Wednesday, one day closer to real football again when we can get back into the swing of realising just how terrible we are again! I simply can't wait.

Robin van Persie will be in action for the Dutch of Holland tonight and he seems to have recovered very quickly from a hamstring strain. Either that or he's saying he's fine when he isn't. But he insists he's learned from his mistakes in the past when he said he was fine when he wasn't. He says:

I have been injured a lot lately but whatever the outside world says is not important to me. I just want to be fit and play as many games as I can. The entire pre-season went well at Arsenal and in the league too.

Picking up a hamstring injury can happen to any player at the moment.

Yes, yes it can. I'm running a book on him picking up an injury in tonight's game. 2-1 thigh strain, evens calf strain, 4-5 knee ligament damage, and Ebola at 8-1 is proving a popular bet.

Another one of our lads who keeps the doctors busy is Tomas Rosicky. We know his hamstring is a bit fucked but recent reports said he had been hospitalised with headaches after receiving injections to speed his recovery. His agent insists that is not true and says:

Everything is going according to the plan. Tomas' first comeback was rash, now we are treating the situation more carefully. The team of specialists that cares for Tomas, has been enlarged by another specialist which means the player will be cared for at the best level.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It might be a case of 'Hmmm, John. Any chance you could come over and have a look at this?'. 'What is it Dr Nick?'. 'I just do not have a clue'.

Still, two heads are better than one. Unless you're a mutant baby in which case it will mean certain death.

Alisher Usmanov was reportedly thinking about selling his stake in Arsenal but the fat, sweaty cunthound insists this is not true. In fact, he's rather taken with us, saying:

When a man loves a woman he can't conceivably sell that love. I'm in love with Arsenal. I have no intention of selling

What a horrible bastard. Love, as one fine singer in the 80s said, is contagious. But so are genital warts. And love can be a one-sided thing. Like the man who loves a woman but the woman doesn't love the man but the man stalks the woman, pesters her with phone calls and filthy messages until the woman is forced to take out a restraining order because the man is a disgusting creep.

That's the kind of love that's going on here. Usmanov is showing up unannounced at our door, sending flowers to our work and making sure everyone sees and sending cards saying 'We're meant to be together forever. And if I can't have you, nobody else can'.

I would urge all Arsenal fans to start carrying mace and if you see Usmanov then spray it right in his eyes. It's the only way he'll learn. The flabby, repellent, Man United supporting flangebasher.

Aaron Ramsey had a rather good game for Wales U21s last night. He scored an absolute belter with his left foot and made another goal. You can check out highlights here but I suggest skipping over the first little bit as it shows Tom Crapplestone scoring a shit free kick. Get Ramsey in the team, I say.

Some youngster called Jason Banton has left the club to join Blackburn. I read somewhere that he also left us as an even younger kid to join Sp*rs before coming back. The kid is obviously deranged, like a reverse Bentley.

Right, well that's about that. I'm off to stock up on mace, it's about the only thing that hasn't gone up in the budget here.

Till tomorrow.

First of all, I must apologise to the Ole Ole Auditor, who text messaged me last night to ask if I was all set to write the blog today. My initial reply was "who the fuck is this?" since my phone didn't recognise the number. I knew it wasn't Arseblogger, since I know his number. So said text messager replied to me and said he was the Ole Ole Auditor, and I decided that was licence to send back a rather rude message. I may even have mentioned his mum (I'm not sure. I've deleted all the text messages since; I find myself increasingly doing that of an evening). Anyway, he phoned me, I hadn't a fucking clue who it was cos I was so blind drunk, and I had to text Arseblogger to find out. Anyway, long and boring story short, I now know who it was, and I apologise. That's what happens when you talk to a drunk cunt.

Secondly, being madder at work than a badger on LSD that's just been taken to the circus and pumped full of mescaline, I haven't had time to frequent the forums recently, and I had no idea that Arseblogger was going to London today (until earlier in the week when he asked me to write the blog - right enough, with the benefit of hindsight that should've been a clue). So when he texted me last night to say it was only his fucking birthday today, I felt like a right cunt. Even more so. So I'm sure you'll join me in wishing Arseblogger many happy returns on his 43rd birthday. There's no doubting, he looks good for his age. I'm glad he's chosen one of the game of the season nail-biters for his trip. Fingers crossed for an 83-0

So, enough of the frivolity. What's happening in the world of Arsenal today?

Firstly the bad news. Tomas Rosicky has no fixed date of return, leaving the manager speechless. I'm not sure that's too much of a problem, frankly, since barely anyone can know who he is anyway. I don't know what we do about him. Not a lot, I suppose - it's not like we can sell him, and having signed a contract, (quite rightly) he's going to carry on trying to get fit. He doesn't strike me as the sort that would drag an injury out because he's a lazy cunt that just wants to sit and earn his tens of thousands of pounds a week for doing fuck all (unlike, say, me, perhaps), and he's a talented player. It's very frustrating.

Worryingly, Samir Nasri also remains sidelined by a knee injury, and joins Rosicky, Diaby, and Eduardo as the only other injured members of the squad. Nasri, as you know, picked up his knee injury on international duty. I fucking hate international duty. I hate it more than I hate being poked in the eye with a fucking hot poker. And I fucking hate that.

In better news (sort of), Silvester is fit and ready for his first game of the season. When Gallas joined us, he'd been agitating for a move, and I think it's fairly common knowledge that we'd been after him for a while. But Silvester is a cunt. A proper cunt. A right cunt. He played for *those* cunts right at the time when we were having our most intense rivalries with them, and he was a fairly significant part of their team (who are cunts). I think to get himself out of My Book of Cunts (of which I have two - he's in the bad one), he's going to have to do something very special. Like kill Gary Neville.

What else is going on? Gael Clichy feared the worst when that fat Bolton cunt tried to break his leg (I don't know why the Chester Chronicle gets the credit for those quotes; it just seemed one of the more obscure reports on News Now!). Some people, including Craig Burley, commenting on Setanta, thought that challenge was fair "because he got the ball". I didn't. I think that "if you take the man after the ball that's just the game" is a big load of old hairy bollocks. That way do very, very serious injuries lie, as we're all too familiar with, and I don't blame the team one little bit for the way they reacted on the pitch. They've seen it happen - horrifically - to one of their mates and unsurprisingly, they're not keen to see it happen again. People can bitch about Cesc waving imaginary yellow cards all they like, and I don't like to see that either, but the fact is that Clichy could've been seriously injured, because of some fat no mark Bolton cunt being "committed". Fuck off. I really do fucking hate Bolton (not as much as I used to, mind). And yes, I'm probably overprotective and hypocritical. So?

Top man Cesc Fabregas has been talking about how he'll never leave Arsenal. He seems to qualify the statement slightly by saying that he will only stay as long we keep playing our football, but it's so refreshing to hear a footballer who isn't *just* interested in the money (and regardless, I'm sure he's very well paid indeed). Also, I've no doubt The Sun has spun those "quotes".

So, Hull today at home. It's on TV at half five on Setanta 1 (so no doubt we'll have to put up with that cunt Burley again). George Boateng has been talking up Hull's chances, and there's no doubt that they've made a great start to their season. Let's hope we can bring them crashing back down to earth today and take the three points.

Once again, many happy returns to Arseblogger, and I'll see you all tomorrow for post match ramblings and other nonsense.

Come on The Arsenal!!

I wish you all a happy and *boilk* free Saturday in the vain hope that the universe will reward my good wises and thoughts and render me free of the *boilk* which is *boilking* the shite out of me. Not literally though. Well, not yet, at least.

Still, at least there's football today to help me through. I was expecting a whole lot more team news but I can't seem to find any beyond what we knew yesterday. At least the team will be a bit of a surprise then. We have to wait and see about Nasri and the thinking about Threeo is that he'll probably start on the bench after playing two games in a week for England. 

The boss has been talking about Theo again, revealing he knew he wanted to sign him after seeing him play against us in the FA Youth Cup. Apparently we'd sent scouts to watch him more than 50 times. Which must be boring as fuck for a scout.

'What have you got lined up for me today, boss?'

'Go to Southampton and report back on Theo-'

'Walcott, yeah yeah. I know'. 

Back to today though and it's traditionally a tricky fixture. The tired old media lines about how Arsenal don't like travelling to the north-west will be spewed out again but Blackburn are a tough, physical side. As well as that this is the first time that Paul Ince will have faced one of the top clubs in his short Premier League management career and he'll be desperate to show he's got what it takes. I expect a very motivated Blackburn side today and we're going to have to be 100% focussed with no international hangover if we want the three points.

I think we've got the quality to do it, we have Robin van Persie who loves scoring against Blackburn, and we know that we don't want to be playing catch-up this early in the season. Three points an absolute must today, especially in light of the lack of transfer activity. Things have calmed down a lot and as I've been saying good performances and good results will keep things that way. 

Speaking of Robin van Persie he has ruled out any move to Moneybags City and reveals that the manager did try to bring in a certain player but the price being asked was too high. I think we all know who that was but it's interesting to hear it from one of the players. 

I know you know this already, what with Arseblog having exclusively given you the news yesterday, but here's confirmation that Mineiro took part in a behind closed doors friendly at the training ground this week.

There was some bad news about Tomas Rosicky as well. His return had been earmarked for the middle of this month but it seems he's as far away as ever. The Czech national coach, Petr Rada, says:

Tomas has started another stage of recovery, including training with the ball. But recently his knee reacted badly to that.

While Rosicky's agent says:

Without the permission of Arsenal I am not allowed to be more specific on Tomas' health.

The injury he suffered was very serious and very, very rare, I'm told, so nobody really knows how to estimate the recovery period for it. However, at this stage I think I would be surprised if we saw Rosicky in an Arsenal shirt again. I think we need to plan for life without him and if he does make it back then it's a nice bonus. Fingers crossed he can beat this though.

And that's really about it. The game is on TV over here today, which is most excellent. Here's to the three points, talk to you tomorrow. 

Morning all and happy Tuesday to you.

Let's begin with news of Tomas Rosicky who looks unlikely to be fit for the start of the season. Speaking to some kind of Czech media outlet, he said:

It will be yet a long time before I return, but at the start of the new season - some time in August - I will hopefully start with training.

In one way I feel sorry for him. No player wants to be injured and Rosicky, when fit, offers the team something. He's quick, energetic, committed and he can score the icing on the cake goal like no other. However, his fitness is now a real issue. At the time of his signing people thought £6m was good value for a player of his quality and experience, now £6m seems like rather too much for a player who has spent so long out of the squad.

The constant niggles and injuries that have prevented him getting a proper run in the team are damaging to us. We need our best players, our so-called first teamers, to be fit more often than he is. When he does come back, and I hope that he does, he's got to prove he can stay injury free or we really have to consider his position. The same goes with Robin van Persie, I think. There's no questioning the Dutchman's quality, in my opinion, but as someone considered a starter when fit he's got to prove he can get through a season more or less injury free.

With Nasri likely to come in at least we have a genuine option for the left hand side of midfield and who knows if a bit of competition might do something to keep Tomas fit.

This morning's Sport newspaper in Spain says that Barcelona are negotiating with Emmanuel Adebayor and that Arsenal know of his, and Hleb's, desire to leave London for the Catalan club. Arsene Wenger has, as a matter of principle (don't you know), rejected the idea of both players leaving but it's just a matter of time before both of them become players for the greatest club on earth. They will leave behind the measly presence of London and come to live in the greatest city on earth and play for the greatest club on earth in the best stadium on earth with the best weather on earth and the best food on earth and the most poetic, wonderful, creative, special, interesting, hilarious and, of course, sexy people on earth. How could they resist?

Naturally it's all a load of speculative horse bollocks, the likes of which the Spanish press are, indeed, the best on earth at cooking up.

Nicolas Anelka was named at No29 in the Arsenal greatest ever players list on Arsenal.com. Frank McLintock was No30. I think we can safely assume this is the most stupid list of all time. I'm still waiting for Cuntley Cunt to appear and when he does we can write it off good and proper.

Eurowatch - Johann Djourou is unhappy with the Swiss coach for not giving him a chance in Euro 2008, particularly in the dead rubber against Portugal the other night. He's looking forward to the new coach coming in and I'm looking forward to see what kind of impact, if any, he can make at Arsenal next season.

Arsenal interest in tonight's games comes via Robin van Persie as Romania play Holland. A win for Romania would see both France and Italy go out, no matter what either of them does. I can't see the Dutch going out to lose, momentum is important in tournaments as short as this one, but will they be as committed as they were in their first games knowing that qualification is already secured? Especially when they know a Romanian win would see two very strong teams go out, even if they are both in poor form that makes like a bit easier.

We shall see what happens. It promises to be an interesting evening's football. William Gallas will probably play for France.

Don't forget you can follow the games in the OleOle match centre which features live commentary, live blogging, chat and more. Click the links above to go the respective centres.

Cesc talks about his form and life on the Spanish bench. Aragones is likely to make changes ahead of their game against Greece so we could see him start that game.

Right, that's about that. Have a good day, more tomorrow.