He Who Laughs Last...

Conceptually I was able to explain to a non-English speaking friend what it means to have the last laugh. But before bridging the language gap, I struggled a bit to get beyond the literal translation. After a few minutes of failed attempts, I managed to convey in my best Spanish that it has nothing to do with the order or chronology of who actually laughed when. Surprisingly I was able to get that bit across with relative ease, and grammatically it was flawless.

It is a concept that is apposite this season more than any other in recent memory. Arsenal are the media’s darlings when it comes to abuse and ridicule – everyone and their dead uncles seem to want to remind Arsene that they’ve told him so. And at the front of the queue for abuse and ridicule are The Negatives’ whipping boy du jour (having succeeded Eboue who succeeded Gallas) Niklas Bendtner. The Great Dane!

To humour him, before getting the point across I told my Spanish-speaking friend in my best John Toschak literal translation, “El gran danés reirá por ultimo.” He gave me a strange look and nodded. It was a dismissive nod and meant that maybe we should move on. I had no problem with the tacit request for I knew that Nik had made many Negatives feel rather uneasy. Surely they were glad that he’d scored and that we’d won but they'd given the boy up for a lost cause. The player seen as a symbol of Wenger’s failed policy has left them with a little egg on their faces. Good! Long may it last.

Now if only Mark Hughes would let Elano off the leash against Villa later.