Far too much has already been written about the ridiculous way in which the transfer took place. But am I the only one who enjoyed the whole sordid saga? Even found it a little bit funny? Was tickled by the spectacle of the online community nursing their wrath and bursting into infantile hissy fits every time the deal looked under threat?
I can’t seriously be the only Gooner who was mildly amused by the spectacle of Brian Swanson (SkySports top dog) hoarsely bleating completely invented horseshit about Arshavin’s every move on the hour every hour. Swanson woke at the crack of dawn, hauled himself down to Arshavin’s hotel, saw a car leave with a man in it, made the appropriate mental sums, and informed the world that Andrey had departed for Russia – the deal was dead. What reason had he for saying these things? None.
It was as if Swanson chose to rage against the sheer indignity of his journalistic assignment (which could and possibly should have earnt him a restraining order had he not been wearing such a sharp suit) by seeing just how much misinformation he could generate in a single day – answer: a hell of a lot. As SkySports doyen Andy Gray would say (if Swanson looked a bit more like Steven Gerrard): “Take a bow, son.”
SkySports have a lot to answer for regarding the mental health of most Gooners in the past few days. They kept releasing stories about Andrey’s various boardings/non-boardings of a plane in Russia. Again, it now emerges that AA was holed up in Paris and that once again Murdoch’s men had simply made the whole plane story up.
As we all know, the most important thing is not who you sign, it’s all about how much we pay and how successful the shirt-holding-up ceremony is. Tottenham are the absolute past masters at this. They won the summer hands down and now they’ve won the January window, leaking the kind of cash which ought to make them title-challengers but is more likely to make them 16th at best. If there was a trophy for believing the hype they’d be undisputed world champions.
They won the Summer. They won the Window. Now watch them suffer.
I will never, ever tire of linking to this article by the fine Rob Smyth in the sunshine of August where he confidently tipped Tottenham as the dark horses for the title this season. Also very pleasing to see that much of that logic was based on his belief that their signing Arshavin was imminent.
At least the fine folk at Arsenal.com seem to have finally realised the crucial importance of shirt-holding-up photographs of grinning young men in abating the transferlust of the faithful. They delivered in some style with a photo gallery of Andrey holding the shirt which went on and on until I could bear no more.
I’m not going to lie, by the end I felt bloated, a little queasy and kind of violated by the excess of red-shirted Russian flesh which I had just gorged myself on. My only disappointment was that they didn’t shoot it in the stadium a la Eduardo: I remember wandering vaguely onto Arsenal.com, leaping out of my seat and screaming “Who is that man and what is he doing with the number 9 shirt?!?
The other alternative is to have them pose with Arsene. This works especially well if the signing is particularly cunning. For example, no-one gets tired of those pictures of Thierry with Arsene on the Highbury pitch and the look in Arsene’s eyes which says: “I just signed a good ‘un. A really really good ‘un”.
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