Who Let The Riff-Raff In ?

The Championzzzz league starts in earnest this week, I am quite surprised to see that despite Henry joining Campbell on the injury list, Arsenal have shortened on Betfair to 1.5 (although at present you can only lay them direct at 1.59). My 1.54 has been snapped up and looks a half-decent lay. Especially considering two recent results : Middlesboro 0 Charlton 3 ; Middlesboro 2 Arsenal 1.

One thing I didn't realise though was the lowly status of Wednesday's visitors to Arsenal, FC Thun. Despite UEFA's best efforts to nail a "No Riff-Raff" sign over the door, the Swiss underdogs have somehow evaded security and sneaked in wearing jeans and trainers waving a crumpled ticket shouting "you can't throw us out !". Having shocked everyone, not least themselves, by knocking out Malmo and Dynamo Kiev, the plucky clock-makers (expect many such cliches on Wednesday) have had no time to sign anyone with their new CL riches. They even tried to sign Jardel, or Lardel as he was known at Bolton, where any time he tried a shot the ball would struggle to escape his gravity well. And failed !

Anyway according to the Observer, 10 years ago they were semi-professional with crowds of around 100, and even now it reports that some players are on an annual wage that is less than what many Premiership substitutes make in a week. Good luck to them, especially on Wednesday. Nonetheless if you would like to oppose Bergkamp and his similarly travel-shy chums, it might be best to wait until after Wednesday when they really ought to win, not that that will count for much in the final shake-up.