Published: 11 September, 2014

ARSENAL by Richard Osley

WHEN Welbz scored for England this week, he ran over to the subs, picked out his new football friends, Calum Chambers and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, did a Gunners’ finger salute and hugged them like he was already a sworn through Arsenal man. 

Yup, all of a sudden, Welbz, as Ravel Morrison’s famous tweet had it, was dat guy. He hasn’t even played for Arsenal yet, and he’s already being celebrated as someone who might turn out to be a footballing superstar or, at the very least, as a forward who is not that bad after all.

You can Google search past editions of this column. There’s a great one in the week Spurs got sick on lasagne, and that time Tottenham were beaten to Grimsby. Some of my finest work. But you will also find all sorts of irritation with Danny Welbeck on the grounds that England somehow thought they could win the World Cup with him up front.

So there’s no point pretending his arrival at Arsenal was met with miaow-miaow delight at Osley Towers. 

Welbz, always struck me as a Manchestery Giroud, moments of magic which made you confused about the missed sitters and mislaid passes. He may yet turn out to be a flop for fans still not over Thierry.

But that lovely moment of togetherness, that celebration on the touchline with CC and the Ox, was still something warm. 

He genuinely seems delighted to have joined, a guy that put a desire to accomplish something new, ahead of the ringing pound signs in front of most footballers’ eyes.

SPURS by Catherine Etoe

SO poor old Alan Shearer dozed off when England played Norway the other day. Of course he did – there were no Tottenham players involved in the game for goodness sakes! Some bloke from Aston Villa somehow managed to get a game. So did Fag Ash Lil Wilshere. 

Even Phil Neville got a run out at one point, although that was only on the radio. Thankfully with our radio, if you turn the volume button down to just past the dent caused by Gran lobbing it out of the window during England’s World Cup match against Uruguay in the summer, you can’t even hear Phil’s dulcet Bury tones. God love Phil, he’s got a face for the wireless, unlike his brother Gary who puts the p-h-w-o-a-r into phwoar factor – at least in Gran’s opinion. Anyway, I was half hoping Roy Hodgson would put the wahey factor back into England on Monday night by giving Andros Townsend a run out against Switzerland. But then I remembered that us Tottenham fans would like to be top-tastic again so the fewer players we’ve got running around for their countries the better. Call me unpatriotic, but I’d rather our boys spent these international evenings like Alan, having a good night’s kip and getting ready for the next big game! And we all know that a trip to the Stadium of Light to take on Sunder­land is miles more important than a trip to Switzerland to see shot-shy England hobble to a “now we’re going to win the European Championships” win. And all that hype over Man United reject Welbeck scoring twice. Just as well he wasn’t playing against defenders like Johan Djourou – oh wait a minute, he was! Says it all really.