Now you're just Riberying me.

Have you heard any good jokes lately? No? How about this one? “Arsenal Set To Make £40m Franck Ribery Bid – Reports.”

LOL

Yeah, ok, let’s just assume that Arsenal are going to bid £40m, which, according to Bayern manager Uli Hoeness, is £60m short of his valuation and would get us just a leg. Even if we did bid £40m, BAYERN AREN’T SELLING, so this is a non-story and you have to wonder where it came from.

Wait, what if there is something to this story? If we could get Frank Ribery’s right leg for £40m and sew it onto Eboue, we could make a Frankeneboue! Then the boss could say that Eboue’s “like a new signing” and he could say to everyone that “Arsenal develop players, we do not just buy them.”

And then Wenger would sign Karim Benzema, 3 new goalkeepers, Fat Ronaldo, Felipe Melo AND Lorik Cana, steal E’to’o from City, and get Micah Richards and Brede Hangeland, and possibly bring in Xavi Hernandez and David Villa! All this after selling Frankeneboue for £75m, Adebayor for £93m, Bentdner for £6,999 (like a used car, get it???), Eduardo for a free transfer, and Theo Walgod for £1.2billion.

RIGHT???

That settles it, I’m changing the name of the summer transfer period from “interlull” to “interlol.”

InterLOL, wait this is serious

With Adebayor looking closer to AC Milan than ever before, now that Dzeko is off the table and Sevilla is asking £30m for Fabiano, it looks like Wenger might actually end up with the resources to buy Felipe Melo.  Last I heard, Fiorentina want £21m for Melo, which is more than Arsene was willing to pay last year for Alonso, but that Fiorentina are willing to accept Senderos as a makeweight in the deal. So, with the £15m or so Arsenal will get from Adebayor, a Senderos, and maybe even a little cash, we might be able to prise Melo from Fiorentina.

More importantly, this story is starting to look like it has some smoke to it: Melo reportedly asked former Arsenal skipper Gilberto what he thought of Arsenal. As in “hey, I’m thinking about transferring to Arsenal, should I?”

Well…

Gio said “yes absolutely” which is a bit of a surprise seeing how he was treated in his last year, but then simultaneously not a surprise since Gio has always been a class act and clearly still loves Arsenal.

What makes me feel better about the whole thing is that Gio also thinks Melo would be good for Arsenal. Each time I’ve watched him he hasn’t looked that impressive but if Gilberto says

He is exactly what they need – a powerful player with quality. If they got him it would be great because he is a player they need at the moment. I’m sure if they got him it would be a good signing. I have told him Arsenal is a great club and I am sure next season they will improve.

then I have no choice but to trust Gilberto. He was a top notch midfielder for Arsenal and he knows exactly what it takes to win trophies in the Premier League. If anyone in this world knows if Felipe Melo is ready to partner Cesc Fabregas at Arsenal and help win a trophy it’s Gilberto Silva.

So, I officially say “bring ’em on.”

Or Cana…

The other player that has been on everyone’s hit list is combative Albanian midfielder, Lorik Cana. His club officially said that he’s for sale and immediately Spuds made a bid. The link above says that Arsene tried to bring him over for a trial when he was younger but were denied a work visa, with him now firmly ensconced in the Albanian team the whole visa thing might work out easier. Though, I’m no expert on the British work visa rules.

Arsenal can offer Champions League football a great salary and a host of world class players, he’d be a fool to chose them over us.

Also, then he’d be a cunt, and we wouldn’t want him anyway!

Usmanov’s Millions

Just when you think it’s safe, Alisher Usmanov reminds us that he has his grubby little fingers all over our club. This time is no different than the last time he cropped up: he wants us all to make a deal with the devil and do a “rights issue” that would “generate” “£100m.”

The details of Usmanov’s proposal are unknown and will be discussed by the board this week but from what I’ve read the basic idea is to issue additional stock and generate fresh investment. Of course, Red and White are saying that this money could be used for transfers (that’s the devil’s bargain) and Gazidis is saying that the board will not do a stock offer and blow the money on transfers (hey, maybe THAT’s where the Ribery story came from!).

Either way, I trust the board on this one. It’s pretty clear that they are openly hostile to Usmanov’s attempts to use Arsenal as his personal piggy bank and will rebuff any proposal that would help him consolidate power. The board is committed to growing Arsenal the old fashioned way and while you might disagree with that because it means you have to forgo the instant gratification of spending big and buying  trophies it’s the only sensible long term plan.

Personally, I plan on passing Arsenal on to my daughter and if Usmanov had his way, I suspect that would be impossible.