Week Eight – 19 Sleeps to Go….
Yes, we are now in the teens people!
By the end of the week the Silly Season countdown clock will have broken out
into spots and started taking an unhealthy interest in the swimwear section of
the Littlewoods catalogue.
When I
started this diary eight weeks ago, it was with the intention of diarising the
changing moods and emotions of the post and pre-season, the Silly Season.
You may have
noticed the last few week’s blogs have been predominantly light hearted, last week’s
even included a soap opera episode! This is indicative of how I’ve been looking
at things in recent weeks. There is so much debate, arguing and people
seemingly dangerously near to actual mental breakdowns that I’ve been trying to
take a step back and look at the funny side of it all.
I have also
been extremely conscious of the danger of repeating myself week in, week out,
but, to me, that’s another reflection of what happens at this time of year!
With all
that in mind, later in this week’s blog I will be taking a little look back
over the past eight weeks, to re-cap and see what’s been happening until now,
or not. Don’t know about you, but it seems a lifetime ago that we were all
worrying that Laurent Koscielny was after a move.
Before I do
that though, I think it’s stating the obvious to point out that however crazy
this Silly Season can be, if you told me at the beginning of it that eight
weeks in we would be seemingly on the verge of signing Luis Suarez from
Liverpool, after submitting a bid of £40m and ONE POUND for his
services, I would had you in for a psychiatric assessment quicker than you
could say “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest…”
ONE POUND!
I bet Jamie
Carragher really regrets chucking that quid back into the crowd at Highbury
now. We’ve been saving that one Jamie, you big cheating bastard…
I am not
going to go into the Suarez debate in depth; it has been done enough by plenty
of people who can do it a lot better than me, although this fence I’m sitting
on is buckling dangerously under pressure from both sides. That’s not to say
I’m denying there should be debate, far from it.
It does
trouble me somewhat that we are considering shattering our transfer record in a
big way on a player who will divide an already divided fan base even more, and
in a way that could possibly never be repaired while he is at the club.
If it is at
all possible to look at it from a purely “footballistic” point of view, which
it probably isn’t but I will anyway, then he is one hell of a player. The type
of player that for me, along with a creative outlet from midfield, will turn us
into genuine title contenders. We do need cover at centre back even more than
before now with the recent injury to Thomas Vermaelen, and departures of Johan
Djourou and Sebastien Squilacci, but I think it’s also important to remember we
had the second best defensive record in the Premier League last season, and one
of our biggest problems was not creating, or converting, enough chances in too
many games.
In my
opinion, Suarez plus a creative midfielder behind him (anyone got any ideas for
that position, wink, wink?) gives us what we are missing there.
That is just
the view on the footballing side of it though, and there are far too many other
factors to make it that simple. It all just feels very uncomfortable.
Anyway, enough of that debate for now, as I said the debates will go on and on,
and will be debated by far better debaters than me.
Wow, the
countdown really must be into the teens now, I think I just mass debated…
The Silly
Season So Far…
This week is
as good as any to take a look at what’s gone on so far this summer, and how
we’ve got to where we are now…
The Words of the Window
Smokescreen,
Done, Release Clause, Dithering, Audacious, Buyback, and of course good old DM…
Week One
Mood –
Relief, optimism, slight worry.
Possible
targets – Marouane Fellaini, Gonzalo Higuain, Wayne Rooney, Cesc Fabregas
Panic
Level – Low
The relief
of finishing in the top four, above that lot for the 3000th year
running, was still lingering on at this point, and we were full of optimism for
the summer ahead. Most of us I think anyway.
This didn’t
stop the slight worry things may be taking a familiar turn after some comments
from Laurent Koscielny came out, but this was more of a force of habit, knee
jerk reaction more than anything. Oh, and Stewart Robson spouted some shit,
which I refused to repeat at the time, and suffice to say can’t remember what
it was he said, which is precisely how anything that man ever says should end
up.
Week Two
Mood –
Boredom, optimism with a dash of pessimism
Possible
targets – Same as week one, but with added Stevan Jovetic.
Panic
level – Low
Pretty much
sod all happened that week really, but
Ivan’s annual Q&A speed tweeting extravaganza pretty much set the
tone for the rest of the summer, where he pretty much boldly declared we were
now rich and in a position to spend LOADSAMONEY! Oh dear…
Week
Three
Mood – Creeping
negativity, followed by pant-wetting hysteria
Possible
targets – Higuain! Higuain! Higuain! Higuain! Higuain! Higuain!
Panic
Level – Good to yielding
A quiet week
burst into life as on Friday afternoon betting was suspended on Gonzalo Higuain
becoming an Arsenal player, and the mood went from quiet negativity to total
pant-wetting bat shit mental. The Sky Sports News app changed a headline from “Higuain
Off to Arsenal?” to “Higuain Off to Arsenal”, YouTube went into full scale
meltdown, and funny fuckers tried their best to come up with a witty song for
what was to become our record signing, some
rhyming anything they could with either Hee-Gway-een or Hig-Wayne, while
the rest of us were just happy with getting Higgy with it. So, at the end of
the week it was looking very likely that the long awaited “marquee” signing was
imminent…
Week Four
Mood –
Uneasy, with creeping déjà vu
Possible
targets – Higuain, please Higuain!!
Panic
level – Code Amber
Well,
despite the excitement over “Higgy” the previous week, this was possibly the
quietest week so far, news wise. You could sense a feeling of unease spreading
throughout Goonerdom. He will sign won’t he? Please don’t let us fuck this one
up, pleeeaaaase!
Week Five
Mood –
Optimistic, with light disbelief and mild cloth touching
Possible
targets – Gonzalo Higuain, Gareth Barry, Darren Bent, Luis Suarez
Panic
level – Increasing dangerously
Yes, we were
linked with Gareth Barry, and you don’t need me to tell you how people reacted
to that do you? I did hear Darren Bent mentioned once too, but I can only
assume that was just to see just what the fragile Arsenal fans would believe at
this point. As for being linked with Luis Suarez, that was just taking it too
far, that would never happen. Pah! Ridiculous paper talk…
Week Six
Mood – Audacious, Hopeful, Desperate,
Hysterical, bordering on insane
Possible Targets – Anyone of the
above mentioned, all simultaneously abseiling down the side of The Emirates,
landing outside The Armoury, complete in new away kit
Panic level – Meltdown imminent
Well, some
bright spark decided it was a fun idea to let it slip to us all there was an
“audacious stunt” planned for the day of the new away kit launch on the Tuesday
of this week. There was complete hysteria as people actually thought we might
be unveiling a new signing or two to coincide with the kit launch. Cue
countless tweets informing us all of the dictionary definition of the words
“audacious” and “stunt”. In the end we were treated to a big poster on the side
of The Emirates, the British Core modelling the new away kit, a more
traditional yellow and blue number complete with snazzy hooped socks. There was
a bit of abseiling though, to be fair.
Week Seven
Mood – Angry, confused, desperate,
panic stricken, scared, frustrated
Possible Targets – Luis Suarez, Cesc
Fabregas
Panic level – Fit to burst
Remember
when we were linked to Luis Suarez a couple of weeks back, that was just a load
of newspaper crap wasn’t it? Oh, and remember when Gonzalo Higuain was pretty
much nailed on to sign for us a couple of weeks before that? Just goes to show
how things can change during this crazy time doesn’t it? Thankfully the name
Gareth Barry hasn’t been mentioned for a while though, so small mercies and all
that.
So, that brings
us to where we are now, which at the moment is a rather uncomfortable and
uneasy place to be. We were all expecting a few signings by now, be it due to
our own impatience or the fact that the noises coming from the club in those
early weeks led us to believe this year would be different. I actually do still
believe it’s going to be different, I guess in some ways it already has been.
Remember when we sold our best players but couldn’t get players like Andrey Arshavin,
Denilson et al off of the wage bill? Oh, how we moaned. I believe signings will
come, they have to. I also believe in the squad we have together now, as I have
said almost every week now I think.
The next couple of weeks are going to be interesting, at least I hope they are,
and things will need to happen to ease the frustration of a lot of supporters
who are understandably becoming rather agitated at this time. A lot of this
probably depends on Liverpool, whether they are prepared to accept our offer,
whether we are prepared to pay whatever they ask, or if we decide to do what we
did when Real Madrid started taking the piss and look elsewhere, or play a
dangerous game and take it right down to the final hours of the window. That is
of course just as dangerous a game for Liverpool though.
I end this week’s
instalment with the news I am going to attempt an audacious stunt of my own
next week.
By the time
you are reading this, I will be in sunny Majorca, drinking a nice cold San
Miguel. I will still be putting together a blog though, but I am going to
attempt to take an entire week away from Twitter, and get any news the old
fashioned way – by peeking at the back of someone else’s newspaper, you know
that kind of thing.
Seeing as we
spend most of our Arsenal lives on Twitter this time of year more than any
other time of the year, I’m quite interested to see how this comes out.
Wish me luck…
Darren Berry
Islington born and bred, Arsenal through and through.
Published author.
Is Yours Gold? The Arsenal Invincibles Twentieth Anniversary – available now,
Over Land and Sea (and Lockdown), Arsenal 20/21 – The Corona Diaires – released 2021.
Clickbait: Life as a Modern Football Fan – released 2019
what i’d like to know is why on earth have we not considered MICHU?
I mean after his season at swansea i have great respect for him.
Perfectly sums up my summer mate
Another great write up.
I would like to think the panic pressure gets released this week by us completing a transfer, but my scepticism and cynicism has me believing, realistically, we won’t have. I do believe, however that we will get a star or star in the making signing. I’m not one to think it takes millions spent on a player for him to be a star but with £70 million, you hope it does get used albeit, wisely.
I would’ve prefered Higuain over Suarez due to Suarez’ need to misbehave, and of the matter he’s coming from Liverpool, (which doesn’t bother me it’s Liverpool as a Premiership club but how the media could potentially tear him and Arsenal to pieces). Higuain is in no doubt a world class striker, as is Suarez, but it would’ve been a better choice going with Higuain, with no baggage for the media to scan.
Either way I think Arsenal’s main area needing to be strengthened is attak, and I hope anyone worthy, obviously including Suarez, is signed!
COYG!!