Farewell Andrei, welcome home Cesc, and the statistical truth on press transfer rumours

{Warning – no humour exists in this piece, it has
already been sucked out of me by the gruesome transfer madness.}

Aww! That was nice. I’ve had a fine relaxing break.  A nice wee trip abroad.  I should be back now, all rested and relaxed; NOT
A BIT OF IT! Just my luck, I chose to go to Istanbul, of all weekends, I chose
the one when the majority of the city decided to protest or riot. Typical –
“The luck of The Irish” my sack! It actually turned out to be an amazing time
to visit the city (“Where the fuck’s he going with this?) and to be honest ,
facing hundreds of protesters and riot police was a lot more enjoyable than
Twitter has been since I got back.

Easier and more enjoyable to avoid flying bottles and
brickwork than avoiding transfer rumours, easier to avoid tear gas than the
smell of bullshit stories being fired around by “The transfer posse” on
Twitter.

The deluded mob
marching forcefully onto our screens, hurling bullshit bombs and made up
missiles, and clouds of bullshit, like tear gas squeezing out through the
speakers on your laptop.  

WHY? WHY? WHY?

Every fucking window, every single time without fail.  The same old bollocks. The same “allegedlies”,
the same “we believe it’s trues”, the same “sources close to the player”, reappears,
like grey clouds of an impending rainy season. And if it’s not bad enough, that
we have the “ITK” crap shoved in our faces, but then some perfectly sane,
intelligent, level-headed men and women, swallow it, regurgitate it, add their
own twist and fire it back out there, and on and on the shitty snowball grows. We
then watch the same sane men and women argue with each other and followers over
said player’s role in the team, his best position, who we’ll drop, etc. Debating
and arguing a player not in our team, who has been mentioned in the gossip
section of The Sun, or a Sulia link or the poxy 
“The top 10 players Arsenal must sign in order to maintain an erection
this year” – Bleacher Report – tripe THEN fucking arguing about it. AAARRGGHH
give my cloudy head peace.

Now please, take a look at this, I tweeted this last year,
and I’ll probably have to do it every year from now on no doubt, it makes for
interesting reading –

It kind of shows how much shite is thrown, and it’s also
misleading, as the success rate isn’t really accurate as, say for example The
Times print a rumour say 10 times in a month, then if it actually happens
they’re credited with 10 corrects, so the corrects and percentages are in fact
a lot lower. So you see how stupid it is to waste anytime photoshopping or
drawing up team formations, etc.

Now granted, it’s not easy to avoid falling into the trap.
You turn on Twitter and first off you see a tweet from someone you really
respect stating that “Arsenal are close to the signing of “X”, (for this I’m
going to use Fr. Ted). So you get a little excited and scroll on down. There you’re
greeted by a similar tweet from an account with a huge following.  You’re buzzing – “It’s happening”, you’re bouncing.
So carry on to see THE dreaded tweet, “Arsenal to sign Fr. Ted before the
weekend” source : The Sun. “Goodnight
Irene” , “night and God bless”, all previous interactions are sent to the
rubbish bin on the left side of the brain, OR that’s where they should be
binned, but alas people are so keen for something to happen that they choose to
completely ignore “The Sun” bit, the one bit that should truly be acknowledged,
 then ripped up and forgotten.

People are taking the word of a cheap tabloid media, and I
include the vast majority of the media in that bracket, even the reputable ones
like The BBC, The Times, etc. There really isn’t that much different between
the reputable ones and the commonly known gutter trash types. They both play on
people’s weakness’s, their need for need for big names, their need to be the first
to hear or the first to break the news of transfers, gullibility, whatever way
you want to paint it. The only real difference between them is that the
reputable ones just don’t print as many rumours.

I wonder why the back pages can’t act the same as the front
pages. If lies are made up about you at the front of the paper, you can sue the
papers for deformation of character or other things like that, but not so at
the back, they can just churn out endless piles of cack with no consequences,
maybe the very rare apology the day after a lie was told and a threat was made.
Well I tell you, if I was a footballer, and some shitty rag linked me to The
Spuds, I’d have their asses down in The Old Bailey faster than you could say
Cesc Fabregas, and I’d have Jake Brigance and Perry Mason pushing Ironside into
the courtroom carrying Ally Mc Beal on his lap, to make sure I’d sue their
sorry asses.

No matter how much we try to battle against them, they
slowly eat away at our own perceptions of our own clubs. We should be strong
and united against them, but when they keep throwing bombs at our defences,
they weaken us, and slowly but surely our perceptions of our own club, players,
manager and board.

Example:

MY PERCEPTION – if we all honestly admit it, we all knew
that in order to build our stadium we’d have to have austerity. We’d have to
sell players for big money, and replace them with cheaper ones, and hope that
our manager is good enough to get the best out of what squad he has left with
to keep qualifying for the Champions League; where the money is (weren’t we
lucky). And if we’re honest, we couldn’t really believe that even he could do
it when you saw the players we lost, but he did.

MEDIA’S PERCEPTION – (which they have planted in some of our
own fans heads). Arsene Wenger and the board have been lining their pockets. They’ve
got no plans for the future, bar getting rich now. They don’t want to win, just
want to take the assets and the money. Fourth is their only objective, their be
all and end all. Arsene inherited his successful team (bollocks), and really
isn’t that good at all. A muppet I think they may have even called him. He
doesn’t regard defence, etc.

You see what I’m getting at.

They’ve attacked our perceptions, and tried to wear us down,
and from what I can see from a lot of people, they’ve succeeded.

Now, as an experiment, could you please watch the following YouTube
clip. Not just watch it, but really concentrate and watch it, you’re a part of
this. We expect our players and staff to give 100% everything, including
concentration, 100% switched on at all times (it’s difficult, you’ll see), and
we flip out if they don’t, (not concentrating = mistakes). So now it’s your
turn.

We’re the white team, you’re doing the analyst’s job, you
have to concentrate really hard, and count how many times our team (The Whites)
pass the ball successfully to each other. It’s a short video, but there are a
lot of passes, so concentration (which we as fans demand) is key. So let’s try
it and see what number you get. Now remember we’re the whites – concentrate…

Mmmm, interesting eh? It blew me away when I saw it. Now I’m
not sure if a lot of you have seen this before, but it was a first for me, and
it got me thinking. It showed me that no matter how hard I concentrate on being
positive, and believing in my own perception of our club, that the media can
still sneak a monkey in there unnoticed and wear me down, change my views. If
you continue to hear shite, read shite and see shite, you’ll slowly start to
believe the shite.

Here’s the thing! Let’s say the monkey is a transfer rumour,
and we all fall for it – OK, that’s understandable, we all do it, we all fall
for it at some point (It should be ONCE). But if you watch the video again, you
will see the monkey the next time. So why the fuck don’t we notice “The Monkey”
(rumour) the next time we see/hear one, you get me? Do you see where I’ve gone
with this? Surely, “once bitten twice shy!”

I must apologise, I’m sure you are reading this expecting
the usual giggle’s and laugh’s from myself, but I’m sorry, it’s really got to
me this week. I can’t look at anymore photoshopped jerseys on rumoured
signings. I can’t handle anymore teamsheets for the start of next year with
£120m and worth of new signings that will never happen on them. Now I’m sorry,
I know some people are really into doing this shit, and so be it, “Different
folks, different strokes” and all that jazz, but I for one tire from it, and I
know a lot of others do too, and it’s put out there so much now, it’s almost
impossible to avoid.

Oh I forgot another beauty – The badly translated Spanish
interview from four years previous, recorded on a Chilean radio station,
translated by someone with a basic knowledge of Spanish or a cheap dictionary.
This can prove catastrophic, as @Demented_Jokes proved in a tweet –

The two meanings of an almost identical sentence –

1) Mi papá tiene 47
años = My dad is 47 years old.

2) Mi papa tiene 47
anos = My potato has 47 assholes.

See, how easy it is to pick something up wrong when you try
to translate something from Spanish. By simply missing a stroke here or a slash
there (sounds kinky) you can cause so much confusion, sending emotions ranging
from euphoria to downright gloom, as a player might be translated as saying “Oh
Arsenal, it would be a dream come true” , – Euphoria. When he really might be
saying “Arsenal,  no chance! That shower
of arrogant fucks”.

As I think I’ve mentioned before in the Dr. Phil blog that I
did for @goonerdave66, that if we carry on like this we’re in danger of
catching some variety of the “Liverpool Support syndrome”. In this case I think
we might be in high risk of growing “Liverpool TITS”, a very dangerous growth
indeed – “This Is Our Summer” syndrome, turns to “This is The Season”. If this
is caught we must be very careful as it can spread like wildfire, and before
long, before you even realise it, it’ll have turned in “Liverpool TITY’s”, a
big old pair of Liverpool TITY’s – “This Is The Year” syndrome, and once we go
there, it’s very hard to go back, to be cleansed and be cured. So you can
understand why I can’t be humourous, because it’s very dangerous.

So, STOP and think about it! Being influenced by the media,
silly really.  Let’s take a look at
exactly who these powerful orator’s are who have twisted our minds and
perceptions. Well, we have the great intellectual colossus that is Adrian
Chiles. YES, Adrian fucking Chiles, indeed.

STOP! Think about that for a while.

Chiles with his head like an unloved cabbage patch doll who
has been thrown out of the main doll’s house, and slept a little too close to
the radiator, for too long. The man shouldn’t be allowed near football on TV.
He’s barely a good enough standard for “Countryfile” FFS, but they couldn’t let
him on that, as the animals kept trying to eat his huge fungus like smush. He’s
barely the standard of children’s TV, but they couldn’t let him on that either
as the kids might try to eat him too, by driving a stick through his big
marshmallow head and chucking him into a fire.

Or Gareth Southgate, looking like a terrified chipmunk,
afraid to say anything of use or controversial, in case Roy Keane busts him a
new asshole, or in case his employers (The FA) are watching. A bit like this –                                                         

Then we have Lineker, the ultimate Turthole… [Turthole] – a human, a cross between a       
turtle’s head and an asshole, with his nice as pie image, and odd silly
striker versus defender jokes, thrown in alongside a Leicester City or Everton
gag, just to remind people that he played, and therefore this warrants him keeping
a job on the telly. And then to top it all off his Spursgasm’s whenever they
grace the screen – twat.

Mark “when I played for Eire” Lawrenson, the only
fucking living walruss to don a pink shirt and a moustache and live outside of
a circus.

In all honesty, with these mongs on the telly, we might
as well just put something like this on in between halves or in the build up to
games – it would make as much sense, and be of as much use – (with our very own
Liam Brady in the middle) –

In all seriousness, some of the shite that they spout
out is doing nothing but wasting precious moments of our lives that we’ll never
get back, there’s absolutely no analysis, no ideas on improvements, nothing of
any sense really, just a groups of ex-players firing out line after line of
clichéd hyperbole – shite basically. So you should do what we do in Ireland –
we dub over them, to make it interesting and watchable. Don’t believe me –
watch –

So I for one won’t let these mongols with their powerful
weapons of war – TV, Radio, social media, newspapers, etc. govern the way I
feel and think about our great club/players/manager. They can try but fuck them,
they won’t get the better of me. I’m going to take the positive, holistic and
hippy approach “maaaaan” (relights pipe). My new Eutopian hippy perception is
going to be based on balance maaan (not New Balance, I’m not an EDL chav FFS).
It involves the opinion that we’re a forward-looking club, progressive, modern,
with no sugar daddies, taking on the evil Arabian/Russian oil barons maaan,
while maintaining an old fashioned style and way of doing things, and looking
after its own, developing quality players, who appreciate where they are dude,
that stands by the ones having a hard time, in knowledge that they’ll come
good..

Forward thinking/Modern > Old fashioned.

Ying and yang dude – When we get the perfect balance of
the two…Harmony.

Feng Shui maan – when we’re all pointing in the right
direction…Harmony.

And with harmony will come…Victory.

Victoria Concordia Crescit – Victory through Harmony.

Again I apologise for lack of humouring, seriousness of
topic and length of piece, but on the upsides, you haven’t been drawing up any
formations consisting of Wayne Rooney, Radamel Falcao, Etienne Capoue and Juan Mata
in the last 15 minutes now have you.

On a final note, I’d like to say a goodbye and thank
you, and a shame it didn’t work out to AA – Andrey Arshavin – oh what could
have been. And after all my giving out, I’d like to say a big hello, and
welcome home to Cesc Fabregas. (haha at last some humour).

So long Andrey…………………………………………………………….welcome home
Cesc.

John Woods 

Follow @woodysirish

John Woods

I’m a 37 yr old Irish Gunner, and have been for 27-28 years now….

(Really 20, but trapped in a 37 yr olds body)..

Answer to ‘Woody’, as normally when ‘John’ is used, it means I’m in trouble for something..

I took my time deciding, didn’t follow the mainstream, and definitely chose wisely…

I let the club choose me, and didn’t let other people’s views or successes choose my club for me..

Seen the good times, the great times and the bad and really bad…

And strangely, enjoyed all of them, as you can only relish the good and great after you taste the bad…

Thats why I try to keep on the level-headed side of things, when things don’t go our way,

as it’ll make the successes all the sweeter when they arrive…

… and they WILL arrive…