On the eve of the Emirates Cup it’s transfer rumour madness. Honestly.
There are transfer rumours and some of them are madness. After an article appeared on the official site yesterday which seemed to suggest the manager was happy to be Scroogelike this summer, the post-Hanover interview shed a bit more light on things. Arsene confirmed that Kolo Toure left because he wanted to leave (and Kolo himself confirmed the move had been on the cards since City came shooting their viscous green wad at him in January), but also hinted at signings. He said:
We do not make money to put it in the bank. We are looking at a few possibilities at the moment.
Ah-ha! So there is light at the end of the tunnel which isn’t really a tunnel at all and there was some light anyway because my long vision is particularly good. However, the last few summers I have been convinced that we would buy players, big, important, strapping, handsome, lithe, possibly slightly oiled players. And it hasn’t happened. So this summer I’m maintaining we’ll buy nobody at all. Not one more player.
Some of the players we won’t be buying include Blaise Matuidi, despite the Guardian saying we’re set to make a move for him. Apparently the Grimster, our head French scout and sporter of curly locks, has told Arsene it’s time to bring him in after watching him for the last three years or something. I met Grimster at the CL final in Paris, you know. I got someone to take a picture of him and me together. It was awesome. Until I saw the picture. You see, the Grimster is there in all his splendour, his aura majestic, while I look like some kind of demented window licker pitching a fit and making a face like a gnu eating a hippo’s shite (yes, yes, ‘What’s different than the way you normally look?’, you say. Very good).
Anyway, Matuidi’s 22, he’d be more Diarra or a Flamini than a Yaya Toure, but there really wasn’t much wrong with Diarra as a footballer. As a character he left much to be desired and he had a head like dolphin, or, to give them their scientific name, Water Sheringhams. As for Flamini, he’s gone, baby. Forget him.
Meanhwile talks are apparently taking place with Patrick Vieira but who knows what’s going on there? Maybe there’s something to it but the more you think about it the more it doesn’t really make sense. Unless they put him through the mill physically and decide there’s one good season left in those long legs of his it’s hard to see it happening.
Then there’s Daniele de Rossi. This is the mad one. A couple of days ago some wag photoshopped a screenshot of the Arsenal.com homepage making it look as if someone had gotten rather too excited and revealed him as our new number 13. To add some ‘cred’ to this photoshopped image an update was made on Wikipedia which said some crap about him joining us, how much he was going to be paid, blah blah blah.
Now, we all know how easy it is to update Wikipedia. You click ‘edit’, write whatever the hell you like, then save. Any ‘tard with a keyboard can do it and frankly anyone who believes anything about football transfers on Wikipedia needs their head examined. Or, to put it another way, they are too stupid to live in the same world as normal people and should be shot into space with a giant cannon.
So, if somebody could please procure Sam Wallace from the Independent, who appears to have fallen for this crap hook, line and sinker, I shall prepare the giant space blasting gun.
If de Rossi signs for us I shall eat my hat (please note my hat is made from fillet steak and comes served with foie gras, herbed Julienne potatoes and Heinz baked beans with sausages in them).
It’s been a while since we’ve heard about Maroune Chamakh, the Moroccan striker currently playing for Bordeaux, who, like every other player in the universe, will not be joining us this summer. The French club’s President, Jean-Pierre la Vache de la Tache, said:
Wenger has in fact called me. He said he had a list of attackers and Marouane was one.
I think it’s very personable and sporting of Arsene Wenger to call up the President of Bordeaux and give him a list of players that he might sign if he were going to sign any players. What a boost it must be for Chamakh to know that Wenger would sign him under any other circumstances but the ones which involve spending any money for anything at all. Then Bordeaux can say ‘Hey, Arsenal would sign this player’ and get a bigger transfer fee and single-handedly Wenger is keeping the football economy alive.
Looking ahead to the football this weekend and we play Atletico Madrid on Saturday and Rangers on Sunday (although the official site’s graphics folk might want to do a bit of airbrushing on their splash page).
The manager has confirmed that Tomas Rosicky will play a part this weekend, which is good news. There were reports he’d had a ‘minor setback’ after the Barnet game and unfortunately with Tomas that could mean anywhere between 2 days and 14 years out. I’d shit myself if I heard he broke a fingernail. Anyway, we’ll get a good look at the team, what with the games being on the TV and all, so that should be fun.
Aaron Ramsey will get some playing time too. He’s been telling the official site how much stronger he is after a summer of ‘doing things’ with his Dad and his brother. Obviously he’s looking to make more of an impact than last season but I don’t think we should underestimate the step up he took. From Cardiff to Arsenal having just played 20 games or so is a huge change, so hopefully this season we’ll see more of him.
Right, that’ll have to do. It’s Friday – and it’s a bank holiday weekend here. I think. Is it? I could be wrong. I often am.
Is it too early for a beer?
