It’s a Christmas Miracle: Arsenal only have 4 injured players, Balotelli wins an award, and Port Vale are coming to America

Much has been written about Arsenal’s sick room over the last few years. So many times, we have gone on to the dot com filled with dreadful anticipation and clicked on the Injury News section only to see that, yup, Andrei Arshavin will be playing Center Forward, again. It had gotten so bad that some even suggested that rather than buy new players Arsenal should buy new physios, that way we could have an entire team healthy for once (likeanewsigning!).

Well, as of today we actually do have (nearly) our entire first team healthy. Only Thomas Vermaelen would be a consensus first team choice of the four (4!) Arsenal players who are out with injury: Vermaelen, Gibbs, Almunia, and Frimpong.

According to the Boss Vermaelen is scheduled to return in late January as he needs time to regain fitness. Meanwhile, Gibbs is ready to return at the beginning of the new year which is good news as Clichy surely needs the break.

There you have it, yet another in a long list of problems at the club that Arsene has said he would address and has addressed.

There really isn’t much to say about Mario Balotelli that the above photograph doesn’t already convey. Asked for comment after winning the Golden Boy award Balotelli had this to say:

Mario Balotelli is the greatest athlete in the world right now. If you were to put Balotelli and Chuck Norris in the Octagon, Balotelli would kick Chuck Norris’ ass so hard he’d turn the ring into a decagon. Who was the runner up? Balotelli’s never heard of him because right now, Mario Balotelli is bigger than Jesus. Maybe when Balotelli plays against Jesus, Balotelli will show him Balotelli’s golden boy award and ask this “Jesus” guy if he’s ever won any awards.

Oh that Mario…

And finally, in what must be the funniest news story in all of Staffordshire, Port Vale have announced that they will be doing a tour of the United States this Summer. Chairman Bill Bratt went on to say,

This is an opportunity for us to build long-term relationships over there. The standard of football is good in America and their facilities are second-to-none.

It’s true, playing against, say, the Seattle Sounders in Quest field would be playing against one of North America’s top clubs in one of North America’s top football stadiums and a great hono… wait… who are they playing? Tacoma Tide? North Sound SeaWolves? Kitsap Pumas?

I live in Tacoma. I know people who have tried out for the Tacoma Tide. The Tacoma Tide play in the PDL, this is three divisions below the MLS. The Tacoma Tide play football a few blocks from my house, in a high-school football stadium.

I’m not sure what facilities Chairman Bratt is thinking are second to none but maybe he’s thinking that when Port Vale play Tacoma Tide at Curtis High School, he’ll get them to put the hurdles away, rather than just push them off to the side:

Arsenal only has two first teamers injured, Balotelli’s referring to himself in the third person, and Port Vale is coming to America. What a strange Wednesday it’s been, and it’s not even 7:30 am.

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