Arteta for Art's Sake

My Boro pals and me are taking rusty nails and shards of glass to the enxt home game. Not to pelt the team with. We’re going to stick them into our palms Harry Palmer style so that we don’t nod off.

'You're only supposed to bore the bloody draws off'

The main question in the boozer after was nowt to with Boro, mind: ‘If you were the England manager would you select Spaniard Mikel Arteta?’

It’s complicated of course. If you were that person you’d be an Italian. You’d also be very content to select the Canadian Owen Hargreaves were he not spending more time on a couch than the average Mid-West American family.

Furthermore, as we’re told repeatedly, England already possess some World Class midfielders whose place of birth is not an issue – although if that isn’t a loose use of World Class then I’m a Sydney Drag Queen (NB I’m not). I mean Spain have got loads of world-class midfielders or we wouldn’t be talking about Arteta cos he would’ve got in their team by now.

I like Arteta. He’s - ooh what’s that thing we’ve been lacking – creative. But the point is can we trust someone with a funny accent to play with his heart and soul? To wear the Three Lions with pride? To dig in when our backs are against the wall? Ermm, not necessarily. But given that we can’t trust any other hobbling halfwit who went to South Africa either I suggest being born and raised here doesn’t much matter any more.

To me, it’s one of them things they call a no-brainer – I hate that expression. Borrowed from the Yanks I bet. Actually while we’re on the subject here are some more stupid phrases that media twats roll out – actually ‘rolling out’! There’s one! I’m doing it meself!

Add to that ‘going forward’ which means nowt less than ‘in the near future’. Presumably when these spokesturdsmen talk about what happened yesterday they say ‘Going backward’. I heard some council exec calling the preparation for a Christmas cold spell being a ‘winterisation’ progamme.

It’s all corporate speak isn’t it? These wanker-bankers haven’t just nicked all our money they’ve flooded common or garden English with a load of babbling, meaningless shite!

Where was I? Ah, si. Senor Arteta.

'Hof course Hi 'em Hinglish! Mekka me captain and I sleepa with your wife!'

Look, pick him. If his national form bears no resemblance to his club form then we’ll know he’s truly English and we can embrace and/or jeer the poor bastard till he retires from the international game at 30 cos he hasn’t got the cojones to carry on. Then Capello can recall Beckham from his bath chair/UN ambassador role and all will be almost all right with the world.

It’s been a weekend of storms in teacups. ’Arry has had to defend the signing of William Gallas, which some WHL regulars have suggested is about as appropriate as making Sir Alex Ferguson Chairman of the BBC.

I mean I’m all for a bit of needle between teams but surely Gallas can play for who the hell he likes and frankly good luck to whoever takes him on. As it is his Redknapp knows the territory of treachery well – I understand that in the bibles in churches across the South Coast of England Jesus Christ is betrayed by an ugly ginger bloke with a twitch and a bit of a marf on him.

The wisdom of the move is not financial – he’s come in on a free – or indeed morally questionable. It’s simply that Gallas has moments of nut-jobbery that, even in a world where a sane French footballer is scarcer than a faithful English one, to take him on at all would seem well bloody risky.

Wenger once berated him for a having a ciggie on his way home from a club but I’d like to leave that one to one side. Yes he was club captain but for Christ’s sake smokers need role models too!

Perhaps of more concern is that admission that if Chelsea didn’t release him he’d score own goals. And he’s a decent finisher is Gallas. If, say, Emile Heskey made the same pledge right now Villa fans could laugh it off with a ‘No chance’.
There was also William’s wobbly moment at Birmingham a while back in the aftermath of Eduardo’s leg-shattering when he sat in a strop on the pitch, displaying all the leadership skills of Violet Elizabeth Bott.

But if he can put the adolescent tizzies behind him and put out them fags then I reckon Redknapp’s got a flaming bargain particularly in the light of the fact most Spurs centre-backs seemed to have a loyalty card a the local Casualty department.

If Capello is watching out for bright new English talent then there’s a glimmer of hope in Andy Carroll. Six foot three, skin and bone, bad hair... he’s in danger of becoming the new Mark Hateley. I reckon he’s better than that, mind.

Apart from Hansen inexplicably slagging off Theo Walcott after twatting Blackpool on MOTD (he scored a hat-trick, you miserable git! What next? ‘That Joe Hart – calls himself a keeper but look at his goalscoring record at club level – terrible!’) the Geordies 6-0 duffing up of Villa was the most incredible game of the weekend.

Joey Barton’s ‘tache has gone, celebrated inevitably with a gesture that the dumb numpty made look a bit Nazi. Of course he could have gone the whole hog and put a swastika on his arm but you don’t get away with that sort of thing unless your surname’s Windsor.

And grin of the week was Fergie being left fuming after United’s tame draw at Fulham. Sad to see he still wasn’t up for talking to the BBC about it. We get Mike Phelan instead who had a charisma bypass operation at the age of 17. Sigh.

Still even Phelan surpassed the entertainment on offer at the Riverside last weekend. Seriously I’ve had more fun scraping old bits of food out of our dishwasher. But that’s the thing with Strachan. He’ll admit it. And somehow you can’t help liking him.