Having made a blistering start to life as a LadyArse blogger a couple of weeks ago, you may have noticed that I have faded away somewhat over the last week. Maybe you haven’t, I don’t know. For those of you who have noticed, don’t worry, first of all I thank you. Second, let me reassure you that I haven’t gone all Marouane Chamakh on you, there’s just been bugger all to talk about for a week. No, England beating the World and European Champions in a friendly, which I gather has been mentioned in sections of the media, does not count.

I didn’t watch that match, as I never watch matches involving England, the other day. I was the cinema watching the brilliant film, We Need To Talk About Kevin. Take a minute and let that sink in, I would rather go to the cinema than watch England play football. And yes, I chose the cinema, I wasn’t forced to go by a draconian girlfriend. I suspect that whilst many of you reading might be appalled by such a choice, equally as many of you will understand and even agree with it. However, I suspect that if I could have seen into the future as a twelve year old, sat crying along with Gazza on that famous night in Turin, I wouldn’t have recognised the person who chose to go and sit in a screening room in Greenwich on Saturday afternoon. I wasn’t always this apathetic about my home country, so what happened?

A subject for another blog perhaps.

In the meantime, our former captain appeared quite baffled by Spain’s failure to make their football count against England. His confusion was nothing new to those of us who have seen Cesc in a similar state of confusion having been part of an Arsenal passing masterclass yet somehow fail to make anything of of it. Well, apart from beautiful triangles, of course.

This isn’t a gratuitous reference to ex capitan, by the way, I am building to a point.

My point is that Fabregas who, let’s face it, knows a thing or two about what it takes to play in central midfield at the highest level, pointed to our Jack Wilshere as the player who could make the difference for England. OK, it would be easy to think that he’s just being polite about a former colleague, but he doesn’t do politeness. So, when he talks about England missing Wilshere, it’s clear that he’s doing it because he rates Jacky boy. And who, with a working pair of eyes and brain, wouldn’t rate him after that seriously impressive debut season for us? I’m sure I’m not the only one itching to see him let loose in our midfield once more.

Of course, things being the way they are, it seems that Real Madrid have taken umbrage at the fact Arsenal could own a player as precociously talented as Master Wilshere undoubtedly is. And so they’ve deployed their not-so-secret agent, Marca, to try and destroy the bonds between club and a player who just last week promised that he was Arsenal for life. Or words to that effect. I don’t need to tell you that I don’t think they’ll get very far, Wilshere- to me- seems as much of this club as Totti is of Roma, Maldini was of Milan, Casillas of Madrid, or Cole was of Arsenal. Er, ok, maybe not that last one, eh?

Anyway, it strikes me that Wilshere is a player who has got everything he needs at the Arsenal and would only move in the unlikely event of Arsene Wenger agreeing to sell him. Something about snowballs and hell springs to mind.

Cesc also had words about the future of the man who replaced him as captain this summer. The man who, thanks to such an uncommon bout of common sense thinking from an international manager, you can only conclude it was the result of large amounts of Amsterdam’s finest weed, sat out Holland’s second match of the international break. The way this has been spun by various news agencies has been gone into elsewhere, so I don’t need to dwell on it particularly. However, the fact that van Persie’s representatives have said the player will not discuss a new contract until next summer- when he will have a year left on his deal- make me antsy. I don’t doubt that Robin loves Arsenal, but so did Cesc (although he always had eyes on a more homely, yet glamourous model) and so did Thierry Henry. They still left when the price was right. For now, I suppose the best we can hope is that player gets his head down and continues leading the team as he has done, which, early season travails aside, has been extremely impressive, and then signs in the summer.

That media spin, by the way… Speaking to Arse.com earlier this week, Arsene offered the following soundbite,

“I am adamant that the players we brought in during the summer are top quality,”

“They are also top quality men who have brought something to the dressing room.”

“Top quality men”, you say Arsene? As in, we didn’t have any before? I must tell you that I am, frankly, shocked that we haven’t yet seen the “Exclusive: Arsene calls Cesc and Samir little girls!” headlines yet.

Well, that’s what he meant, isn’t it?

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