We'll start with the injury and it appears that Theo Walcott has suffered a strain training with England and played no part in the 8-0 mauling over San Marino. He will play no part tonight either and he's a big doubt for the weekends clash with Reading at the Emirates. With Wilshere also a doubt it could be a very interesting midfield that is fielded on Saturday. Now the Arsenal site has Podolski up as injured before the Swansea match yet he played 71 minutes for Germany last week so make of that what you will.
Now as always when the internationals roll into town the rumour mill has started churning away. The Jovetic to Arsenal rumours have been around for some time yet and just when you thought that one had died a death, the Sun (I know) has quoted Jovetic himself as saying:
"I have an affinity with Arsenal. It's a major club with a big tradition, one of the biggest in Europe."I'm still very skeptical about whether a move for him was ever on the cards or quite frankly ever will be. If you want to hope though you can watch him take to the field when England play Montenegro tonight.
There are other strenuous links around at the moment linking us with Diego Costa but as it's fairly obvious we need a striker it's going to be a long summer with us being linked with every forward who's scored this season.
I'm going to spare a few words for our youngsters who beat CSKA Moscow in the NextGen Series last night, a fantastic achievement and they should all be very proud of themselves. They've set up a very tasty looking semi-final with Chelsea. This has all produced the question however of when will we see any of this success in the first team? It's a question that just highlights how difficult it is to make it in this sport.
When I played football, I played just off a young lad who had plenty of talent and was easily the best player in our squad. Three times he was picked up by scouts and after spells at Fulham, Chelsea and a two year spell at City he has yet to make a name for himself on the scene and very sadly for him, I doubt he ever will. Then at school, two lads were scouted, one a goalkeeper who was actually signed by Charlton, then dropped and he has now given up on his career in football. The path to becoming a professional is littered with players who just never quite made the grade.
But there you go, that's football lets hope that our lads can go all the way! Until Friday have a good week.
