year will help stave off a mid-life crisis. In the future, whenever I get the urge to get a comb-over and buy a Harley, I can look up this year's posts and realise that: my 20s truly sucked; I'm better off in my 40s; and there's no need to go back and try to relive my youth.

So on the 364th last day of my 20s, I woke up, went to work in the morning, had lunch and spent ten minutes trying to wedge a prawn-shell out of the space between my teeth, took a nap, and had dinner. I'm probably going to spend the rest of the night reading theology.

Way to burn out my 20s, hey?

An update on Placenta-gate

In an update to Placenta-gate, it turns out that Mariana Kovacevic, the physiotherapist who's injecting bits of horse placenta into van Persie's ankle, is on the run from Serbian police and is wanted for tax-evasion. 

She has at least three aliases and as many as four different addresses in Belgrade. She constantly changes her style of dressing and her hair colour to avoid detection. If anyone sees her, they should be warned that she's armed, dangerous and liable to inject you with a syringe full of horse placenta if you confront her.  

As the Daily Mail reports:

"In a case which is developing the sinister trappings of an underworld operation, Kovacoevic has disappeared without a trace. The players she is currently treating are also being kept hidden form view by a bewildering combination of subterfuge, private jets, fast cars and eagle-eyed surveillance."

Kovacevic is currently treating Robin van Persie, Glen Johnson, Fabio Aurelio and Frank Lampard. It's really quite exciting to imagine her stashing those players in various safe-houses across the city. I've been to Belgrade, and the city's a collection of Stalinist shtick with a Blade-runner sensibility. It's the perfection environment to imagine Spy-vs-Spy escapades involving highly-paid footballers, shady placenta-injecting physiotherapists and the Serbian police. 

I can just see van Persie and Lampard holed up in a battered shanty on the banks of the Sava River. Police have surrounded the house and are approaching with guns drawn. Suddenly, there's the sound of thunder, and a vintage 1950s Aston Martin bursts through the flimsy wooden wall. Lampard's in the driver's seat and he's gunning it, while van Persie's standing on the back seat firing an Uzi at the police, who cower under their cars as they become riddled with bullets. 

I just hope van Persie takes care as they're speeding off in the Aston Martin with a clutch of police cars in hot pursuit. And when Lampard crashes into a fire hydrant and van Persie's thrown into a shop window from to the impact, I hope he avoids hitting anything too hard. And when van Persie's running over the roof-tops of Belgrade with the portly police commissioner in hot pursuit, I hope he remembers to look down and not twist his other ankle. 

The last thing we need is for him to be out for another couple of months. 

van Persie and his witch doctor

"I will meet with the female doctor who helped Danko Lzaovic. She is vague about her methods, but I know she massages you using fluid from a placenta. I am going to try. It cannot hurt and if it helps, it helps."

- Robin van Persie, seeking state-of-the-art medical treatment

You never know, it's unusual treatment but it might work.

Civilisations from ages past have all reported favourably on the great medicinal benefit of slaughtering livestock and then rubbing bloody bits of it over your body. However, the chicken gizzards on my temple floor told me the other day that van Persie's doctor should also burn a fatten calf as an offering to Baal, say three Hail Mary's and then dip van Persie in the River Styx to make him invulnerable.

But I'm pessimistic about his chances with this doctor. Personally, I don't trust someone who's "vague" about their methods. And I can't see how a topical agent is going to be effective to treat ligament injury. I'd suggest that if they're using that placenta for the stem cells, he's better off injecting that thing straight into the ankle. It might turn van Persie into a half-cow freak of nature, but that might be an improvement - I've never seen a cow get leg injuries during international matches. 

Anyway, van Persie's out for at least six weeks. Nothing we can do about it now. Instead, we've got to figure out who'll baby-sit the pointy end of our 4-3-3 until he comes back. Bendtner's the obvious choice, but he's out for a month. Walcott's out for about the same time. Eduardo's a bit small, he's out of form and he's more of a poacher than a central striker. Playing him in a 4-3-3 is like playing an old Michael Owen as a lone-striker - it's just wrong. 

The thing is, do we need a striker? 

We were going fairly well before van Persie hit his stride, so I'm wondering if the loss of van Persie will mean much to our goals output. As long as we get someone who has his range of passing, we'll be okay. Actually, we could do worse than adopt Roma's 4-2-3-1-0, with Arshavin as the Totti-esque supporting striker. They play a fluid, graceful style of football, with wonderful little triangles and with very little end-product. Until Bendtner comes back, that's what I have my money on. 

Let's just hope we don't play Diaby in that role.

History repeating

"You're still going to do it, aren't you? It's the funniest thing - even after talking about it tonight, you're going to go ahead and do it anyway. You don't learn. You know it's a bad idea, but you're still going to go after her."

- my friend, a couple of hours ago. 

It's not a good idea to go after a friend's hot sister.

 

I know it's wrong to go after her. It's very, very wrong, and there are so many potential pitfalls that my head reels. Intellectually, I can grasp that it's a bad idea. Emotionally, I can understand it. Even viscerally, I get a bit queasy as I think about her, and I realise she's not for me. I've been down this path before, and I have no desire to go back down it, but then again... 

There must be a special sub-section of Hades reserved for people like us. Sisyphus rolls his boulder up the hill all eternity. Tantalus bends over for a drink from the pool, just to watch it disappear from his grasp. I keep chasing girls I really shouldn't be after. And Arsene Wenger cobbles together a potentially championship-winning side, only to watch it crumble through injuries.

It's all so clear when you're on the outside looking in. Take the Arsenal and our current run of injuries to our strikers. Before the weekend, Bendtner and Walcott were out, Vela wasn't not match-fit and Eduardo's in rather sketchy form. We were doing okay with that. But now that van Persie's out until Christmas, we're left with just one fit, poorly-performing striker for at least a month.  

The tragedy is that it was pretty obvious this could've happened. 

We sold Adebayor for £25 million and didn't feel the need to replace him. Instead, we relied on van Persie being fit for a full season. van Persie has had one injury-free season in all his time at Arsenal. Odds are that he wasn't going to last the season. They say he's out for six weeks, but you know with van Persie that those six weeks can easily stretch to three months.

Why did we do that? Why did we put our faith in van Persie's dodgy hamstrings and frail ankles? With that £25 million, we could've bought an Aguero or a Benzema or even a David Villa. We could've got a striker of van Persie's quality, but without van Persie's injuries. But we didn't.

It's happened before, and we're all a bit bemused by it. Losing Vieira, we dallied around and never bought the DM we needed. Losing Lehmann, we prevaricated and never got the great 'keeper we required to win the tight games. Losing David Dein, it took us three years before we got our act together and hired Ivan Gazidis. 

I think Wenger has this idea that we can keep recruiting from within: Diaby can replace Vieira; Song can replace Gilberto; Walcott can replace Henry; Bendtner can replace Adebayor; and so forth indefinitely, like a Fibonacci sequence that keeps on expanding. It works to a degree, but it doesn't. We drop too many points and lose too many games to ever be good enough to win the league this way. 

The problem is that we never learn. We like to think that we're creatures of logic, but really, we're still governed by chemicals and tiny, hard-wired electrical signals that don't give a fuck about things like logic and rationality and good common sense. Wenger might go into a transfer period resolved to make a clean sweep and buy the players we need, but the minute he steps out on the training pitch he sees his proteges, his heart surges with pride, and he wants to give them one more chance. 

Hope springs eternal. This time might be different. You never know unless you try. There's always one more season to gain experience, and one more unsuitable girl to chase. And after all, she is very attractive. 

Cesc Sera, Sera

"I don't know what will happen either tomorrow or in a year or in five years."

- Cesc Fabregas, philosophising about stuff

In a sense, Cesc is right - you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. Life is such an unlikely event that even waking up in the morning should be considered a minor miracle. We exist because oxygen is soluble in blood and binds to haemoglobin, because our hearts beat in a constant rhythm from the day we're born, and because we can somehow derive consciousness from the connections between millions of fatty sheathed neurones in our heads. We take it for granted, but when you think about it, you realise how unlikely the whole set it is. And when you think about that, the idea that you can plan for something to occur in a week, or a year or five years seems absurd. 

Then again, some things are immutable. van Persie getting injured during an international match is something that's as constant as the sun, taxes and that queasy bellyache you get after eating too much KFC. van Persie injured his ankle in a match against Italy, and he's going to be out of for a few months. It's a shame, because he'd just adapted to the lone-striker role at Arsenal. 

But most things in life are ever-changing. Take the Arsenal - our season's in a state of flux at the moment. If we can improve the defence and compensate for van Persie's injury, we've a great chance of winning the league. If the kids improve, we'll have enormous depth on the bench. If we strengthen in January, we can finally paper over the weak areas of our team. But if we don't do any of it, we're likely to slide out of contention by February. It'll take a cleverer man than me to predict the trajectory of our season with any sense of confidence. 

As Cesc intimated, and as Doris Day once sang, what will be, will be. The future's not ours to see. For example, take my nephew George:

He's a bright kid. He was born a month premature, but he's already mouthing words at 4 months of age. He's also got good taste - he only wears Huggies nappies. He's also already got a very Arsenal name (and I'm wondering if it's possible to get a vintage kid's size Charlie George shirt for him). On the face of it, he'd make a perfect little gooner.  But in light of his intelligence, I'm not so sure. 

I've been speculating about the right time to turn him into an Arsenal fan, but I'm starting to doubt my persuasive abilities. He's a very smart baby, and by the time he's able to comprehend what football is, he'll probably realise that Barcelona are a much better prospect than Arsenal. Why should he follow the second most beautiful football club in the world when he can follow the best? I can hope that he'll come around to support Arsenal for sentimental reasons (his Charlie George shirt and all), but I'm not so sure.

So what'll happen in the future, in one year and then in five? I'll influence him the best I can. But while he might trot around in a Charlie George shirt at 3 years of age, he might've switched to a Messi shirt by the time he's 7. I don't know.

As Cesc puts it, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. 

van Persie Believes!

"There is ambition. I have spoken to both the boss and [chief executive] Ivan [Gazidis] about it... I trust him and my message to everyone is: be patient, trust the team and the people above."

- Robin van Persie, trusting the Club that I no longer can

van Persie stalled on his contract for six months, believing that the Arsenal were unambitious and unable to challenge for trophies. He said there was no issue with the money; he was perfectly happy to resign provided there were indications that the Arsenal were on the way up. He wanted to win trophies, and he didn't want to wait until the kids had grown up.

He kept that stance for months on end, until just a couple of days ago when he signed a new contract with the Arsenal. And now, van Persie's a born-again Arsene Knows Best believer, and he's preaching the good news to a crowd of sceptical gooners. And I'm wondering, what made him come around?

From my point of view, I can't see much to get excited about. Yes, Song improved quite a bit over the last half of the season. Yes, Arshavin proved to be an inspired buy. And yes, Vermaelen was signed promptly, without the protracted ennui we've grown accustomed to. I agree that the noises coming from the Club are encouraging. But is that reason enough to put on our happy faces and wear our "I ? The Arsenal Board" T-shirts?

I say no.

We've been down this road before, you and I. And quite simply, I don't trust myself to believe in a Club that's let me down before. Fool me once, shame on you. But fool me several times with gritty away wins and improving youngsters and title challenges that crumble at the first sign of resistance, shame on me. To believe that this Club will change is to open up, to be vulnerable, and we all know what happens when that happens.

I'd like a bit of van Persie's optimism, to be honest. There must be something overwhelming to have persuaded him to sign over the best years of his career to the Arsenal. I could use some of that. My own optimism is like a plastic bag - it puffs out when caught in an updraft, but in moments of depressed air, it's just a deflated little husk of a thing.

I'm kind of sick of words, and promises, and pretty speeches from our players vowing to try harder. We've heard it all before, and it's hard to take it at face value when you know they've disappointed in the past. Belief doesn't exist in a vacuum, after all - you need something of substance to prop it up.

That said, this is something that restores my faith in agents somewhat - Dennis Lachter, holding onto his contract with Arshavin and telling the world that it's legally binding. This, from the man who treats player contracts like a lover's sweet nothings, who has no scruples when it comes to other people's obligations:

“He sent me a letter, absolutely. Listen, it’s like entering a contract with Arsenal or anybody else; there are obligations. If you think that you can just cancel this formal relationship between two parties only because of a newborn baby it’s…what can you say…well you can’t do it. That’s it. I’m his agent.”

He's a funny man, Dennis Lachter. And he's brilliant at what he does. If Arsenal hires him, then I'll start to believe again in our ambitions.

All in a Twitter

Mr Happy: What can I do for you today?
Ms Catastrophic: I've a fishbowl on my head.

- from the Mr Men Show this morning

I'm on Twitter.

It's the hippest thing on the net at the moment, and as a hip dude, I'm obliged to join in to maintain my hipness. Otherwise, I'll consigned to the ranks of the hipster doofi, to moulder slowly into terminal unhipness. And then, there'll be no going back. I'll be growing a comb-over and hitching my hipster jeans up beyond my navel, and wearing flares and platform shoes and singing along to the Bee Gees, who once were hip, but are no longer and never will be again.

But I've been twittering for a day and a bit, and it all seems a bit self-absorbed. I know the world wants to know what I think about the Arsenal, but I don't think they're that curious about the minutae of my life. Which, when you get down to it, is what Twitter is all about. It's glorious me in all my mundanity, and I'm starting to think that there's a such a thing as too much information. You don't need to know about me doing me work, and me eating dinner and me scrubbing my backside in the shower.

It's not magic if you can see the strings.

Not much Arsenal news at the moment. There's this from van Persie:

"The quality is there but, also, more importantly, so is the winning mentality. We are just not dropping points any more. We are not doing those silly things any more which have cost us earlier in the season. We have to keep on thinking positively all the time, though."

True to form, he's been saying nice things about Bendnter and Diaby, who are both young and who are both potentially very good players. And he's saying we're invincible at the moment and gonna win the FA Cup and the Champions League. It's nice of him. We need that kind of optimism from our older players. Positivity can be infectious.

An optimistic van Persie

“I have learned a lot in the last two years because I have been injured so much. I learned what my body can take and what it can't, so it was an interesting period for me. I hope next season will not be so unlucky with injuries. But at the moment, I just do not want to think about that, the negative stuff. If you think positive, you get positive."

- the (hopefully) injury-free Robin van Persie

When you look at Arsenal's chances next year, Robin van Persie is the answer. He's got the goals in him to push us through to the end of the year. His form in the pre-season games have been encouraging. He's got the potential to form a good partnership with Adebayor. And he's got that bit of magic in him to crack open a 0-0 game.

If he's fit.

That's the rider that's been attached to van Persie over recent years. He's a great player, but gets injured an awful lot. I suspect our physios are doing something wrong, because we've had too many soft-tissue injuries for it just to be bad luck. Still, maybe this year's the year that van Persie shakes his problems and plays a full year for us.

van Persie's right in that positivity plays a big, big part in it. He knows the strengths and weaknesses of his body. He'll never be the fittest guy in the world, but he can nurse himself through 40-odd games a season. His first task is to concentrate on playing every week. There's no need to think about trophies and title challenges and major signings. If he concentrates on playing every game, and concentrates on playing well, then everything will fall into place.

I remember reading a book by Paulo Coelho a few years back called The Alchemist. It's about a shepherd in Andalusia who has a dream of a treasure under a tree. Unlike most people, he believes it. He quits his job, leaves his town and searches for his buried treasure. And as he travels around, he starts to listen to the voice of the universe and things start to happen for him.

That's the funny thing about positivity - things start to happen the moment you start to believe they'll happen. The universe moves to accommodate you. Things fall into place. Good luck runs into better luck. If only you believe, the blind will see and the lame will walk.

And Arsenal will win the Premier League.

I didn't see it

"Incredible. Absolutely incredible. With three minutes to go, Turkey were dead and buried. Then Cech fumbled, Nihat pounced, then produced a moment of utter brilliance and it's Fatih Terim's side who'll face Croatia for a place in the quarter-finals. What a finale."

- John Ashdown, Guardian live commentary.

I was contemplating watching Turkey vs Czech Republic last night as I set my alarm clock. I was weighing up waking up at 4:30 in the morning versus a solid 10 hours of sleep. I remembered the match last Sunday between Switzerland and Czech Republic, and I opted for more sleep.

How wrong I was.

3-2 has to be the perfect result in football. It has room for everything in football - goals, crushing leads, resounding comebacks, tense finales. There's room for a hattrick hero and a defensive villain. There's more drama than you can poke a stick at. And I missed it all.

Part of me doesn't really care. I'm not Turkish and I'm not Czech. The Euros are a bit of fairy floss that keep me entertained when I should be sleeping. But still, it hurts to know that there was a rocketing good game on, and I missed it. I made the wrong decision.

Of greater importance, in my mind, is that Australia are through to the second qualifying round for the World Cup. Good, good stuff. I've got a bit of concern about the side. There are frailties to the Socceroos that I'm worried will be exposed when matched against the likes of Iran and Japan. We tend to go to pieces against stuff like good technique and sound tactics. When did soccer stop being about running hard and kicking hard and tackling hard?

And if we can get 15 million for van Persie, we should take it, hock our guts out and buy Benzema. Or Benni McCarthey. Or anyone who can last a season without pulling a hamstring. van Persie's awesome when fit, but he'll never be fit.