Weekend Round Up: Wenger is Mr Popular

Our win at Blackburn kicked off a largely enjoyable weekend for all things Arsenal.  Hearing Fat Sam after the match trying to explain that Blackburn ‘deserved’ a point for the number of times they managed to hoof it up into our area was amusing.  The man clearly has a personal problem with Wenger,  despite his rather muddled denials.  Earlier in the week he gave this little gem:

I’m not fed up with Arsene. In fact I’m disappointed that Rafa Benitez has left Liverpool because it was a nice psychological challenge.  I always enjoy the psychic side of Premier League football.

I’m not sure what Benitez has to do with Wenger, except that both are foreign managers who have come in an taken the jobs at big clubs that Sam probably thinks he deserves.  Still, maybe he could use his psychic powers to picture where the Premier League would be now with men like him and Phil Brown in the top jobs instead.  Not enjoying the worldwide success that it does, that’s for sure.

Tony Pulis is another one who’s got his nose all out of joint this week, after Wenger’s comments about Stoke turning football in to rugby.  The Stoke manager has apparently sent letters of complaint to Arsenal and the FA, he said:

The club is desperately disappointed with the comments which Wenger has come out with … We think they are out of order and you don’t expect it from a person of Wenger’s esteem.  The club will deal with it in the right and proper manner.

Which seems to mean whining like a bitch to the FA.  I can almost see Pulis’ point, for the Arsenal manager to comment on a match between Stoke and Tottenham seems unnecessary, the link though is the referee on that day Chris Foy, who reffed our game on Saturday.  Pulis even accepted that it was just a plea for strong refereeing against Blackburn, so what’s his problem?

Completing the manager’s drive to lose friends and alienate people, old Red Nose responded to the non-story about Wenger’s criticism of Paul Scholes.  Quotes here if you care enough.

The rest of the weekend’s results were a mixed bag, Chelsea and United cruised through easy home games, while Liverpool laboured to overcome West Brom at Anfield.  The Totts provided though, losing at home to Wigan as they discovered just how hard it is to play in the Champions League midweek and keep up a challenge in the Premier League.  And City tripped up against Sunderland losing to a late Darren Bent penalty.

That leaves us sitting pretty in second ahead of United on goal difference, going in to a two-week international break.  There are two days of transfer window to entertain us before the interlull really takes hold though, and with Schwarzer again playing no part in Fulham’s match this weekend, and reports that he is still determined to get out of Craven Cottage, it looks like we will have a new keeper for the visit of Bolton on September 11th.

The latest talk is that Mark Hughes needs to sign a replacement before he lets Schwarzer go, and he has his beady little eyes on Shay Given.  Fine, I hope we won’t be forced to pay over the odds for the 37 year-old though, our existing £2m offer seems more than generous.

Less pleasant news emerged on Sunday evening though, as Young Guns revealed that Jack Wilshere was arrested in the early hours, apparently getting caught in a fracas involving an assault on a young woman.  Jack was released on bail, and there’s no suggestion yet that he was anything more than an unwitting bystander.  Without pre-judging anything though, it’s poor on his part that he should even be anywhere near such a situation.

And finally, the Carling Cup draw has thrown up an extremely interesting third round tie, with us making the short journey to White Hart Lane.  Wenger won’t worry about a little thing like North London bragging rights, and will stick out the young kids as usual, while ‘Arry will no doubt throw everything at us, for the potential DVD profits if nothing else.