Arsenal: Now with Yet Even More Frenchiness!

Sir Alex tells Mikael Silvestre to sod off.

In an unprecedented move, Sir Alex Ferguson has allowed one of his players to make a move to one of the other Big Four clubs. It was announced yesterday that Mikael Silvestre has signed a 2-year agreement with Arsenal. Having been injured last year, and fallen behind Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic in the starting line-up, Silvestre chose to forego his Old Trafford testimonial and make the move to London after 9 years at ManUre.



Silvestre now will likely join William Gallas in the middle of the defense, along with Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna on the outsides, to form an all-Bleu back line (much to Wenger's delight). With the departure of Justin Hoyte to Middlesbrough and an injury to Senderos (thank goodness), Silvestre should see significant playing time right away, which was a major motivation for him to make the move to the Emirates.

At the price of £750,000, the Gunners get quite the bargain for a player who was part of 4 EPL titles, 1 FA Cup, and 1 League Cup, in addition to his 40 appearances for Les Bleus. Wenger hopes that the 31 year-old Silvestre's maturity and experience will help bolster his extrememly young EPL side in their bid for renewed glory.

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How Do You Say "I told you so" in Geordie?

Mikael Silvestre is a man who speaks his mind. Not that you would know, since no one pays attention to him. But during the Christmas holiday, Silvestre tracked down Jack Bell of The New York Times, dragged him up to his hotel room and told him how he was right to reject a move to Newcastle last summer because of Joey Barton, what with Barton's latest run-in with the law (he's free at last!).

You see, Barton's sparring partner Ousmane Dabo is a good friend of Silvestre's. It just wouldn't have been right to join a club that had just signed Barton. Even if that meant giving up the chance to play for a perennial underachiever with no chance of playing Champions League football, and whose defense is struggling to fill Titus Bramble's oversized clown shoes.

In Barton's defense, he didn't attack his own teammate this time, and he managed to keep his cigarette butt out of his victim's eyes. Baby steps.

Though we do have to wonder, what's with Newcastle's obsession with the criminally-inclined? Lest we forget, Craig Bellamy logged some jail time at Tyneside, while Lee Bowyer went a whole season without attacking any Asian students, but still managed to get in an on-field brawl with teammate Kieron Dyer, who himself was one of two, ur, unnamed Premiership players questioned the roasting scandal of 2003. Maybe Newcastle can follow the example of Chelsea and the New York Giants, and have some sort of exchange program with the Cincinnati Bengals.

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