Invisiblewall.net: Gilberto Silva News

I found this little tid-bit of a story on this week’s [usually terrible, this week not so much] Football365 Mailbag.

The piece was written by an Arsenal supporting chap named Andy who lives in Colchester. He said:

It’s interesting, given the amount of abuse the Arsenal medical staff get (particularly from Gooner Pete Gill on this site I’ve noticed) to read an article in the Mail today (I wouldn’t normally give the rag the time of day but someone sent me a link) which says that Eduardo’s career was saved by the actions of Arsenal physio Gary Lewin.

To paraphrase, Lewin had the presence of mind to call on Gilberto as an interpreter for Eduardo, understanding that Eduardo would revert to his native Portuguese given the amount of distress he was in. Having someone on who spoke the same language enabled Lewin to then carry out his work while making sure Gilberto could communicate with Eduardo to tell him what to do and what would happen, and also to relax Eduardo and ensuring he was not put in any further danger while they moved him off the pitch.

Apparently the problem was also exacerbated by the fact that in these instances it is usually easier to treat a player on his back with legs outstretched. Eduardo was curled up on his side and couldn’t be moved, making the job even harder.

While I understand that often the Arsenal medical team come in for a lot of stick for supposedly rushing back players who aren’t ready (e.g. Gallas and Henry last season, van Persie this), I feel it’s time that credit be given to Gary Lewin for his actions in this case. Of course there’s still a huge amount of work to be done and it’s not yet certain whether Eduardo will ever return to top-flight football, Lewin’s professionalism (and while that word is used way too frequently in football laughably to refer to the actions of the players it certainly applies here) made that initial period for Eduardo, and Arsenal, a lot better.

Good work Gary.

I’d also like to draw everyone’s attention to the other hero in the story – Gilberto – for his amazing skills of translation. Well done, Gilberto.

Also, another note in the defence of Gary Lewin – he has done heroic rescues like this one many times before. Most recently, with Peter Cech – when he reacted quickly to stop the Chelsea goalkeeper choking on his throat. There’s probably been, like, billions of others, too, which I’m too lazy to remember or look up.

Yeah.

Edit: I have since found the above story on The Sun website: Click for article.

Arsene Wenger was talking about the Arsenal vs. Milan game today, and he said:

“Kaka made the difference last year in this competition. He scored 10 goals in 11 games,” Wenger said.

“He’s the guy who can dominate a situation and in 10 seconds get to the other side of the box and score a goal.

“We need to be more cautious in the centre than we usually are. He’s especially dangerous at counter-attacking. I don’t know if I’ll use Gilberto for him.”

Arsene Wenger was talking about the Arsenal vs. Milan game today, and he said:

Quote:
“Kaka made the difference last year in this competition. He scored 10 goals in 11 games,” Wenger said.

“He’s the guy who can dominate a situation and in 10 seconds get to the other side of the box and score a goal.

“We need to be more cautious in the centre than we usually are. He’s especially dangerous at counter-attacking. I don’t know if I’ll use Gilberto for him.”

From AFP.

So, it’s up in the air. Gilberto hasn’t been playing his best recently, but this is just the type of game to wake him up. Gilberto always rises to the bigger challenge – so hopefully he’ll play, be man of the match and score, like, a frillion goals. Or something.

Over the last few days, Gilberto has been linked with a move to Manchester City. While I am no mind reader, I can say with fair certainty that Gilberto will not move to Man City. In fact, in the event that he leaves Arsenal, he will not even move to another Premiership club. Here’s why.

Gilberto is not a fan of England. He doesn’t like the weather, and he is much fonder of the idea of living in a Mediterranean city – such as one in Italy or Spain. The only reason Gilberto lives and works in England at the moment is because, for him, Arsenal has a strong pull. He loves working at the club enough to have stayed there for a year without even playing. His family also have their lives in London; his daughter goes to school in St Albans and his wife (I think) has a job there, too. To move to another city (i.e. Manchester) would be silly from his point of view, because it would mean remaining in England while still having to uproot his whole family – the two worst things about moving clubs combined.

If Gilberto does uproot his family to go and work for another club, he will only do it in order to move to a city with a hot climate and Mediterranean lifestyle.

So, the only reason that Gilberto has stayed in England for so long is that he loves London specifically – and he doesn’t want to move his family. So, the only other situation in which Gilberto would be able to move clubs while remaining in England would be if he moved to another London club. Now, obviously, the club would need to be in North London (or near to his St Albans home), and the list of big clubs which fit this criteria is pretty much limited to Arsenal and Spurs. (Chelsea, Fulham and West Ham are too far away.) Gilberto, I assume, would not want to move to Spurs after he saw the way which Campbell was treated for making the move in the opposite direction.

While a move to an Italian or Spanish club would mean uprooting him and his family, it would also mean moving to a more European lifestyle, which would be enough to counter the annoyance of having to leave a city which he has grown to love. Moving to Manchester, or indeed any other English club, does not have this benefit from Gilberto’s point of view.

So, in the event that Gilberto does end up leaving Arsenal, he is more likely to move to Italy. The most likely club, at the moment, seems to be Juventus – because they have expressed an actual interest in him, and Gilberto has specifically mentioned Juventus as a club which he could see himself at in the future. The Italian league would also suit Gilberto’s style of play more, since Serie A in Italy is a very defensive league – unlike Spain’s La Liga, which is the complete opposite.

After Arsenal’s terrible 4-0 defeat against Man United (in which Gilberto took part), Gilberto offered Nani some advice with regards to showboating in an Arsenal vs. Man United game:

Source: Sky Sports:

Gilberto issues Nani warning

Arsenal star Gilberto Silva has warned Manchester United winger Nani he could get a kicking if he does cut out his showboating.

Nani’s showboating antics during United’s 4-0 win over Arsenal in their FA Cup clash on Saturday infuriated the Arsenal squad who felt the Portuguese international was showing them a lack of respect.

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsenal chief Arsene Wenger both condemened Nani for overstepping the mark.

The summer signing from Sporting Lisbon came in for some rough treatment following his showboating and Gilberto has warned he could come in for the same if he continues his antics.

Warning
“It was important for us we didn’t lose control and lose another man,” said Gilberto.

“I just spoke to him and told him it wasn’t necessary for him to do that. I told him he could get a bad kick doing that.

“In these type of situations I do my best to calm down my team-mates because we need all of them on the pitch to fight for the team.”

Rallying call
Meanwhile, Gilberto is confident Arsenal can bounce back from their humiliating defeat to United and go on to achieve success in the Premier League and UEFA Champions League.

“Of course we can bounce back from this,” insisted Gilberto. “If you look at United, they had a bad result against Manchester City, a big disappointment to them, and they came back very strong in this game against us.

“It’s the same for us. We will come back even stronger, starting in the Champions League against Milan on Wednesday, because we don’t want to let the opportunities pass us by this season. We must bounce back if we want to achieve something. This group is ambitious to win trophies this season.

“The FA Cup is very important and we’re disappointed to be knocked out, but we need to look forward to the game against Milan.

“It is also important that we focus on our position in the league, where we are five points clear, a situation very much in our favour. We must learn from our mistakes and not let a performance like this happen again.”

And that’s that.

Woo-hoo! Another start for Gilberto yesterday.

Arsenal played Blackburn at the Emirates stadium, and Gilberto played all 90 minutes of the game. (Well actually, there were about 94 minutes, but whatever.) Arsenal won 2-0, with Senderos and Adebayor scoring.

Gilberto played a solid sort of game. It was a strange starting lineup though – Flamini and Fabregas were both on the pitch with Gilberto, so the midfield was somewhat congested. Gilberto spent most of the game sitting deep in defence – though he did have a few moments of going forward to the opposition’s area (with limited effect, admittedly, but still).

The only reason that Gilberto started on the pitch with Flamini was that so many of Arsenal’s wingers are currently injured, meaning that they had to start with three central midfielders. It will be very interesting to see whether Wenger opts to drop Flamini or Gilberto once more of Arsenal’s wingers recover from injury.

Click here for a match report of the game (from BBC Sport).

Gilberto expresses further unhappiness

Today, The Sun is running a story in which Gilberto talks about his pain of being left on the bench this season. It’s his most open quote all season – and, in my opinion, his least professional. Here are the quotes from the article:

To this day I’m waiting for an explanation as to this change. The truth is I found out about it through the newspapers.

I thought I had a good season last year and I saw no reason for what has happened. If I continue not to play, then leaving Arsenal is inevitable.

I could not cope with another season like this one when Wenger has made me feel totally useless.

A player must be able to smile. A sad Brazilian is no good, especially on a football pitch. Right now I really am struggling to battle on.

It’s obviously easy to understand Gilberto’s frustration at not playing. But, he was warned at the start of the season by Wenger that he was not guaranteed a place in the first team, and he accepted this risk by staying at Arsenal. Now, I’m a massive Gilberto fan (obviously), but the fact that it is not working for Gilberto this season does not demand an explanation from Wenger.

Also, his comments about ‘not being given any reason for being axed’ from the team strike me as unneeded. Wenger does not have to explain himself to the players, no matter how senior they are. Wenger is the manager, he is in charge, and he can play whoever he wants without having to explain himself. Anyway, this fact is completely redundant, because the reason that Gilberto was axed from the team was due to his late arrival back from Brazil’s Copa America tour. Flamini was playing better than him at this time, and so Flamini stayed in the team. That is the reason. No explanation needed.

Having said this, it’s acceptable that Gilberto is expressing a desire to move on from Arsenal to find regular first team football. It is perfectly allowable for a professional (of any age – let alone Gilberto’s) to seek to play week in, week out. Gilberto has no obligation to be happy on the bench.

However, I think it needs to be said, that Gilberto still has an obligation not to upset the morale or balance of the team with further interviews like this. Unhappiness is an inevitable emotion; expressing it to the press every week, isn’t.

(Maybe this opinion seems slightly hard on Gilberto – but I think that the only reason that I’m being ‘hard’ on him is because he has set himself such high standards of professionalism during his life. Any deviation from this naturally stands out.)

Source: The Guardian Online (via Rick Carter)

Here is a very praise-worthy article from The Guardian:

If it remains faintly ludicrous that the captain of Brazil cannot get a regular game at Arsenal, Gilberto Silva does not see the funny side. As he prepared to lead his country at Croke Park in tonight’s friendly against the Republic of Ireland, the midfielder could not conceal his frustration.

“At the moment I cannot see any future for me at the club,” he said. “I will see what will happen in the next few months and until the end [of the season], if I will get the chance to come back in the team. If not, I will see what I am going to do at the end. It’s been painful for me and to stay another season like this would kill me. I will sit down with Arsène [Wenger] and see what we can do to manage the situation.”

Gilberto, 31, who has 18 months to run on his contract, is one of football’s nice guys. Polite and respectful, he bears no grudge towards Wenger, the manager, or Mathieu Flamini, the Frenchman who has ousted him from the starting line-up. When potential suitors approached in January, most notably Juventus and Roma, he pledged to stay and fight. There have been no histrionics.
“I am not happy in the position I am in but I am trying to manage the situation,” he said. “I am very calm and I’m being professional as I’ve always been. We’ll see at the end of the season what is going to happen.”

Gilberto was Wenger’s first choice at the start of the season for the midfield anchor role alongside Cesc Fábregas. Flamini had grown frustrated at his own lack of opportunities and, although Wenger persuaded him to stay, he could not offer any guarantees that he would start ahead of Gilberto. Wenger even signed Lassana Diarra from Chelsea on August 31, as he feared that Flamini would not stay the course.

But when Gilberto missed the opening three matches of the season, because of his involvement with Brazil at the Copa América, Flamini seized his chance. Wenger had promised Flamini that, if he did so, he would stay in the team and, although Gilberto’s return in the final week of August presented him with a dilemma, he remained true to his word.

Flamini has been one of Arsenal’s players of the season; he is not only keeping Gilberto on the bench but he has seen off Diarra, a player ahead of him in the pecking order for France’s Euro 2008 squad. Diarra moved to Portsmouth last month.

Gilberto has been restricted to five Premier League starts, two of them out of position at centre-half, and it seems that only an injury to Flamini will offer him a route back. He refuses, though, to lament the timing of the Copa América, South American’s premier championship, which Brazil won with a 3-0 victory over Argentina in the final.

“I never regret to play for my country, this is inside of me, this is my pride,” Gilberto said. “If I receive a call from the [Brazil] manager, I never refuse that. That is why I don’t regret to play the Copa América.”

Gilberto, a World Cup winner in 2002, does not take his international responsibilities lightly and he will be called upon tonight to marshal an inexperienced team, as Dunga, the manager, bloods players for the Beijing Olympics, a tournament that Brazil are desperate to win for the first time. Anderson, the teenage Manchester United midfielder, is expected to win his third cap.

“It is fantastic to see how Anderson is adapting after his transfer from Porto [last summer],” said Gilberto. “He has changed completely his style but I think he can produce much more, given his quality.”

Gilberto anticipates a “tough test” from the Republic, who remain under the caretaker charge of Don Givens, as their efforts to appoint a successor to Steve Staunton drag on. He is well aware that “everybody wants to beat Brazil”.

Well done to David Hytner for writing such an unbiased article.

And on the note of Gilberto expressing his doubt at his Arsenal future; I think it is very easy to sympathise with him. It’s a credit to Gilberto that while he’s spent most of the season on the bench, he’s kept so professional (as he kindly points out). If he wants to go to another club to actually play football, he cannot be blamed.

Good luck Bert – but keep trying to break back into the team at Arsenal!

Gilberto will captain Brazil tonight in an international friendly against Ireland. The game takes place in sunny Ireland, and it will be tough for Brazil to control the game. Taken from the times, Gilberto said:

Some think that, because they have not got a manager, it will be easy for us. We don’t think like that. They have their pride, as we have ours. It will be a difficult game.

Contrary to this, Robbie Keane, captain of Ireland, said that Ireland would “kick Brazil”. This concerns me, but not as much as it does Wenger. Or Gilberto, for that matter.

Go Gilberto. And don’t let them Irish injure you.