Invisiblewall.net: Gilberto Silva News

Unfortunately, Gilberto’s bad form continued for Arsenal against Seville. The fact that he’s hardly played since the Copa America tournament definitely seems to be catching up with him; he was apparently rusty and slow. Gilberto cleared a Seville shot straight to an opposition player who then scored. Arsenal lost the game 3-1 in the end, but they qualified for the next Champions League stage regardless.

Gilberto was hoping to put in an impressive performance last night to try and convince Wenger that he should replace Flamini in midfield – but Wenger probably isn’t very convinced. Also, despite the defeat, Gilberto remained positive:

“We need just to forget about this. We need to just take the lessons from it and make sure everything is different in the next game. We must now switch our minds to the Premier League. We are doing so well in that.”

Here’s a match report:
http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/european/article3201601.ece

And that’s that. Who knows when Bert will play again next!

Brazil beat Uruguay 2-1 the other day, and Gilberto even started for Brazil. Sadly though, his performance has been largely criticised by English and Brazilian media. Here is one scathing review of his game from Goal.com:

Gilberto Silva (3) – An atrocious performance from the Arsenal man who’s also been given the thumbs down at club level for a noticeable drop in his game. His game against Peru gave a whiff of bad egg, but against Uruguay the ex-Atlético Mineiro man was a skunk up a nostril.

Far too static on the pitch and passing inaccurately he was as easily one-twoed around by the Uruguayans as a traffic cone in training and failed to put his dilated experience into action in yet another match that explains why Dunga has stripped him of the Captain’s armband in favour of Lúcio and Julio César.

Oh dear.

However, his bad form is hardly surprising. He’s played about 4 minutes of football this season, and thus could easily be forgiven for a lacklustre display.

Let’s hope he manages better form for Arsenal on the weekend – when he will hopefully start against Fulham, since Flamini is currently injured. Some of the newspapers today are saying that Gilberot won’t play against Fulham due to ‘fatigue’ – which would be a shame if it were true. However, here’s to hoping that it isn’t.

Go Bert… get that good form back!

Here is the link to today’s made up Sun story about Gilberto: Article link

Here is the article reprinted, to save you the gruesome experience of visiting thesun.co.uk:

Gilberto eyes Juventus move

ARSENAL midfielder Gilberto Silva wants to join Juventus.

The Gunners will listen to offers for the Brazilian in the January transfer window.

Manager Arsene Wenger knows he cannot keep all his central midfielders happy.

And he will reluctantly allow Gilberto to leave in order to hang on to Abou Diaby and Lassana Diarra.

Italian giants Juventus will lead the chase for the Brazilian star, 31, with boss Claudio Ranieri confident of clinching a £4million deal in the New Year.

And Gilberto has welcomed their interest, saying: “I would willingly go to Turin.

“Juve are a prestigious club and they have already overcome their problems following their demotion to Serie B.

“I would adapt myself well to the Italian league, however Juve should know that I have no intention of starting a war with Arsenal.”

Gilberto has been unhappy at the Emirates since being overlooked for the captaincy in favour of William Gallas following Thierry Henry’s departure.

He has become increasingly frustrated at his lack of first-team action this season — due to the success of Cesc Fabregas and Mathieu Flamini in the middle of the park.

Gilberto has not started a Premier League game for more than two months.

Yet he could return for tomorrow’s home game against Wigan because Fabregas is suspended and Flamini has a thigh injury.

Gilberto doesn’t “Want” to leave Arsenal. What he actually says, is that should Arsenal and Juventus make a deal with each other, he wouldn’t turn down Juventus. However, this is all trivial, since Gilberto has told Arsenal he wants to stay at the club, and Arsenal have no desire to sell him.

So: there is nothing “exclusive”, or even remotely true about this article. Boycott the Sun for being a dirty piece of fabricated nonsence, which I couldn’t even be forced to purchase if I were held at gun point.

Source: Setanta website

Arsenal star Mathieu Flamini has suffered an injury and did not take part in Les Bleus’ last training session.

The Gunners’ manager Arsene Wenger will now be waiting for news on his midfielder’s fitness.

‘The French Gattuso’, as he is dubbed by his team-mates, has been a key player for the London side this season, and relegated former vice-captain Gilberto to the substitute bench with his form.

Flamini made his international debut last Friday in the 2-2 draw against Morocco at Stade de France, appearing for the nine last minutes of the game.

Les Bleus manager Raymond Domenech has revealed that the midfielder and Lilian Thuram did not take part of Sunday’s training session.

Experienced Thuram has been rested, whereas Flamini ‘suffered a little something’, Domenech said without explaining the extent of his injury.

Nobody is sure how big the “little something is” which Flamini suffered – but it’s assumed that Gilberto will temporarily take his place in midfield for Arsenal next week. It will be interesting to see if Gilberto manages to permanently dispell Flamini from the team.

Go Bert.

Gilberto played in Brazil’s surprise 1-1 draw yesterday against Peru. He started the game, played quite well, and then finished the game. Brazil should have won the game, but thanks to evil fairies interfering in the ether, Peru scored an equaliser.

As you can see, I’m struggling to talk about the game, so I’m being forced to chat rubbish. The game wasn’t very exciting, bar from a few good shots from Kaká.

Gilberto said the game would be a “chess match” in the lead-up to the game, and it turned out he was wrong. It was indeed, as I suspected, a football match.

He will probably start in Brazil’s game against Urugya in Sao Paulo on Wednesday.

And that’s that.

Story from the Bangkok Post

Brazil will play Peru next week, and Gilberto has been (briefly) talking about the game:

“Peru will surely go out to seek the goal and we have to be intelligent to exploit that. It will be a chess game.”

I’m sure it will.

Bert will play in the game, though he won’t be Brazil captain, because former skipper Lúcio is back from injury.

Source

Gilberto Silva misses Brazil’s first practice ahead of World Cup qualifiers

Arsenal midfielder Gilberto Silva missed Brazil’s first training ahead of World Cup qualifiers against Peru and Uruguay. He delayed his trip to Brazil because of Arsenal’s Premier League match against Reading on Monday.

The player was expected to arrive in Brazil’s training camp, just outside Rio de Janeiro, late Tuesday, the Brazilian soccer confederation said.

Brazil’s first practice on Tuesday was without AS Roma goalkeeper Doni, who was ill, while FC Barcelona striker Ronaldinho practiced separately to nurse an ankle injury.

“I trust in our doctors,” Dunga said. “It’s not the first time our players arrive with injuries but recover in time. Let’s wait.

The squad – led by Kaka, Robinho and Ronaldinho – is set to travel to Peru on Friday, two days before the match in Lima. The five-time world champions will host Uruguay three days later at Morumbi stadium in Sao Paulo.

Brazil, coming off a 5-0 win over Ecuador at Maracana in Rio, trails leader Argentina by two points in the 10-nation South American qualifying tournament.

Good luck on your Brazil break, Bert. (Actually, it won’t be much of a break, because he’ll actually be playing football – unlike at Arsenal!)

Source 1, Source 2

Here is what Gilberto said yesterday after playing in Arsenal’s 0-0 bore-draw at Slavia Prague:

The rumours about me falling out with Wenger are not true. If I have said something to Arsène it would never come out in the papers. I would go to him and speak to him face-to-face; we have great respect for each other.

The only thing I can say is this is not true. Everyone knows I’m not 100 per cent happy to be on the bench, that’s normal. But I’m being professional and doing my job. I respect everybody in the squad, I respect him and I respect his decision. It’s the only thing I can do.

I am not thinking about leaving now. I’ve said that I’m happy at the Club. Of course my situation is not very comfortable on the bench. But I’m still not thinking about leaving the Club. I prefer to think that I have the condition to get back in the team. I will do my job, do my best to achieve that. This is what I have in mind.

I don’t know if I will extend my contract in 18 months time. That’s not just down to me. It would be great if I could extend my contract with the Club and finish my career here. But I need to see if the Club has the same feeling and it wants the same thing as I want.

Then he talked about how important the 0-0 draw was to the Arsenal youngsters:

We expected a difficult game. From the first game against them it was a great result for us but not for them, so we knew they were going to be up for the game.

We faced a lot of difficulties, but it was important for us to get through to the next stage [the draw was enough to send Arsenal through to the next round].

Of course it was a great experience for them. In their career they will face a lot of difficulties and an experience like that for them will be very important for the future.

Step-by-step they are having their opportunity to show their quality and they are showing the quality they have got.

And it is great for the team because apart from the first XI we have players on the bench that can make a difference.

You can also see Gilberto talking about the game here: Link to Sky Sports video (nice one, Sky Sports)

And about Arsenal’s games next year:

Everybody knows January is very hard. But it is important for us to maintain the way we are playing. It doesn’t matter who plays. If we go on in the competition maybe we will face some problems like we faced in the last few seasons, where there are people injured or suspended. And the players who come in must play at the same level as the team is playing at the moment.

Boo-yah.

Source: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport/story/0,,2205081,00.html

Gilberto denies Wenger dispute

Gilberto Silva has been angered by reports of a fall-out with Arsene Wenger and that he refused to play at centre-back for the Arsenal manager in last Wednesday’s League Cup win at Sheffield United.

The Brazil midfielder admits that he is unhappy to have been relegated to the bench for much of this season, but insists that he had not and would never decline to play as a defender – a position in which he started his career and expects to end it.

‘It was strange, this thing that I had a fight with Arsene,’ said Gilberto. ‘I never did that. We have a mutual respect for each other and although I’m not happy to be on the bench, and he and everyone knows that, I always respect his decision about what he thinks is best for the team. I’m being very professional, so I don’t understand how these things come out when we don’t have any problem. I’m not the kind of person who would refuse to play.’

After an outstanding campaign last season, Gilberto won the Copa America with Brazil. Wenger granted him additional time to recover from the late summer competition, but such has been Mathieu Flamini’s form in central midfield that Gilberto has been unable to displace him from the team.

Gilberto recently turned 31, an age at which Wenger becomes more circumspect about renewing contracts. Gilberto’s expires in 18 months’ time and he is aware of interest from several major clubs, including Juventus, but will not make a decision on his future until next summer.

‘We’ll see at the end of the season what’s going to happen,’ he said. ‘But now I just play football and don’t think about what comes from outside.

‘I hope I will be back playing centre midfield soon. I’m working for that. It has been quite hard, but the only thing I can do is do my job and respect the manager and the team – to try to do my best when I have an opportunity.’

And that’s that.

Wenger has been talking to the press about Gilberto not being made captain last night against Sheffield United. Now, I don’t really think that Wenger should even have to defend his decisions, since he’s the manager. But he’s chosen to do it nonetheless, and here’s what he said:

I didn’t give the captaincy to Gilberto at the start of the season because I didn’t want to give it him and take it away again.

Gilberto was a real leader on the pitch for me last season. There’s basically no problem.

I don’t know why people see a problem with Gilberto at the moment. The only problem is that he doesn’t get at the moment the number of games that he deserves.

He is still a key person for me. There’s not a lot more say.

There is no problem so I cannot create one, apart from the captaincy problem I have explained and he is perfectly aware of that.

Fair enough! Glad to hear there’s still no problems with Gilberto’s attitude – he is the model professional.