As reported in the Sunday Times, Arsenal’s first-choice midfielders have a wager on which player will score the most goals this season.
Mathieu Flamini and his good friend Cesc Fabregas have had a bet on who will score most this season. Alex Hleb and Tomas Rosicky are also involved and a few weeks ago Fabregas was feeling such pity for his pal that he joked about gifting Flamini some goals from his own fat total.
Some might think this is a little unfair on the French midfielder, whose role mainly consists of sitting in front of the defence and allowing his fellow three midfield players to surge forward to support the Arsenal attackers. Although Flamini has two goals in two matches, the return of Fabregas will surely see him drop back to his usual role.
Nevertheless, Arsenal proved on Saturday that there is more to this young side than pretty passing triangles. The Gunners demonstrated a good deal of resilience to stave off the Villa threat in the second half of the match and it’s looking increasingly likely that they’ll head the table by the start of the New Year.