Sometimes i get the feeling that the club don’t tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, when it comes to our players. I know that may shock and anger you to an extent that you feel like burning all of the hairs on your body off with a series of gas-filled lighters, but I feel I need to tell you it, especially now we’re in that period of time where the veil is lifted on Father Christmas. 

So it was fairly obvious to us all that Santi has been banjaxed for some time, so inevitably wouldn’t be back for a prolonged period and now that the club has fronted up and admitted he’ll need surgery, I think it’s safe to say that we probably won’t see him back to his best until the back end of March. You know, that period of time when our long-term injured players always seem to come back, when there’s only about four games left in the season and all the prizes are out of our grasp.

We’ve seen the writing on the wall for some weeks now. When Arsène repeatedly says he has no idea how long Cazorla will be out for, you know that it won’t be a case of him waking up in the morning and phoning the boss to say “guess what? I’m healed!”, which is why I think most of us knew we wouldn’t see our tiny little Spaniard for some months to come.

Arsène will have his press conference today and we’ll find out the extent of our midfield problems with the injury to Elneny, but you can’t help but think that the club shoot themselves in the foot regularly with players. We’ve seen this too many times. I know they are human beings and there’s a lot the human race still doesn’t know about the human body, but come on, can’t somebody at Arsenal make an executive decision? Couldn’t somebody have just gone through this surgery process a month ago? It just seems crazy to me. 

They did the same with Welbeck. Waited, waited, waited, then on the eve of the transfer window shutting last season, they sent him for surgery. 

Why does this sort of stuff only seem to happen at Arsenal?

Anyway, it’s done now, so we need to look to Rambo, Coquelin and Xhaka to fill the void and it means that Arsène will almost certainly have to settle on a pairing for a short period of time anyway. Hopefully he’ll be asked about the midfield this morning and hopefully he’ll talk up a player in particular. I’d like us to have a go at Xhaka-Ramsey, but I suspect Coquelin will be back in soon. Many of us thought he’d be one of the first sacrificial lambs at the beginning of the season, but it’s clear Arsène likes him, perhaps because of the combative nature of his playing style. But whatever it is that Arsène likes, it’s clear that some don’t see him as a ‘should be’ regular. I don’t mind him for certain games, but one like this weekend away to West Ham probably isn’t one I’d pick. There should be more space to exploit and so I’d like to think that a more cultured midfield will see us perform more fluidly.

The other news I wanted to touch on this morning, was that of the story on the official site where Petr Cech picks out his favourite moment of the unbeaten run. Can I be completely honest with you? It didn’t exactly sit quite right with me. One of our senior players, talking up a period of the season, when it’s not exactly resulted in anything? It’s just a bit, well, weird, because it’s the sort of thing I’d expect from them up the Seven Sisters Road. Dvd’s, talking up pockets of the season, it’s all a little ‘small time’, isn’t it? 

I don’t blame Cech. He was sat in front of a camera and asked a question, to which he responded, so you can hardly roll your eyes at him. But the club’s PR peeps should know better, right? Normally they’re pretty good at catching the mood, although that whole ‘Captain Arsenal’ thing at the weekend had me closing down my Twitter feed and waiting for it all to blow over, I must admit.

Anyway, it’s a minor blot on a normally decent approach to our news and online coverage, so I won’t hold it against them.

Just try to avoid this sort of stuff in future, ok guys?

Right, I think I’ll leave it there. I’ve got a day of work followed by a dusting down of the Christmas decorations. the Management will be delighted. 😉

Laters peeps.