Noise

Well, Wenger's provided his latest take on Barca.

"It is only noise. In our job we have to deal with what we can master. What we cannot influence is not to worry about."

Check.

"We have learned about that and I believe that in a big club you have to live with those kind of noises without being disturbed."

Double check.

"...he is our captain and we have worked very hard [for him] to be the future of our team and that is why we are always adamant about [not] letting him go."

Triple check.

What he's going to need now is to learn what the Catalan equivalent of FOAD is. Not like anything he says is ever going to make a difference, but at least he's said it.

Having read about Barca's debt of £369.5m - after making a loss of more than £64.36m last season, I think it would provide some reasonably decent entertainment for us to agree to talk, but only if Barca agree to start negotiations at £369.5m + £64.36m = £433.86. To be nice, we could agree to divide that by the five years remaining on Cesc's contract, for the asking price to go down by £86.77m every year.

Whatever the case, them fools had better start reconsidering UNICEF on their shirts.

Gotta make some money off that vaunted shirt of yours man. Try Chupa-Chups, suckers. From Barcelona too, no? I mean, if the Spanish "chupar" is "to suck", it would be quite apt for Barca, methinks.

Now that the requisite mention of Barca is out of the way, let's turn to the rather more familiar Groundhog Day-ish consideration of Arsenal's injury situation. It's just classic. The season hasn't even started, and Wenger is already talking about the same ole same ole:

Diaby crocked, Denilson crocked, Bendtner crocked, RVP - not sure, Cesc - not sure. Other question marks over Rosicky and Djourou.

Ahhhh....it's like we never left off last season.

But hey. It's Liverpool. We just need Nasri to take on the Cesc role, Chamakh to score a hat trick on his debut, the Arsh to add one more at the death, and we should be fine.