Good morning to you.
There’s little happening other than, as the transfer deadline gets closer, more spurious rumours appear. It’s a perfect storm for the bullshit merchants as the inevitable closure of the window is accompanied by a strong desire for Arsenal to add to the squad after a stuttering opening three games.
Yesterday we were linked to a Russian forward named Aleksandr Kokorin. He plays for Dynamo Moscow and I’m sure it’s just coincidence that as the deadline approaches he’s been linked with Sp*rs, Man United and now Arsenal – as Sport Witness handily reveal here. He got 11 goals in 40 appearances last season, and his name is an anagram of ‘Nonskid Korea Lark’, which sounds like fun but I don’t want trouble on my mouth so I’ll keep quiet on this one.
The Telegraph, in their desperate race to the bottom, might have actually got there this morning with a headline revealing ‘secret talks’ between Benzema’s agent and Arsenal using Metro as the original source. The thing about secret talks is that they’re secret, and if they’re secret you can be sure some one-handed-typing, crusty Kleenex underpants intern in the Metro doesn’t know the first thing about them.
I suspect those talks were so secret that neither Benzema’s agent nor Arsenal know the first thing about them. What a surprise it’s going to be for both parties when they discover they’ve agreed a fee and personal terms and a lengthy contract and Rhianna jumps out of a cake to let them know what happened. Magic.
Karim Benzema anagram: Zebra Man, Mike or Mr Zambia Knee. I like the idea of Zebra Man, Mike and I can see Channing Tatum in the movie adaptation where he plays a lowly footballing zebra by day but who, at night, strips off his kit in front of all the lady zebras who want to fondle his stripes and his donk- … er … whatever. I don’t want to see that film.
Will Arsenal make any transfer market moves? I hope so, but I’m not convinced anything is going to happen at this stage. Unless we were really hanging on to see if we could get Benzema (and we should know now for sure after those secret talks), then you suspect any business would have been done before now, but look, none of us expected Danny Welbeck last deadline day so maybe there’ll be a similar surprise this time around.
Sure, that was a bit like getting a knitted jumper for Christmas when you were a kid, and the jumper was made from that really scratchy wool and when you complained about it you were told not to be so ungrateful, that lots of kids would love to have a jumper when they don’t even have enough to eat and you mumble ‘can’t eat a jumper can you?’ and they say “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” and you say ‘nothing’ and you go off to your room and your neck is getting scratched to shite by the jumper.
Not that we couldn’t use Danny Scratchneck in the squad at the moment, but you know what I mean. No doubt there’ll be more on transfer stuff between now and Tuesday at 6pm when the window closes – topped off by Sky and BT having a Twat-Off on deadline day to see who can drive the most money to their betting partners by inventing stories and shortening odds on deals which will never happen.
Meanwhile, Mesut Ozil says he needs to be more selfish if he wants to score goals this season. The German is a creator, as we know, fashioning gilt-edged scoring chances for others. You need only look at his eyes as he watches his teammates shank them high, wide and all over the place, to see that they have become 342% sadder since joining from Real Madrid. Don’t believe me, check out this irrefutable evidence:
So maybe he’s just going to have do it himself in terms of goals, even if it goes against his natural instincts:
I think now and then I need to become a bit more selfish, then I’d definitely score more goals. In truth I’m more the sort of player who doesn’t really go for goal, I tend to look for my team-mates and think, ‘Can I play this pass?’
And look, I get it. People have concerns about Ozil’s ability to impose himself on games, I just think that if those around him had been slightly more efficient with what he’s given them in the two seasons he’s been at the club, we’d be talking about a man with a bag satchel suitcase knapsack container-load of assists and that would surely change the perception of him in some cases.
Anyway, I like him, and in the absence of any otherfucker scoring goals at the moment I back his Campaign of Selfishness and urge him to shoot more often.
Today also sees the draw for the group stages of the Champions League. We are in Pot Two and you can see a full list of who we might draw here. My guess at our group:
Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Roma (Hello Wojciech!), Malmo.
The draw takes place this evening at around 5pm. I’m not sure if that’s when the draw starts or the interminable hoo-ha that goes on as UEFA talk about how great they are, but if you can’t be arsed just keep an eye on Arseblog News (or @arseblognews) on Twitter and we’ll have full details when they finally get their balls out.
Right, that’s your lot. Tim Stillman is here later, I’ll be back tomorrow with an Arsecast.
Until then.
