Morning all, first up, Clichy has been talking about an inspirational talk he had with Dennis Bergkamp, back when he was struggling with injuries and Cole was our first choice:

“I will never forget what Dennis Bergkamp told me. It was in 2005 when I was injured. I had doubts and I didn’t feel fine.

“Bergkamp is a great man that doesn’t talk a lot. One day he came to see me and asked how long it would take for me to recover. I told him I didn’t know.

“He watched Ashley Cole, who was also having a treatment, and finally said: ‘Come back soon, and if you succeed, you will get his position.’

“Dennis and Ashley are friends, but that simple sentence was so good to me. I held on, and then I recovered quickly.”

I rememeber seeing Clichy getting apperances in those days and thinking that he had a lot of promise, he was very unlucky with injuries, but it shows you how wise Bergkamp was. He could see that Clichy had the quality to play first team and his time would come. Had Cole not been a c**t and stayed in North London then it might have taken longer, but Clichy always had the talent to play for us.

In any case, he is much better than Cashley, I would say that he is now one of the most important players in the team – many attacks are based on his runs down the left. His defensive work is amazing, he has pace, and at corners he has made more goal line clearances than I can count!

Meanwhile Tomas Rosicky’s agent has rubbished the claims that he has been in hospital recently:

“What appeared in the press about Tomas being hospitalised in London is complete nonsense. Tomas, as part of his recovery scheme, visits the hospital for various therapies and the same happened last time.

“A sudden setback in his health or some headaches, as I have read about somewhere, have not happened to Tomas.

“Everything is going according to the plan. Tomas’ first comeback was rash, now we are treating the situation more carefully.

This makes sense – I don’t see why people are making such a big deal. The player has very long term problems which have been present almost his whole career. With slow and careful recovery this excellent player may be able to play again. The papers need to portray his hospital visit as an emergency to sell papers.

Robin Van Persie is another injury ridden player taking it slow:

“After my previous injury, I made the mistake at Arsenal of kicking the ball with all my force in my first training session, I will not make that mistake again. But I do feel very good. I trained hard the last couple of days and all the tests were positive.

“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.”

This is positive talk from RVP – a talented player who needs more games desparately. It never seems to go quite right for him – he comes back but then gets injured within a few games. Luckily his latest hamstring problem in training doesn’t seem so seriuos, and he is taking it easier so he can build up his strength first.

Good stuff about three excellent players, hopefully we can see the return of RVP and Rosicky a.s.a.p!