Tag Archives: She Wore

Arsenal star tees up a sick day

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We all know that colleague who, at around lunch time, starts coughing a little. Nothing to obvious. Just a little splutter every now and again. As the afternoon go’s on, the coughing increases. They start making a bit of a noise. Oh I’m feeling a bit rough they mutter loudly to themselves, just as the boss walks past.

They appear to be battling on, bravely. The cough is annoying you, but they can’t help getting a little sick. See you tomorrow they say, as they skip out the office. As they walk down the road, the cough miraculously disappears. It is like leaving work has cleared up their oncoming illness. So they go to the pub, to meet their mate, which they had prepared to meet that evening previously.

Of course, when they started to feel ill in the afternoon, they did consider letting their pals know that they would flake out. That they would not turn up, as they were feeling rough, planned to eat a curry, have a glass of hot whiskey and lemon, and get an early night. So that they would be at work the next day.

But their instant recovery has changed their mind. They go to the pub. Meet their mates. Have some beer. A lot of beer. And stumble through their day at 2am with a kebab in hand.

And 6am when their alarm go’s off, suddenly they do not feel to great. It isn’t the 10 pints, or the kebab they ate, or the 4 hours sleep, it is that dreaded cold that was coming on yesterday afternoon returning with vengeance.

So they text their boss real sorry Steve. Feeling rough today. That cough I had yesterday has turned into full blown flu. Real sorry about this but I will not be in today.

And they roll over, go back to sleep, before waking up at lunch, going KFC and spending the afternoon playing FIFA, cuddling his dogs..

They think their colleagues are none the wiser. Imagining them sitting their saying poor Alex, he looked like he was getting ill last night, I hope he is OK, as they pick up his work load, to ensure that when he is well enough to work, he does not have too much of a back log.

The reality is we all know what happened. Alex spent an afternoon setting up a sick day, because he knew he was going out on the smash with his mates. He knew he would be hungover the next day, but was unable to book the time off, as it was short notice, and he had used all his holiday up on a 4 week trip to Chile earlier in the year.

And this is basically what Alexis Sanchez is doing, via the modern method of social media. Rather than coughing in the office, he has stuck up on Instagram that he is ill. He is due back to training with Arsenal on Sunday, but he will be too ill to fly. Wrapped up in his duvet in Chile with Atom and Humber licking his shaft. And the speculation begins…

Keenos

Who is Arsenal target Jean-Michael Seri?

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Another day, another name. This time it is Jean-Michael Seri being linked with Arsenal. 

Yet another French unknown who everyone has started to pretend to know, when the reality is, if it was announced that Arsenal were getting Seri, our minds would first turn to the Apple voice recognition search thingy that most of us deactivate.

But Jean-Michael Seri is apparently a French footballer with a rumoured release clause of £40million – although there are further rumours that release clauses are banned in France. I do not know. Nor do I really care.

I will be honest, I know nothing about Jean-Michael Seri except that his name is Jean-Michael Seri, so I will do what every blogger and fake-expert is doing and go on his Wikipedia page and copy and past stuff.

Jean Michaël Seri (born 19 July 1991) is an Ivorian footballer who plays as a central midfielder for OGC Nice in the Ligue 1. Well that has messed me up from the start – I thought he was French.

Born in Grand-Béréby, southern Ivory Coast, Seri began his professional career with Abidjan club Africa Sports in 2009. He next moved to ASEC Mimosas, where he would remain until 2012.

In November 2012, Seri embarked on his journey to European football by joining FC Porto’s reserve side.[1]

On 31 August 2013, Seri left the Dragões to sign with first division side Paços de Ferreira on a three-year deal.[2] He debuted for the Pacenses on 14 September 2013 against Benfica in a 3–1 away loss.[3] He scored his first goal on 2 March 2014 against Marítimo in an important 3–1 home win to send his side away from the relegation zone.[4]

On 11 June 2015, Seri officially transferred to Nice.[5][6] On 27 May, prior to the opening of the transfer window, the club had announced the “very likely” arrival of Seri.[7][8]

On 27 February 2014, Seri received his first international call up for the Côte d’Ivoire in a friendly match against Belgium;[9]he was an unused substitute in the The Elephants’ 2–2 draw against Belgium.[10]

So he is an Ivorian midfielder, who people are comparing to N’Golo Kante because he black and a dwarf. Are Arsenal interested? I do not know. Will we sign him? At this point in the transfer window, I do not care.

Jean-Michael Seri –Welcome to Arsenal.

Keenos

Stop putting average players on a pedestal

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The current trend at Arsenal seems to be a childish hyping up and rating of players who are set to leave us. The only explanation I can think of is because it is Arsene Wenger no longer fancies the players, so suddenly certain fans start rating him highly. After all, they can not bring themselves to agree with Arsene Wenger.

In the polar opposite direction, and a good place to start this blog, is deadwood.

For years we have moaned about certain players being deadwood. Surplus to requirements. Not fit to wear the shirt. Confused as to why Wenger signed them. More confused as to why they were kept and played so often. And in many of the cases, the criticism was justifiable.

But it seems as soon as we come to decide to move on these players, people start moaning. They never got their chance they complain, even though they were also moaning every time they got their chance.

I have always called it The Michael Carrick Affect – a syndrome caused by rating a player because he is not playing, and the less he plays, the better he gets. Both for England and Manchester United, Carrick got better when he was not playing, to the point where during one absence, people were labelling the average midfielder as world class.

A first example of this happening at Arsenal was with Joel Campbell, and the infamous get out whilst you can Joel at an away game against Swansea.

At the time, Joel Campbell was the poster boy for those that hate everything about Wenger. He was not getting game time, and they demanded that he should. By not playing, he was getting better. They were ignoring the fact that he was average, they felt he should be in the first team.

A few years on from that, people are still saying Campbell never got his chance at Arsenal. Yet in 2015, he played 30 games for the club, scoring 4 goals, and proved that he was not good enough. Interestingly, in the same season, Theo Walcott, a man fans love to have, scored 7 goals in 21 games. Always baffles me when fans rate a player above another player just to suit an agenda.

Even now, people are calling for Joel Campbell to return to Arsenal. This is a player who started just 7 games for Sporting Lisbon in the Portuguese League.

Joel Campbell is not good enough.

Lukas Podolski is another who many labelled as not good enough but as soon as he was loaned out to Inter Milan, the tide of opinion changed. He is now in Japanese football and people are still moaning that he should be at Arsenal.

Labelled as deadwood for many years, Wojciech Szczesny suddenly became everyone’s favourite goal keeper when he joined Juventus as their number 2. Suddenly everyone loved the Pole, who they had spent the last 4 years criticising.

I really did not understand the love in with Wojciech Szczesny.

Lucas Perez is another whose stock has risen dramatically purely because he is not fancied. I see people saying he was not given a chance last season. Yet he was simply not as good as players who started ahead of him.

People act like Lucas Perez was a superstar because he scored a hat trick against Basel, a brace against Nottingham Forest and miss hit a cross which went in against Sutton. OK, he scored a great goal against Bournemouth, but that is one goal, in 21 games.

The joke with Perez is when we signed him, we were competing with the likes of West Ham and Everton for his signature. People commented if he was any good, other top sides would be chasing him. 12 months on, he is being linked with a move away from Arsenal to either Everton or West Ham, and everyone is saying how great a player he is – even though other big sides are not interested.

Another is Calum chambers. 12 months ago it was he has been a flop, we would be lucky to get back half of what we paid for him. Now that we are attracting bids for more than what we paid for him, people are saying we are crazy to sell him.

I have even seen people complain that the very average Mohamad Elneny has not been given a chance.

This situation just highlights the agenda driven opinion of some fans. Arsene Wenger could go and buy Lee Trundle, and those fans would moan we were signing an old, overweight player who is clearly not good enough. But in a year, after he plays just 4 games and we sell him, they would say he was a great player who was never given his chance.

Be consistent in your opinion. Players we are clearing out this summer are just not good enough. Question why we signed them in the first place – criticise Wenger for wasting money on them – but do not question why we are selling them, just as a stick to beat Wenger with.

Keenos