Here are some things which bore me:
- Phil Collins
- Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’ – it makes me want to peel my own face off with the boredom
- ‘Underworld’ by Don DeLillo – I read about 800 pages of this 1000 page book before I realised I was so bored I would rather kill myself than keep reading. It was so boring it tricked me into thinking I wasn’t bored. It was bored and sly.
- Extremely long paragraphs
- School
- Having to go to church for any reason
- Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona stories
The reason I’m bored of the latter is because we’ve been through all this before. As Barcelona urge Cesc to ‘go public‘ I had Vietnam* style flashbacks to Real Madrid saying the same thing to Patrick Vieira and Barcelona saying the same thing to Thierry Henry.
They want Cesc to come and say ‘I want to leave’ so they can take advantage and use that to drive down the price. What they care about is getting the player, in any way possible, with no consideration for what damage that would do to the player’s relationship with the club or the fans. It’s almost psychopathic, in a way, and coming from a big institution it’s a bit scary that such an ethos runs through it.
Of course it’s not unexpected, Barcelona are probably a bit on the frazzled side now, hoping everything would go their way without a hitch. I’m sure they expected some resistance from Arsenal but even now they haven’t made an approach. John Cross in the Mirror reckons they’ll be in touch on Monday and don’t want to pay any more than £30m. They’re preparing a list of cast-offs we can choose from. Having been through this yesterday I don’t feel inclined to say what I think of that again.
What’s interesting though is that Sandro Rosell, one of the candidates to replace Joan Laporta as president of the club, is warning that Barcelona have to ensure they don’t overspend as the debt at the club must remain manageable. He made public the fact that Barcelona already owe something in the region of €480m. Add a very large transfer fee to that and they’re in the hole for over half a billion. The article I linked to yesterday on the state Spanish football and the finances in general should is worth re-reading in that context.
What’s interesting about this is that Rosell and Laporta are not good friends at all. They used to be, Rosell was essentially Laporta’s right hand man but they had a very public falling out, Rosell wrote a book critical of his former mate and takes every opportunity to stick the knife in. Now, I don’t pretend to be up to speed on the potential candidates for the Barcelona election or how likely Rosell is to be elected, but there are those who are of the view that signing Cesc now is not just a football decision, it’s an ego-trip for Laporta and his team. As well as everything else he’ll be remembered for bringing back Cesc.
The reality, as we’ve pointed out before, is that this is going to be a tremendously difficult thing to do, for all the reasons we’ve spoken about from the Arsenal side and taking into account Barcelona haven’t got a pot to piss in financially. There are Barcelona fans who feel now is not the right time for Cesc to go back and he’s in danger, I think, of being used as a political pawn, regardless of his own desires.
The whole thing is complicated and likely to be on the landscape for some time to come. It is very unlikely to become any more interesting. Amount of facts added to this saga since yesterday – none.
I mean, this is making the tabloids lazy. It’s been days since we’ve been linked with a centre-half or a goalkeeper nobody’s heard of before. That’s what summer’s supposed to be about, the ever increasing amount of players on Arsene’s radar. Which is usually a very large radar indeed. This year he can downgrade to a medium sized radar and in these recessionary times that’s bad news for radar manufacturers.
Only the ever reliable Click Lancashire comes to our rescue with a story saying we’re looking at Bolton’s Gary Cahill. They say:
It seems that Wenger is less than convinced that Mikael Silvestre is capable of playing at the highest level.
A startling conclusion to jump to, I know. You do wonder though, with Bolton desperate to keep young brave Jack of Wilshere, whether that might be a bargaining chip that Arsenal can use. That, and the millions of pounds we’d pay them for the player.
But wait? What is this? It’s the Daily Mail saying we’re looking at Marseille midfielder Stephane Mbia. Apparently he’s 24 but looking at the picture of him in the article I can only assume that’s in reverse dog years or something. He makes Roger Milla look like a foetus.
And that’s really about it. You’ll notice that there’s no Arsecast today. That’s because come the end of the season the Arsecast packs its swimming trunks and heads off to sunnier climes. A caravan in Skerries for a few months helps the batteries to recharge. I know it appears like there’s a lot going but there isn’t really and while I’m sure there’ll be a few ad hoc ‘casts during the summer months the idea of trying to formulate something vaguely logical about the nothing we know about the Cesc stuff had the Arsecast scurrying out the door shrieking ‘No No No No No No’ until I couldn’t hear it anymore.
I’m off roaming the country today so you will have the pleasure of Tom’s company tomorrow morning/evening [note: edit out ‘morning’ on return to make it look as if soothsaying powers are functioning correctly].
Given the way things have gone for Tom when asked to blog this season, Cesc will get sold at midnight tonight, Robin van Persie will be murdered in his sleep by the home-breaking pigface gang from American WereWolf in London and the club will be bought out by a consortium led by John Terry and Tom Hanks.
Enjoy!
