I like Wojciech Szczesny. I met him last Monday. But he often puts his foot in his mouth, and tempted fate in a recent interview about Arsenal’s recent form, and the race for the top 4.
He made an excellent point about Arsenal’s current grinding out of results and defensive solidity:
“I think in the last 15 minutes when they put the pressure on we handled it quite well. We didn’t have a lot of height in our defence today so set pieces were a big test and we handled it brilliantly.
I don’t think it’s all about the save – it’s about the team performance. We kept another clean sheet. We’ve not been conceding a lot of goals recently so that’s very important.
I’d settle for another two 1-0s for the rest of the season and a place in the top three. Hopefully we can keep it going. Even if a game like this is boring at times, we couldn’t care less at this time. We just want to get the three points and go back home.”
Unfortunately, he then went on to suggest that Spurs ‘don’t have enough quality’ to finish in the top 4. This led to a backlash from Spurs and Arsenal fans, both claiming he was tempting fate and would regret his words later. I was rather upset to see the number of Arsenal fans apparently convinced that Spurs would finish ahead of their own team.
However, he’s only giving his opinion, and I seem to recall Jack Wilshere betting Jermaine Defoe Arsenal would finish ahead of them last season, and you didn’t hear much from Gooners about that.
Fortunately for my mate Woj (he said I could call him that) (he didn’t), Andre Villas-Boas rose to the bait, saying:
"I think it would have been a little more tolerable if it had come from a genuine Arsenal fan.
"Coming from an Arsenal player, he is an Arsenal player who is probably only passing by to another club, or who is not going to stay there for life.
"In the end if he means exactly those words from the heart - he doesn't, for sure.”
Andre’s been a silly boy there, as Szczesny joined Arsenal as a 15 year-old in 2006, and has been an Arsenal fan all his life. He’s English to all extents and purposes (he even sounds it), not that where you come from affects your support of a team. All his personal attack has proved is that he’s under pressure. A better manager (like Arsene) would’ve said very little about it, as he has done.
Bye bye Jovetic...Hello Jovetic?
It appears that Fiorentina are preparing for life without Stevan Jovetic, who is moving to Arsenal/Juventus/Manchester City/Mars (delete as appropriate), by hunting for his replacement already. They recruited Giuseppe Rossi in January, and have had a bid rejected by Bayer 04 for their striker Stefan Kiessling.
There’s been even more talk about Jovetic of late, with the current story being that he wants to stay in Italy, but Fiorentina don’t want that, and the fact they’re hunting for a replacement suggests the Montenegrin is definitely off. To Arsenal. Definitely.
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