Arsene Wenger has been making light of the fact that he will serve a touchline ban as Arsenal face Borussia Dortmund in the CL group opener in Germany tonight.
Her Majesty’s Press are all over the AW quotes and point out that we can’t call on teh services of injured Aaron Ramsey and Tomas Rosicky. Joker AW said: “I will send my vibes and hope they will not be detected by UEFA! I give my team-talk at the hotel before we go to the game.
“When I arrive at the stadium, I cannot go to the dressing room. I don’t think I will be man-marked. If you want to respect the rule strictly, you should be marked by two men – one on the right and one on the left. I have to leave it to Pat Rice. We will go through all the situations before the game. Pat will make the right decisions. For once, I will have somebody else to blame!”
AW has also explained that the signing of Per Mertesacker was unusual because he usually refuses to sign players as tall as the 6’4” German. He added “I don’t like to do that, in fairness. Usually I look at the quality of the player and not at the size. Because we play a very technical game, I usually choose smaller players. We play a more technical game, I choose smaller players. But in Mertesacker’s case, I felt that with Thomas Vermaelen’s injury and the uncertainty we had with him last season when he was due to be out for three days but it turned out to be six months, I felt we needed him.
“Johan Djourou sometimes has a knee problem. So I didn’t want to take the gamble of having just two defenders. Mertesacker is a calming presence, he has over 70 caps with Germany so he has experience and people forget he is only 26 years old.”
To transfer talk in the media and one or two yearns bubbling under this morning. One such tale is that Arsenal will re-enter the transfer window in January and are planning a cut-price double swoop for Bolton defender Gary Cahill and Fiorentina midfielder Riccardo Montolivo.
Another bit of goss is is that AW is monitoring the progress of 18-year-old Crystal Palace striker Wilfried Zaha, while it is also reported that we are lining up a summer swoop for 24-year-old Real Madrid midfielder Esteban Granero, according to reports in Spain.
The Sun concludes our trawl of the papers, with a claim that AW is lining up a New Year swoop for Real Madrid’s Esteban Granero. Midfielder Granero, 24, has been frozen out by Jose Mourinho and AW hopes to land him for £15million, says the redtop.
Receive a digest of our best Arsenal content each week direct to your mailbox
