DB’s Silly Season Diary Returns….. #WhoopsWeDidItHiguain
Well, this is it. The window is officially open, the Copa whatever it’s called is finished, and pre-season training has begun.
So we can expect a flurry of transfer activity over the next few weeks, and we are well within our rights to stamp our feet and shake our fists if Arsenal don’t sign the players we want, right?
What selfish bastards us football fans are.
Just take a minute to think about what you’re asking for here.
Let me put it another way; how do you feel on your first few days back from a well-deserved summer holiday?
Do you come bouncing in, all refreshed and ready to face whatever the day throws at you?
Do you bollocks!
Well, you might do for the first few hours, and you try to ease yourself back into things, you really do, then it gets to lunchtime and you think to yourself “this time a fortnight ago I was just sipping that first holiday beer….”
And that’s just what’s happened at Arsenal this week…..
Ok, Arsene and the players may be earning millions of pounds more than us, but they’re only human. They all crap out of the same hole.
(Except possibly Diaby, after years of surgery I’m not sure everything functions as it should any more…..)
And the problems are all relative too.
Picture this; Arsene’s first morning back, he strolls into Colney like a boss, all tanned and batteries recharged. His first job is to meet with his captain, who he finds already sitting in his office waiting for him.
“He’s keen, that’s great…” the boss thinks to himself.
Straight down to business, Mikel puts pen to paper.
New contract signed, the skipper will be here for another year.
Arsene stands to shake Mikel’s hand, but the Spaniard remains seated, making for an awkward moment and even more awkward standing / sitting handshake situation.
Arsene’s still has that post-holiday freshness about him, so he brushes it off.
No big deal.
“Okay Mikel, get yourself ready for training and I’ll see you out on the pitch.”
“Erm…..boss…..I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. There’s a bit of a problem…..”
“Oh for fucks sake….here we go….” Arsene thinks to himself.
Still, he retains his outer calm.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Well, you see, I’ve lost my legs….”
“…..this time a fortnight ago…..”
More about Arteta in a bit, let’s run through what else has been happening since I last wrote.
Firstly the signing of Petr Cech was announced, to the joy of the billions that make up the Arsenal online community.
Three years on the trot we’ve had this now.
First we signed Özil, and there were so many umlauts flying about that every time you refreshed your twitter timeline you were seeing spots in front of your eyes for days.
Then we signed Alexis, and every other person changed their username to “something-chez”
This year we have puns-a-plenty and helmets all over the place.
I’m pretty sure every single combination of pun involving Petr / Better / Cech / Check / Cheque / Czech has now been used up now.
Of course now that this deal is done, speculation moves on to who we might be targeting next, with the usual names, plus a few others, plucked out of the air for no reason whatsoever.
Now, if we are going to insist on doing this then I must insist we pick at least a few names that enable us to continue this recent trend.
This is obviously the reason the links with players such as Benzema and Cavani every window are tenuous to say the least, and why we haven’t signed them.
There’s nothing you can do on Twitter with “Benzema” unless your name is Ben.
Or Selma at a push.
And “show me Cavani!!” will be entertaining for a day, tops.
In fact, rumour has it that Higuain asked to be let off the plane minutes before take-off when he saw #WhoopsWeDidItHiguain trending on twitter.
We need to consider this when we start making our transfer wish-lists, and also give Arsene credit for his part in it.
I mean, not only did he give us umlauts and helmets, but he also gave us the name Paul-Georges Ntep to play with for a while.
There were countless opportunities with that name once you got past the obvious Beatles ones…..
Back to the Cech signing though, and what a signing that is.
I’m actually a big fan of Szczesny, and still have hopes that he can sort his nut out and be our long term number one. No doubt he has the talent – we’ve seen that – it’s all down to focus, discipline and application. If he can’t learn that under Cech then he’ll not learn it from anyone.
Above all, Woj has been here from a young age, and I feel he really “gets” The Arsenal.
Let’s be honest though, the very best thing about this signing is how it’s no doubt pissed The Special One off.
Ok, so Chelsea are the Champions and won the league comfortably, but sometimes you have to enjoy these little victories. We might not have beaten them last season, but Arsene making Jose cower like a little girl and Danny Welbeck almost killing that slimy little shitbag will live longer in the memory than anything Chelsea did last season.
Imagine being a fly on the wall when Roman told Mourinho he was letting Cech go to Arsenal.
I wouldn’t want to speculate on exactly what went down there but I’m sure it ended with Jose being reminded that for all the success he’s had, at the end of the day he’s still just Roman’s little bitch.
Not long after we said #WelcomeCech it was time to say #FarewellPoldi as the German hashtag specialist left us to stand on the edge of the box somewhere in Turkey.
I’ll admit that I loved #Poldi when he first came to The Arsenal. He was the sort of player that kind of bridged the gap between players and fans with his selfie-taking, hashtagging, Spurs-annoying shenanigans.
It started to grate eventually though when it became clear he was better at twitter and Instagram than he was at playing football for Arsenal.
I’ll leave it there though, as he was a loveable chap, and #all #the #best #to #him #aha.
Lastly, a word about the skipper signing a new contract that according to some people on twitter guarantees him a starting place whenever he wants, means we will never sign the fabled DM beast saviour, and is an insult to every player over 30 that we’ve ever let go.
Obviously everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but some of the reaction to this has been ridiculous. If you can’t see the benefit of having Arteta around the place, regardless of how often he plays, then there’s no point trying to convince you.
How about you at least consider how much Arsenal’s hair game has improved considerably under Arteta’s captaincy?
We always hear how much of a legend Tony Adams was, and what a great captain he was for The Arsenal.
This is very true, but there is no chance whatsoever that Mikel Arteta would allow this to happen…..
Until next time then, do try and stay calm…..the football season will be here soon.
Up The Arsenal
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
Ah, transfer time again, seems only 2 minutes since the last drawn out saga. Once again Brendan Rogers has £50 plus million to waste, thank god he’s not the manager of a bank. Hmmm, wonder what damage he could do with the Greek bail out???
On the serious side though, whilst Utd are on the brink of 2 more deals, Liverpool have all but raided the ‘smaller’ clubs and City have purchased a 20 year old bench warmer, they have all strengthened/renewed their teams before pre-season tours.
Now, I’m not for just going out and buying players gung-ho, but as a reasonably sensible fan I accept we need to add 2-3 more players to our squad to enable us to mount a serious challenge this coming season. I’m sure AW has been sat sipping his piña colada’s pondering who to make a move for etc.
So, why is it that we seem unable to get the deals done early as per other clubs and the get the players working together to gel before the season starts?
I ignore most of the paper talk as I have faith that behind the scenes we’re working on deals but it would be nice to see them come to fruition at little earlier.
I can’t be the only Gooner with this view!
UTA
I really wonder why the old man called Wenger is sitting on the fence while our rivals are being active in the transfer market. Its going to be the same old story.