Another week of the summerlull lies ahead and it’s morning’s like this that you really miss the football. Even having to write about a 5-0 hammering by Hartepool would be better than this.
There’s plenty of talk about Cesc and Barcelona and Guardiola and all that. It was covered in yesterday’s blog but as expected the story has grown arms and legs and tentacles and proboscises and quotes have been added to the story that weren’t there yesterday and frankly it’s a load of bollocks.
Even taking what he said at face value of course a Barcelona move for him would be ‘special’, the same way it would be special if Arsenal wanted to sign you or me (special needs, probably, but special all the same). It’s the ignoring of what comes after, the absence of the ‘but’ in which talks about how he’s happy at Arsenal, he’s the captain and he’s obviously planning for next season.
If his focus was on Barcelona would he be urging to the boss to make signings which would improve Arsenal? If he was off he’d keep his mouth shut. And to the pair of twats in the Daily Mail who augmented the quotes Cesc made, the interview was in Sport, not El Mundo, you witless gobshites.
To be honest the story really doesn’t deserve any more coverage but in this web-powered world of ours, where disinformation becomes fact as quick as you can click a link, those of us who have lived through many summers have a responsibility to ensure that bullshit is bullshit called when necessary. And this, folks, is nothing more than a storm in an espresso cup.
Cesc, by the by, was on the scoresheet for Spain last night as they beat New Zealand 5-0 in the Pointless Cup.
There’s more guff from the Mail from Charles Sale who reports that Alisher Usmanov has proposed a rights issue to raise funds for Arsene Wenger to buy players. Sale reports:
Oligarch Usmanov, who has a 25 per cent shareholding but no director’s position, has offered to fully underwrite the initiative — guaranteeing to buy all shares that are not sold — which will need the full support of the club to work.
Usmanov wants a percentage of the new shares to go to fans, which would mean selling at a fraction of the £8,000 plus at which shares have been trading during the power struggle between Usmanov’s Arsenal vehicle Red & White Holdings and American board member Stan Kroenke, who has a 28 per cent stake.
The article is accompanied by a big, smiling Usmanov picture. Look at him, he’s a nice, friendly, Oligarch, not a nasty, mean, litigious, fat, Man United supporting cunt. It’s very funny how we’re seeing pro-Usmanov articles these days instead of the leaked stories about boardroom strife. Is it coincidence that a boardroom departure meant friendly hacks didn’t have the inside line anymore or is it just that Usmanov has decided to try and improve his own image? Perhaps a little from column A, a little from column B.
Obviously he’s trying to win fans over. In a summer when Madrid have used a cheat code and given themselves a £500m Championship Manager budget to buy top players from around the world many fans would like Arsenal to go splashing the cash. And Usmanov’s proposal would, in theory, provide some money for spending but there’s a lot more to consider than just throwing around money for new players.
There are implications for the long-term strategy of the current board, it would dilute the shareholdings of the directors and at a time when we probably need to consolidate at boardroom level it strikes me as unworkable that we’d issue more shares to complicate things even further.
Tomas Rosicky claims he was fit to play at the end of last season, saying:
According to Tony Colbert, I could have been playing at the end of the last season, he saw no reason why I shouldn’t, as he thought my fitness was okay. The club decided not to play me. They saw that I was okay and maybe they just did not want to take the gamble.
There really wasn’t any point in playing him last season. If he’d got another injury we’d have been accused of rushing him back too quickly so it was a wise move in my opinion. Now he gets a full pre-season and hopefully he can make it back. Like many of you though I have my doubts and it seems Rosicky does too, saying:
Until I play in a league match I will not be able to tell what my chances are. I don’t know what will happen after I make repeated sprints from one end of the pitch to the other.
He’d be good to have back in the squad but I’m not going to hold my breath.
Mamadou Sakho, the PSG centre-half we were apparently trying to sign, has ‘formally refuted‘ any transfer stories saying that no transfer to any club is in place. Does that mean that the press have been just inventing stuff to provide copy during slow news days? Surely not.
Finally, cheers to Steve who sent me an email yesterday after spotting an Arsenal shirt in an unusual place. In the TV show ‘Ross Kemp In Search Of Pirates’, Arsenal’s number 27 is proving a big hit with one group of cutlass wielding, parrot shouldering, pieces of eight loving, shipjackers. See for yourself.
And there you have it. Have yourselves a good Monday, more tomorrow.
