Sick of it all
Yesterday’s blog was meant as a sort of piece of performance art; a commentary on how wild eyed we’ve all gotten over the signing of a man who hasn’t played a lick of football in several months, who’s never played in the EPL, who is undoubtedly a decent player but is by no stretch a savior, who’s fitness was questioned by Arsene Wenger, who’s current club is bat-shit insane AND racist, and who’s agent is really starting to get on my pecs.
I kind of figured I’d deconstruct the entire affair, by making an ironically over-the-top, Twitter-esque, running commentary of the nothing that was going to happen. Make nothing into something to show us all that this was really nothing. Right?
And of course, it turns out that there is something to all this because at the height of my ironic absurdity, things literally got absurd when blogs started reporting craziness like “Usmanov buys Arshavin” followed by Zenit’s absurd (is there something beyond absurd?) statement that the clubs have reached a deal but that the player hasn’t reached a deal even though both parties have previously said that the player reached a deal and it all boils down to the same old crap; Arsenal refusing to cave into Zenit’s insistence that they pay Arshavin’s agent, who is negotiating on behalf of Zenit, a £3m finder’s fee. At least that’s the latest from Gunnerblog who is a very reliable source and has a pretty good piece of speculation today.
At this point, though, I really couldn’t give two fucks. TWO FUCKS. I’d much rather that the club didn’t deal with such a bunch of amateurs and assholes and racists. I’d much rather that Arsenal swooped in on Bolton who are making a £12m bid for Veloso and plucked him from their greasy little pie stained hands and left them lying bruised in a steaming pile of Davies.
But it seems like I can’t escape this gold-plated-turd of a deal. I had a bad taste at the beginning of this Arshavin saga; whenever a player publicly threatens his team over a transfer it leaves me feeling uneasy. Then some of you made some good arguments, which sort of glossed over the whole thing. And now I’m back to “I have a bad feeling about this whole thing” and “this will end badly.” The only facts I have to back this feeling up are the numerous contradictory statements that have come out of the mouths of all three Russian parties in this agreement (Zenit, Arshavin, and his Agent) and we could argue over them until the cows come home.
Let’s not? Let’s instead pay attention to the fact that Arsenal travel to Liverpool to take on a very resilient and currently plucky Everton tomorrow, shall we?
Right. Moving on then — unfortunately, it’s a mid-day match and I have a super busy schedule tomorrow so I cannot get off to see it live. That said, I have a super busy schedule tomorrow so hopefully I can avoid a score line and will be able to see the match with fresh eyes at Doyle’s after work.
If you live in town, come join me around 5pm and watch the replay. You know who you are (only two of you came out for the Cardiff match) and yes, I am shaming you into coming out tomorrow.
Match preview tomorrow, Good-Bad-Ugly on Thursday, and transfer window closes on Monday. T-minus 6 days and we won’t have to talk about He Who Shall Not Be Named ever again, except maybe his name will be the answer to some trivia night question like “Who was the most over-rated, media-frenzied, unlikely to break Arsenal’s transfer record since they had previously refused to pay over that amount for Xavi Alonso who is undoubtedly a better player, transfer target in the history of Arsenal FC?” A long question I know, but it’s only fair as there have been so many crazy ass transfers in our history.
See you tomorrow!
Like you Timothy, I’ve reached the point where I just don’t give a fuck about this transfer shit. I’ve always maintained that Arshavin would be a good addition to the roster but that he would be no savior, and have resigned myself to watching Denilson, Song and Diaby as the creative maestro’s of our CMF for the next 4 + months and pray that Villa really screws up.
Agents. You can’t beat them and you can’t string them up by the balls……… or can you?
I’ll get right on the phone with Arsene and tell him to make an official statement that they are dropping their interest because really it shouldn’t take this long to sign someone in the January window where you only have a month to hash things out. Maybe this kind of farce is fine in the summer but time is money and Arshavin is wasting alot of ours. I already said numerous times an ultimatum should have been set that if a complete deal isn’t done by last week it shouldn’t be done at all. We have more pressing matters right now and other areas I’d much rather focus our recruiting efforts on than attacking flair – we have plenty of that. Right now we have to strategize how to not let Cahill or Lescott ruin our run of good form.
@WC
Can we say “decent form” rather than “good form” — that match against Cardiff was nearly a disaster.
we are all in agreement. It’s bad enough that we have Eboue and Denilson holding up the young guns, but aside from known quantities like Rosicky , Theo, and the great one to come back in, we have Vela, Prince Jack, and Aaron chomping at the bit do you guys know just how good Barazite, Traore, Merida, Lansbury, Emmanuel Thomas, Coquelin, Frimpong, Sunnu, Murphy, Simpson, Hoyte are??
we have an ebarrasment of riches. We don’t need any one else. It will do more harm than good.
oh yeah and of course DuDu
Are we in agreement that the problem that is Eboue’s diving, losing possession, and generally playing out of position is the real problem and not all that Gallas bullshit that has seemingly passed?
If signing Arshavin finally consigns Eboue permanently to the bench and, fingers crossed, the reserves then I am all for it.
Wait. That and bring back Mat-Tuso!
Patrick, as I’ve said before I think the whole team plays too much attacking football. Great football needs balance and the Arsenal’s proclivity to “win the right way” by attacking with 8 men at all times is imbalanced.
This needs to be resolved with a stronger defensive presence; either in front of the back 2 with a monster in defensive mid, or not attacking so much with the “Fullbacks” who are more like Wingbacks on this team, or by scoring a shitload of goals. Like 7 goals every game.
Arsenal need a player who will add some flair and width to the team and the ability to get to the end line, which only Nasri can do at the moment. This in turn will allow Arsenal to hold back Sagna a bit more and provide cover for, let’s face it, a weak-ish back two who are covered by a hapless DM. Also, a flair wing player like Theo will probably increase our goals per game by .25+ or so, which is pretty good considering.
As for Eboue, I’m just sick and fucking tired of the man. I think Eboue is a decent player but a complete head case, plus he’s gotten lazy lately which is the worst thing that can happen to a player. Oh yeah, and he’s an embarrassment with the diving and begging. So, I’m ready for him to leave. Whether that happens because Arsenal sign someone or trade him (unlikely).
Please note that I did not once use the “A” word.
I agree that we need 2 strong central defenders that can also take to the air. One more thing I really think we need a better GK. Every time I see Almunia punch his way out where other decent keepers would grab and hold on to dear life in certain situations, it just makes me want to pull my hair out and curse in Spanish. At this point I really don’t care about if we sign anybody or not. We should change our tactics and adopt a better defensive stance. We have enough strikers to score but not the same quality of players to prevent the opponents to score goals against us.
Sign a real DM or push Toure/Gallas in that position, pair Djourou with Gallas or Toure, start Fabianski in goal, Nasri in the middle with any combination of Bendtner, Vela, Diaby, Ramsey, Wilshere on the wings and we immediately have a more balanced side.
With Walcott, Rosicky and Fab injured we do need another creative MF for the rest of this season.