Bendtner, Cesc and A Bit Of Tosh & Piffle

FA Cup Final Saturday and another dose of envy following on from Wednesday’s Champions League Final. They say that for a player, losing in a final is the worst feeling. For a supporter, I am not so sure that the same applies. It will be a truly horrible feeling watching two teams, one of which you know you should have beaten, the other you would have beaten, compete for silverware. Still, there’s always next year and best of luck to Everton, by the way.

A morning of transfer talk, the close season is well and truly upon us. First though, Nicklas Bendtner has made it clear that he wants a new contract with the club:

It is of course a priority of mine to prolong my contract, and I have never said anything else. For me it is of course sweet to receive the backing from the manager, and I hope to stay at the club for a long time.

Not so much of an immediate priority for the club, I suspect, simply because the Dane has another three years on his current deal. On the showing of the second half of the season, he is well on the way to gaining a new contract as well. By his own admission, the autumn showed little more promise than a Sunday League player. It was an honest assessment of his form that raised a few doubts. The goals at The Hawthorns though seemed to re-invigorate his reserves of self-belief – not that they were in danger of diminishing – and he put himself into positions where he could score. A quote from Samuel Eto’o summed it up,

The courageous put themselves into a position on to miss; cowards never do

Bendtner has proven that he can score at international level and domestically; he needs to find the consistency that marks out the good players from promising youngsters. Of course, to do that he needs regular playing time which may not be so hard to come by given the amount of injuries that the squad suffers.

Cesc meanwhile is the subject of a thousand misleading headlines, all linking him with a surprise move to Barcelona:

Which player would not like to play for a team like that at the moment? They are probably the best team that I have seen play in history and I have a lot friends there who are always telling me great things. Of course, you feel envy in a healthy way because of the way they play football. Everyone’s dream would be to play in a team like this.

Erm, so no he did not say the words that the headlines tell us. Oh well, a taste of things to come…

Which is more or less the stuff surrounding Gareth Barry who once more is being linked with the club, following on from last summer’s titilation before he firmly got in bed with Liverpool. This time, with noises emanating from Anfield that they want Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano to stay, Barry is apparently offering himself unreservedly to Arsenal. Umm, hmmm, OK, so he did not say anything of the sort either. A Long Hot Summer is beckoning.

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’til Tomorrow.

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