Despite the fact that I feel that shenanigans surrounding 14th of February are highly overrated, I’m going to start today’s post with a bit of bad news concerning Arsenal’s gentle giant Per Mertesacker. He uploaded a photo of his ankle in his Facebook Page and his quotesweren’t too encouraging:
“What a bummer. The foot doesn’t look too good and I have to wait for the physical examination. Right now I’m living with uncertainty…”
Skeptics are a bit worried that the gentle giant might have torn a ligament or snapped a tendon and either of those would pretty much rule him out for the rest of the season, which would be a devastating blow for both club and player. He was just starting to settle in to his role and now it looks like a serious injury is threatening to cut short his first season.
Arsene Wenger can thank his lucky stars that Bacary Sagna and Kieran Gibbs are on the road to full recovery. This would also mean that grumpy ol’ Thomas Vermaelen could be deployed back to his favored center back position but half an eye would be placed on Johan Djourou, Ignasi Miquel or Seb Squillaci.
Ryo Miyaichi is a typical left winger that can do a great job for the Arsenal forward line, especially when things are not going according to plan. He has got devastating pace, great dribbling skills and a fearless attitude that makes him able to take on players. Arsene Wenger fought hard to secure a work permit for the young lad and tipped him to make a huge impact this season.
Miyaichi has the likes of Theo Walcott, Gervinho, Andrey Arshavin and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain ahead of him but he’ll have to bide his time and do his best when he comes back next season because Wenger has extreme faith in him. We all know that Wenger is a football manager that can be blinded with his faith in a player until the player throws an egg on his face or shines as expected to put a smile on his face.
Miyaichi made his debut for Bolton against Wigan Athletic and he almost capped it with a goal late on but the heroics of Ali Al-Habsi denied him a place in the back pages. The youngster was encouraged by his performance and says he is gaining a greater understandingof what the Premier League is all about:
“I was happy to be playing and I found out more about the Premier League, but we lost the game so I can’t enjoy it too much. The manager told me to go and play my football and be confident. He wanted me to run at the defenders and take them on, so that’s what I tried to do.” “I could have got a goal but the goalkeeper made a good save. If I had scored then everything would be more positive. Next time I’m sure I can score.”
Miyaichi is certainly one for the future but I really hope that he doesn’t turn out to be another Carlos Vela in the making. The Mexican was tipped to be the next best thing but his Arsenal career plummeted into mediocrity with each passing season. Vela was sent to Real Sociedad this season to get some playing time and he has already spoke about his desire to remain with the Spanish outfit.
Thierry Henry is certainly a player that has great love for Arsenal and he was immortalized with a statue erected in his honor in commemoration of Arsenal’s 125th anniversary. He secured a loan move to Arsenal last month and a few Gooners (me included) raised a few eyebrows concerning his inclusion to the squad despite pleas from the fans to get Lukas Podolski.
Henry has made me feast on my words like a shark that has seen a bleeding prey and his cameo performances have been nothing short of sensational. The experienced forward has scored three goals in this short while, including two match winners against Leeds United and Sunderland.
He has declared that he’s happy with his second coming but he feels that he can do even more for his beloved Arsenal. He talked about his missed opportunity in the FA Cup tie against Aston Villa but expressed his delight on his last-gasp match winner against Sunderland.
He ran out of superlatives for Andrey Arshavin’s inch-perfect cross that ultimately led to the winning goal and he also sang sweet tunes about the Sunderland faithful that clapped for him when he was warming up in the sidelines. To wrap it all up with a bright red ribbon, Henry ended the interview with these quotes:
“Sometimes you never know when something is going to end. I guess you can never say never. I never thought I was going to come back and play for Arsenal now. Who knows if I can say that this was definitely the end? We’ll see.” “And it’d be a foolish man who’d bet against this love story being completely finished”
Who can question Thierry Henry’s profound love for Arsenal?
No, not one.
Sayonara.
You can follow Gooner Daily on Twitter @goonerdaily. I’ll follow back
Feel free to visit Gooner Daily’s Facebook page and click on the like button.
You can also join Gooner Daily’s Mailing List to get notifications of new posts by email by clicking on the Follow button
Leave a Reply