A defeat yes, but nothing to get too worried about.

ARSENAL TRAINING FOR CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

A nugget from a source as unreliable as just about any other!

ARSENE WENGER is lining up a move for 15-year-old Serbian starlet Veljko Batrovic, likened by many to Lionel Messi.

The FK Bubamara teenager impressed the Arsenal boss during trials.

He has also attracted substantial bids from AC Milan, Marseilles, Atletico Madrid and Olympiakos but all were rejected.

Arsenal have jumped ahead of others because Wenger, Batrovic and newly-appointed Emirates scout Christian Karembeu all share the same agent, Milan Calasan.

Calasan said: “One thing is certain whether the player goes with Wenger or not, he will become a great player.” (News of the World)

So does ‘likened by many’ essentially mean the players family, his agent and the creator of this bit of fiction? Hell I know we like to make moves for starlets but surely they can’t all be the ‘next Messi/Ronaldo/Cesc!’. Anyway, on the transfer front I don’t think we will bring anyone else in and to be fair I don’t think we need to either.

We have been doing just fine with what we currently have in the squad thank you very much. Yes we could possibly do with another striker but hopefully Eduardo and RVP will steer clear of injuries. Now yesterday’s Man United game was one that infuriated me, we should have got something from the game, and I don’t just say that as a hugely biased Gooner but we really should have.

What the hell was Diaby doing? I guess he was trying to beat the crossbar with his clearing header but to aliens watching from another planet it may have seemed that he was a striker executing a fantastic finish. Darren Fletcher is possibly one of the dirtiest players around, and how he didn’t get a caution, or indeed two, is beyond me. With the likes of Scholes and Rooney you know what to expect, the usual late lunge made simply out of desire and misplaced aggression, however the Scottish midfielder is an altogether more sneaky culprit who doesn’t get nearly enough abuse for his niggly little tackles/fouls.

Talking of Rooney and ‘that’ incident. Clearly he was falling to the ground long before any contact was made but Almunia would have sent him flying anyway, so I have to wonder why our keeper rushed out as he did.

Which leads us to the Eduardo situation. Look it’s clear Boruc and Celtic shouldn’t have had a penalty awarded against them, hell maybe our Cro-zillian even deserved a yellow for the ‘dive’ but if we are going to start banning players every time they dive, and I am more than happy for this to happen, then it better happen every damn time or some are going to fall foul to questions of bias again.

Anyway we lost. It’s not the end of the world. It wasn’t a bad performance from the lads so even though the scoreline wasn’t a good one I think we came out of the game with some dignity and some positives.

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