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Put all the dirty rotten scoundrels together and what do you get?
PUT Mathieu Flamini in the first XI of ungrateful scoundrels who turned their back on the club. Here’s the teamsheet:
1. Richard Wright: Moaned for not getting David Seaman’s place – but it turned out he wasn’t even good enough for Everton.
2. Lassana Diarra: Would have been a first-team regular if he’d had a bit of patience – but was gone within weeks.
3. Ashley Cole: Forgot the team he supported as a boy – no doubt he was struggling to pay the electricity bill and needed more cash.
4. Pascal Cygan: Quibbled at the lack of first-team opportunities but wasn’t good enough.
5. Sol Campbell: Where’s our transfer fee? That’s twice he’s done that.
6. Mathieu Flamini (captain): Elevated from the fringes only to get ideas above his station.
7. Jose Antonio Reyes: Wenger has never spent so much money on such a disappointment.
8. David Bentley: If he’d have waited, he could have been the next Bergkamp. Now, he plays alongside Jason Roberts.
9. Marc Overmars: Great, pacey player but he was gone in a flash when Barca called.
10. Nicolas Anelka: Archetypal football mercenary.
11. Jeremie Aliadiere: Claimed he wasn’t given a chance but remembered at Arsenal simply for missing them.
Put it all together – and you’ve got a team that would probably finish 10th, just above Spurs.
 I ENDED up going to Sunday’s match with my old mate, Boz. We were at Eton together – I was the caretaker – and we got talking about soccer one barmy afternoon. In Latin. Anyway, he occasionally goes to watch his local AC Milan feeder club and after the glorious week he’d had, I said I’d buy him a celebratory Bovril.
“Yes, quite a victory over Ken,” he quipped, as another Everton player was kicked to the ground in the penalty area as the ref waved play on.
“I can’t believe we didn’t get anything there,” I protested, “and yet I can’t help but feel strangely pleased by the injustice of it all.”
“Ah, that’ll be your mawkish Scouse sentimentality,” said the capital powerhouse.
“You’re absolutely right, Boz,” I admitted.
Despite being the only side interested in winning for most of the afternoon, the evil reds of the south suddenly found the net close to the end.
“Does this mean we’ve won the league?” asked a puzzled Boz. “No mate,” I told him, “you’re the only one in Islington who’s won anything this year.”
“So,” I said, as we made our way out of the Ryanjet Soccerdome, “what are your plans for this mayoral lark then?”
“Ah, er, crumbs!” he spluttered. But I could see his great misunderstood mind suddenly start to wrestle with the big issues facing the capital – the bus conductors’ renaissance, housing, the NHS, and how can Arsenal be so beautiful and yet so useless?
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