Published: 14 May, 2015

ARSENAL by Richard Osley

THEY used to call him Flapianski, when he was playing for us. Fairly, too. For when Lukasz Fabianski was in sticks for Arsenal, he’d sometimes treat a centred ball like he was trying to catch a soapy balloon with gloves caked in margarine. 

He saved a few shots in his time, to give him his due, including those penalties in the FA Cup, but there was just too much flapianskiing for him to ever be treated like an Arsenal great and soon he was on his way. And yet, back at the club with his new side Swansea and does he flapianski against us? No – no way, not against us. He saved everything and caught every cross, and Arsenal lost. 

Now, we could put this all down to the law of the sod – that every now and again the law of probabilities will have it that Fabianski shall get through an entire match without being Flapianski. But you know what, I think that’d be unfair. The chap actually looks like he has improved immeasurably. 

It makes you think. He might just be the only player to have left the club under Arsene Wenger and found something better for himself. Certainly, Hleb and Song didn’t find happiness at Barcelona, Nasri looks an angry man at Manchester City, Adebayor hasn’t ever seemed settled, van Persie looks to have lost his happiness, too, and Cesc looks like he is forever soul-searching in a team which swaps flair for dull grind. Then there’s Bacary Sagna. Who he? The guy who played in a cup final for Arsenal last year, and would be again this year – if he wasn’t inspecting the carpentry on the Man City bench for most of his life. Fabianski, flapianski, whatever you want to call him, looks happier than all of them.

SPURS by Catherine Etoe

GRAN took a duvet day when Fur Coat No Knickers FC won the league the other weekend and she still hadn’t resurfaced on Friday when it was clear that those other Blues had been victorious at the polls. 

She was, as David Cameron would say when struggling to remember which claret-coloured team he has supported all his life long, suffering from a “brain fade” in the face of such madness. By Monday night, though, she had shrugged off her Cock and Ball eiderdown, sprung out of bed and was soon dribbling her favourite fortified wine down her sports bra – and all because Swansea beat Arsenal. It wasn’t that the Swans had done a season double over the second-besters; or that the second-besters were still languishing in the third-besters spot; it was that second-bester boss Arsene Wenger had Wengerised the loss. Swansea had, duh, duh, duh, won the game without even playing. That’s right, they had beaten the second-besters just by turning up. And there was everyone thinking that Gary Monk should be manager of the year for the way he’s quietly gone about his business this season. 

Poppycock. We can all be Premier League managers – all you need is the ability to get a bunch of young men on and off a bus, get them changed, walk them on to a football pitch then walk them off it again. Hang on, isn’t that what Tottenham have been doing the last few weeks? Where’s our wins then? Hmm, seems there’s more to Garry Monk than meets the eye. 

Maybe he should be manager of the year; if Swansea manage to pip Spurs to the Europa League spot he’d definitely get my vote.