If there’s anything worse that people who think they’re funny when they’re clearly not I don’t know what is is. Yeah yeah, famine, murder, war, oppressive regimes and all that, but thankfully most of us don’t have to deal with those things.
Unfunny cunts I’m afraid we do, from the chap in your office, you know the one, to idiot footballers. Last night in Madrid, as Spain celebrated their World Cup victory, Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique ambushed Cesc on stage and thrust a Barcelona shirt on him. As they forced the shirt over his head Liverpool’s Pepe Reina said “The future of Barça … the future of Spain …”.
Cesc, in all fairness to him, looked suitably embarrassed by the whole thing but it was a scummy trick from Puyol and Pique. Not for the first time Barcelona players have displayed a complete lack of respect to Arsenal Football Club. It put Cesc in an awkward position as well but they didn’t care about that. For Barcelona he’s a piece of meat, a trophy that they’re determined to acquire, no matter how they have to behave to do it.
And if anything displays the monstrous, out of control egos that exist at Barcelona, it’s the fact that two of their players hijacked Spain’s World Cup celebrations for purely selfish Catalan motives. On a night in Madrid, which should have been all about the triumph of the most united national team in their history, they made it about Barcelona. They made themselves look like classless children and they made what should have been a nice moment for Cesc, as the crowd acknowledged his contribution to the win, an uncomfortable circus.
And here’s the thing, if they think doing something like that is going to have anything than a negative impact on any potential transfer they’re more stupid than they look. Arsenal are already in no mood to deal with the Catalans because of how they’ve gone about things, this will only strengthen our resolve. How else could we possibly react to something like that?
And before some of the tiresome Barcelona fans come along to tell me to lighten up and it’s only a joke, cock off. Jokes are supposed to be funny. That wasn’t funny. That was like listening to four hours of James Corden while Mark Lawrenson sang David Gray songs at you and battered your testicles with a lump hammer. It is to hilarious pranks what Mel Gibson is to answering machine messages. And imagine if a Madrid player had put one of their shirts on a Barcelona player. After their outrage subsided they’d be moaning like nobody’s business.
It’s just the latest episode from a supposed big club who have acted appallingly all summer long. As I said there’s a right way and a wrong way to conduct yourself when it comes to a transfer and even though I thought they couldn’t get much wronger they’ve managed to achieve just that. It’s not too much to expect basic manners and decency from people, Barcelona have shown time and again that it’s simply beyond them.
And let’s face it, this isn’t just about Cesc now. For years we’ve had to put up with Barcelona talking publicly about our players, from Overmars to Henry, Hleb (heh, suckers!) to Cesc, it’s just so tedious every time. And when you have supposedly Arsenal friendly people, who represent some of those players, helping them out it’s even more annoying.
I know Arsene is back from South Africa and should be back at the club today. For the sake of our pre-season and in order to get ourselves properly focussed on the new campaign, we have to make all this stop and soon. The longer the speculation continues the more fraught things will become from the fans perspective.
Cesc will be off on holidays for at least a few weeks, we won’t see him back at the club until the end of the month at the earliest, but we need make our position clear to both him and to Barcelona so we can concentrate on what’s important. And with as much respect as FC Barcelona deserve it’s not those giddy, ill-mannered, window licking twats.
Cesc himself spoke about the World Cup win, dedicated it to Arsenal and Arsenal fans, and also had some kind words for teammate Robin van Persie, saying:
I had to go to Robin instead of celebrating with my friends because I think he deserved to have won it as well. So, even though I was happy to have won, I was sad for him. He just said: ‘Congratulations, enjoy the moment.’
I really hope he has his chance again and that he wins it. He is a great guy, a great leader, and has been really unlucky with injuries. I hope he has his moment in the future.
You do wonder what kind of an impact losing the final is going to have on him. Obviously Cesc will be on top of the world, Robin will be absolutely gutted. Whether that means any kind of hangover when it comes to football remains to be seen but he spoke about upping his game, scoring more goals and proving he’s as good as Arsene Wenger said he is. You can only hope the hurt he feels is a motivating factor in that.
There’s really not a great deal else happening. The Mail has a vague story about Eduardo interesting Beskitas, which follows on from some comments made about his future by Boro Primorac, but I guess we’ll see how things pan out over the next few weeks. What is clear is that his Arsenal future is unclear. If you see what I mean.
And that’s about that. I eagerly await Barcelona’s next trick in their relentlessly inept campaign to sign our captain.
Till tomorrow.
