It was late August 2006 when we moved back to Dublin from Barcelona (it was my Dublin DNA as my good pal … erm … Not Xavi used to say).
At that point Arsenal were still faced with the Ashley Cole situation. Would he go to Chelsea? Would he not? What sort of deal would we get with them if we did? There was also the Jose Antonio Reyes situation. Poor Jose had been tricked by nasty DJs, scowled at once too often by Thierry Henry and was hen-pecked at home by Mama Hen and Girlfriend Hen who complained to him all day long about living in England.
“Is too much raining, Jose”, they might have said had they chosen to complain to him in comedy English.
That year the transfer window shut at 12 midnight. At that stage I was a person with a life so I did what any normal person does and went out and got hopelessly drunk. The next morning I awoke to face a teenage shoe crisis and the news that we had been busy as bees. We had done a deal with Chelsea which saw them get Cole and we got Gallas and £5m. We also sent Reyes on loan to Real Madrid and got the mythical beast himself as part of the deal and on top of all that we signed a 19 year old Brazilian called Denilson who nobody had ever heard of.
What a transfer window. Three players in – Gallas, Baptista, Denilson. And if that isn’t proof enough that the transfer deadline day is a big load of old bollocks then I don’t know what is. So, just in case it was all tied in to my drunknness I will be staying entirely sober today.
I don’t expect much to be happening with regard Arsenal. A few youngsters out on loan, probably, and perhaps the arrival of Schwarzer. That deal might have been complicated yesterday by the decision of Shay Given to stay at Man City and pick up his enormous, recently increased, paycheque fight for his place. If Fulham can find an alternative to Given then it’s likely we’ll get Schwarzer but the injury to Stockdale and everything else means this is far from a dead cert.
The Sun says that we’ve increased our bid for the Australian to £4m, which I doubt, to be honest. We know that Arsene is never, ever willing to pay much more than what he thinks a player is worth. I just can’t see him paying that amount of money for 37 year old player. We’ll have to wait and see if a deal can be done today, Schwarzer is apparently ‘hopeful’ and has been up all night practicing the answers to a medical.
“No, it doesn’t hurt when I do that, but I do feel like a pair of curtains”.
“Pull yourself together man”.
And thankfully I’m here all week. I’m sure there are people who will spend today glued to Sky Sports News anxiously awaiting news on any potential deal. I’m sure there are even streams of it so you can see Bobby Two Phones and that Scotch twat cream themselves over some striker from Plymouth securing a loan deal to Stevenage Borough. If not Iraq Goals is missing a trick, let me tell you. And I’m sure the Arsenal blogosphere will be absolutely bogged down with new posts based entirely on the Twitterings of journalists with little or no credit given to the source – oh yeah, NewsNow is your friend today.
The window closes at 6pm so there’s no late into the night nonsense with this one. If we can get Schwarzer in, a few youngsters out and we manage to deport Fabianski or donate his body to science I think we can call this summer’s transfer business a success.
What’s not a success is Robin van Persie’s ankle. He was examined by Dutch doctors yesterday – you know, the same ones who said he’d be out for 4-5 weeks and then it turned out his ankle ligaments had been shredded like incriminating documents, meaning a spell of 5-6 months out. They say ‘up to 4 weeks‘ this time but I’ll wait until we get an official statement from Arsenal on the state of his injury. If the past can teach us anything though it’s that Robin is probably utterly bollixed and if he were a racehorse they’d have stroked his head gently before putting a bullet in it from close range.
Back to transfer business and while there’s reported interest from Birmingham in Armand Traore it looks as if he might well be off to Juventus. Traore turned down definite interest from Benfica last week after they couldn’t agree personal terms which is a bit sad really. He’s on the kind of money at Arsenal that makes him think he’s a better player than he actually is. Good luck to him wherever he ends up.
And speaking of Birmingham that’s going to be the new home of Alexander Hleb. I’m sure after finding London such a horrible place to live he’s going to love the quiet, gentile and picturesque surroundings of Birmingham.
And something just reaching me here at Arseblog Sports News, Sebastian Frey has been spotted in a taxi on the way to Arsenal’s training ground. He was overheard muttering ‘Sign me, Arsene. Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please …’
More when we get it. Which will be tomorrow.
