Arsenal Star In Racism Row | Frimpong Set For Loan Move

After being eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Carling Cup on Tuesday, Arsenal’s youngsters will only have the FA cup (which begins for us in January) to compete in for the remainder of the season, assuming we continue to play full strength teams in the league and in Europe. Therefore, we can expect to see a number of young players sent out on loan in the January window – the first seemingly being Emmanuel Frimpong.

In an interview with Arsenal Player, the defensive midfielder addressed his progress, future, and ‘dench’ reputation with the squad:

“It’s hard at Arsenal, every player is basically your age or just a couple years older than you. So it’s not like other clubs where you’re thinking to yourself, ‘I’m just going to give myself a couple years and then hopefully they will just move on or retire and then I can just come in’. At Arsenal all players are young so you can’t just rest on your laurels and wait for people to retire, you have to put the effort and I think me and Francis did a good job.

“Considering where I was pre-season, I didn’t expect to be where I am at the moment. But that’s football. For every player to show what he can do he has to be given the opportunity on the pitch. I’ve had my chance, I played 11 games, I’ve done really well and hopefully I’ll get more games under my belt before the season ends.”

In all fairness Frimpong has impressed for Arsenal thus far with a spirit and determination in the challenge that any feel Arsenal have lacked – his massive physique compliments this to make him one of the clubs best tacklers. Frimpong has proved that he is also comfortable in possession, as we saw him shoot from range against Liverpool (an appearance marred by a naive red card) and gain a lot of ground against City in the cup.

“[On replacing Eboue as a comedian] No, it’s not, it’s not at all, I think everyone knows Eboue is funny. I just feel that in the dressing room one has to be lively sometimes, make the players laugh, make them enjoy themselves. At the moment I’ve got the task of doing that and hopefully I can make Eboue proud wherever he is.

“[On a possible loan] Yes, hopefully it does happen in January. As much as I want to play for Arsenal, at the moment I’m not regularly playing games. Alex Song and the people in midfield have been playing well at the moment so I think the best thing for me to do when January comes is to go out on loan.”

Only the Ghanaian himself knows how high his morale currently is, and despite the fact you’d expect to see him on Tuesday in our pointless match against Olympiakos, appearances will be few and far between after Jack Wilshere returns to fitness in January – probably something Frimpong has in mind. Wolves are the club who are allegedly looking at Manny for a prospective loan move.

Andrey Arshavin accused of racism

Speaking to GhanaWeb news, former Locomotiv Moskva player Laryea Kingston has claimed Arsenal’s Russian midfielder racially abused him three times during Arshavin’s captaincy of Zenit St. Petersburg:

“You know Arsenal’s Arshavin…he called me a monkey when I was at Locomotiv Moscow and he (Arshavin) played for Zenit St. Petersburg.”

Everyone knows about the Russian Premier Liga’s reputation as fiercely racist and it’s best not to comment on accusations of this gravity. However, what is true is that Kingston previously called a Scottish referee a racist following his sending off while playing for Hearts and was forced to apologise after:

“I am extremely sorry for the events on Saturday afternoon. While I am still disappointed at the decision for the second yellow card, I must express sincere regret at the comment I made of the referee.

“It was completely out of character and is in no way part of my make-up. I will, at the earliest opportunity, apologise to Mr Conroy as I feel I over-reacted and I would hope my record since coming to Scotland and my future conduct will demonstrate I am only interested in playing top-class but fair football.”

Thanks to clockendview for submitting this article.