Arsenal manager deployed Andre Santos and Thomas Vermaelen in the equivalent of a reserves match yesterday against a fiercely determined opponent for reasons that are unclear. Metro proposes one factor in this post, but it does not explain why Ignasi Miquel (who played well against Manchester City) was on the bench as the opening whistle blew.

Because everyone is tired of my blind (bland?) (maybe even blond) rage about this, we are going to turn to amusing ourselves (and probably nobody else) in order to feel better about the fact that Arsenal have no healthy senior fullbacks at the club. So, here are some other potential reasons Wenger turned to Vermaelen and Santos instead of Miquel:

• Miquel sank Wenger's battleship.
• On the flight over, Santos played the scene in Airplane! over and over where Peter Graves' Capt. Clarence Oveur asks Joey if he likes Turkish prisons, staring at Wenger the entire time.
• Wenger honestly couldn't remember the difference between Miquel and Martin Angha.
• [Thomas] No no, you have it all wrong: Santos was playing left wing, and Arshavin was the fullback.
• [Thomas] The thought of Sebastien Squillaci and Miquel on the field together again gave Wenger nightmares for a week.
• Have you all seen John Carpenter's The Thing?
• [Thomas] Santos used to play for Fenerbahçe, and Wenger mixed up Greece and Turkey.
• Wenger forgot to run 15 different simulations of the match in Football Manager on the flight over.
• Also, he forgot that he couldn't just load his previous save if someone got injured (hey, we've all done it--I confronted an escaped cougar one time on the street because I thought I was playing Red Dead Redemption).
  
• [Thomas] Arsène missed all the 'WENGER OUT' signs.
• And finally, because CLUB IN CRISIS, that's why, dammit.

WENGER OUT.