Is there anything more tedious than a protracted transfer story?
Apart from Phil Collins, Mark Lawrenson, every single Woody Allen film, people who have quit smoking and can’t stop going on about it, vegans, people who say ‘people who are are bored are actually boring themselves’, that cunting Hallelujah song and, of course, bloggers, the most frantic bores of them all.
The Andrei Arshavin story is now boring the ever-loving ringpiece off me. One moment we’re interested, the next we’re not. One story says he’s on his way, the next story is his agent saying he doesn’t know what anybody’s talking about and then he’s quoting Tom Cruise films. If and when he does move somewhere it should come with the proviso that his agent is prohibited from talking for a period of not less than 24 months.
Even at home.
“Daddy, pass the salt please”.
” – “
“Thanks! Gosh, life is so much more peaceful and bearable these days”.
Anyway, according to this morning’s Mirror, Arshavin, and his non-stop-talking agent Dennis Lachter, met with ‘Gunners chiefs’ in the Landmark Hotel in London yesterday. Firstly, that simply conjures up images of Arsene, PHW and Ivan Gazidis dressed as Apache Indians or something. Maybe that’s just me.
Anyway, they go on to say that a ‘cut-price’ £10m deal could be on the cards. ‘Cut price’? Only because that agent twat and Zenit have been trying to milk a milkless cow since last summer. They’ve been talking about £25m and £20m when the fact is he’s not worth that kind of money. Now reality bites and although a huge amount of shit has been written about this deal (more than a stack of Jeffrey Archer books piled on top of a load of copies of the DaVinci Code), the fact that the price tag has hit something approaching a realistic figure lends some credibility to the whole thing.
There’s no doubt Arshavin is a very good player. He was sensational for Zenit in their UEFA Cup campaign and had some good games in Euro 2008. Would he add something to this Arsenal side? Unquestionably. Experience, pace, quality, goals, and that much sought after looking like an owl thing that is so very rare in modern footballers.
As a first signing of the transfer window it would be exciting and typically Arsene. We’ve struggled all season in central midfield and in central defence so he goes out and buys an attacking midfielder. Nevertheless, I’m hopeful that this, if it happens, won’t be the only signing and that the areas that really do need to be addressed are taken care of as well.
So, I fully expect Arsene to come out this morning and say we have no interest in Arshavin, his price to go back up to £50m, Zenit to say there’s no deal and Lachter to release 16 different stories to websites of ill-repute claiming that a deal will/won’t/might/should/could be done, depending on many different circumstances, of course.
In other transfer news the president of Torino says there’s no chance of Alessandro Rosina going on loan to Arsenal. Maybe he’s the back-up just in case you know who doesn’t sign. It would be foolish to put all your eggs in one basket so if whatchamacallhim and his agent scuppered another move then it would make sense to have someone else lined up.
Emmanuel Adebayor says Arsenal will continue fighting for the title. Speaking from Abou Diaby, where he collected the African Player of the Year award from some magazine, he said:
We shouldn’t be 10 or 11 points behind the leaders, Liverpool, but we want to keep going. We know the team is strong, we know that we have the quality. When we put everything together we can do well. The most important thing for us is to do our best.
‘Do our best’? That sounds like a parenty thing to say. ‘All we care about is that you do your best’. Bah. I don’t want their best. I want twice that. No, thrice. Simply because we don’t get to use the word ‘thrice’ as much as we should these days. It’s a perfectly cromulent word and better use should be made of it.
Beyond that there’s not much to tell you other than it’s freezing again here today. Honestly, if I had wanted to live in the fucking tundra I’d have bought a house there. Frankly, the government here has a lot to answer for. Recession, the fact that they are fat, ugly cunts, and now this weather. They should just be given a good flogging, if you ask me.
The Party to Bring About Warm Weather would get my vote at the next election. If the next edition of the Lisbon Treaty has guarantees of weather that doesn’t freeze your balls off then I’m voting Yes. Even if it means conscription and nuclear bases. I’m too old for war anyway, and my dodgy shin-splints mean I’d avoid the draft entirely.
Till tomorrow, freezepops.
