Right, well where to start?
Yesterday was indeed a busy day. A day of hype, exaggeration, ballyhoo, misinformation and almost 100% bollocks.
Thankfully though it seems to have ended well enough as we’ll be signing Andrei Arshavin who is, gauging by the reaction of yesterday’s events, somewhere between Jesus, Santa and Luke fucking Skywalker. Don’t get me wrong here, I wanted him to sign, but the frenzy some people worked themselves up into over it was just incredible.
Let’s look at Arseblog, for example. On a busy day there’s somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 comments. At the moment we’re up over the 4,400 mark. A regular day sees somewhere in the region of 25,000 visitors chug along to the site. Yesterday we fell just short of 50,000, in one day. For a site that updates in the morning and wasn’t even doing live updates that’s mad.
I’ve said it before. The summer is the busiest time on Arseblog. June, July and August bring the most visitors to this blog about football at a time when there isn’t even any football. Yesterday was like all 3 summer months wrapped up in one 12 hour period. Mental.
Of course I understand people wanting news and all that but it was crazy. The likes of Sky Sports News didn’t help either. Their bluster machine must have changed their story about 20 times.
“It’s on!” – “It’s off!” – “He’s going back to Russia in a private jet!” – “He’s having a medical!” – “Fee has been agreed, personal terms have been agreed!” – “He’s sitting weeping in the corner!”
And so on and on and on and on and on and on and on. It was done, then it wasn’t, it was on, then it was off, then on again, then Zenit would say it was off, someone else would ‘understand’ it wasn’t and basically it was all just tedious beyond belief.
And it was hardly a surprise that so much information was spewing out, like yellow shite from a new born’s arse. Dennis Lachter, representing Arshavin in this deal, was seemingly quite willing to share information with anyone who sent him a text – his mobile number being available via the FIFA website. When you consider Zenit appear to have about 42 different spokespeople then it all adds to the mix.
All the while Arsenal have been silent. It might be frustrating for fans but fans should really get over themselves. If this has proved anything it’s how incredibly complex some transfer negotiations are. It’s not like Championship Manager. It’s not that easy to buy a player and Arsenal are under no obligation to share the details of their negotiations with anyone.
I’m told that Zenit were extremely difficult to deal with and have been, not just yesterday, but ever since the initial contact was made. However, it seems we called their bluff. Arshavin wanted out, desperately, and in the end they knew they had to sell. We made them go right to the wire and while we won’t announce the fee it’s certainly not as high as the one Zenit announced yesterday. It might not even be as high as the one you see in some newspapers this morning.
We played hardball, it was risky – as it always is – but it appears to have paid off. As it stands all the required documentation has been submitted to the Premier League and the transfer is expected to be ratified this morning. We should get official confirmation from the club shortly afterwards. Now, given the way this transfer has gone it wouldn’t be a surprise if there was another twist but all going well Arshavin will be an Arsenal player.
Word is he’s going to wear the number 23 shirt and the best thing about his arrival is that we don’t have to deal with any more speculation, rumour, innuendo, tittle-tattle, hearsay, scuttlebutt or people who ‘understand’ or are ‘led to believe’. We can get on with the business of him being an Arsenal player, playing football for Arsenal. And Jesus Christ monkeyballs you have no idea how happy I am about that.
While we’d all like our transfers to be more like Eduardo, who popped up on Arsenal.com without so much as a hint from anywhere, you have to accept that often the other people involved in the transfer will try and use the media for their own agenda. Both Zenit and Lachter have done just that throughout the course of these protracted and almost epic negotiations. Neither of them were singing off the same hymn sheet and they know and understand that fans are desperate for news. A leak here, a leak there, to try and pressure Arsenal. It didn’t work in the end, not for them anyway.
Maybe it’s a sad reflection of our team that there was so much interest in this one player. Yes, he can make a difference, yes he can bring something new to our team and something which we really need at this moment in time, but it’s almost like folk are more interested in signing players than the actual football. It’s weird. As I said I’m glad he’s joining us but I think when people step back a bit and look at the circus that surrounded his arrival … I dunno, it’s all just a bit distasteful, in my opinion.
Ok, onto other news. Tonight’s FA Cup game against Cardiff has been postponed due to the bad weather in England at the moment. It’s rescheduled for Monday Feb 16th and will be live on Setanta. Our crappy snow here in Dublin seems to have gone away so I’m hoping my game of football won’t be called off tonight.
Beyond that there’s not much else happening. It’s a shame the Cardiff game is off because it would have been a perfect way to draw a line under everything else. As it is we’ve just got to wait until Sunday for the North London derby and all the build-up to that.
Will Arshavin play? Where will he play? Arshavin is living in a hotel! No, he’s living in an apartment! His family are coming with him! No, they’re not. He’s splitting up with his wife who never wanted to leave Russia! No, that’s a lie – I just made that up so it’d sound like I had some kind of inside track.
AAAAAAARRRGGGGGHHHH – I’ve caught Sky Sports.
Mañana, Owlfans.
