Sorry to interrupt your Sunday morning with talk of a football match but there is one scheduled to kick off this afternoon and some of us used to consider it a fairly important occasion. I presume that in a few years when my generation are pushing up the daisies there’ll be no one left to care at all about matches played during the Transfer Window. It must be a terrible bore and unnecessary distraction for those of you who see this as the penultimate day in the single most crucial and exciting time of the season. I suppose you’ll have January to look forward to but the January window is really Europa league to the summer one isn’t it? This is the big one coming to a close right now and I must say it seems to have been a real humdinger with Spurs looking like runaway winners. There used, once upon a time to be an exciting rivalry between our two clubs back in the day where performances and results on the pitch were considered more important than following the activities of agents, ‘In The Know’ fans and sports journalists. Some of us actually enjoyed those days. For one thing our side generally came out on top whereas now we have to hide our Arsenal scarves in shame and just hope that the board and manager will commit mass hara-kiri in order to spare us the embarrassment of languishing at the bottom of the table yet again.
I remember so well when Queens Park Rangers thrashed us last season buying so many players and spending so much money, replacing managers with a breathtaking aplomb that quite simply dazzled us poor Arsenal fans. I even considered giving up on the years I’ve wasted following Arsenal and buying a hooped blue and white shirt, this time I might start supporting Spurs.
Twitter and football blogs have really taken the thrill of following the fortunes of a Premier League team to new heights haven’t they? I was reminded of this just yesterday. In a quaint flashback to the pre internet days I bumped into an old acquaintance whilst we pushed our respective wives around the supermarket laden down with essential supplies. As the trolleys, or carts if you prefer, chatted about this and that, he asked if I was looking forward to the match tomorrow. He is a Tottenham fan and I’m all Arsenal so you might have imagined he’d be more than a little smug about their imminent victory in The Window. Curiously though it seemed that we preferred to chat about today’s match and how much we were both looking forward to it. He acknowledged our historical supremacy and I pointed out their relative improvement in recent times and in due course after receiving the laser beams from our partners we parted with mutual bad wishes for each others teams and their respective prospects. It was like a scene from pre-history, a land that time has forgotten. Real people discussing actual football with a healthy rivalry and a shared and genuine love of the game.
Then I returned home and turned on my computer. Oh boy was I brought back to earth with a bang. I quickly realised how silly I was to simply look forward to a physical on pitch encounter with our oldest rivals. To be wondering if the unpredictable and shattering number of first team injuries we have suffered would cost us dear should our substitutes be needed and whether the opposition might struggle to accommodate so many new faces and miss their talismanic simian mascot. These were surely the deluded fantasies of a crazy person. For here on the internet the true meaning of football was being played out.
People were falling over themselves to outdo each other describing how nervous they were as the Deadline Day approached. Others were comparing how they coped with the righteous anger they felt towards the club which has so badly betrayed their trust and support. Many saw no reason to even try to cope with these overwhelming emotions and just lashed out at the manager, the board and any fan letting the side down by not expressing his indignation in the most bald and unambiguous terms. I couldn’t decide whether I felt let down, betrayed, lied to, disappointed, outraged or sickened. I panicked that I might choose the wrong emotion and be thought less of by my fellow fans. I realised how utterly silly I would sound if I dared to voice my private opinion that the depth in our squad was there for all to see. If we could field such a strong side against Fenerbache and comprehensively destroy them despite missing Thomas Vermaelen, Abou Diaby, Lukas Podolski, Alex Oxelaide Chamberlain and the division’s outstanding midfielder by any measurement Mikel Arteta then surely we couldn’t be so badly placed. Could we? As I say, luckily I came to my senses and refrained from pointing out that this weak and obviously failing squad had now lost a grand total of one match in the last sixth months. I realised that the days when such trivialities mattered had slipped into history along with bear baiting and Penny Black stamps. These distracting irrelevancies might interest drooling old men like me, senile and out of touch but in the real exciting world of The Window all that mattered is the number of signings, the amount they cost, which players journalists want fans to talk about and how appalling and inept our hapless management is, its inadequacies laid bare by their inactivity.
The latest body blow to those of us unfortunate enough to follow such a feeble, backward and useless club as Arsenal is the signing of Mathieu Flamini. In a move now universally recognised as a deliberate and personal insult to every single fan in the world, made by a board that is at once out of touch and simultaneously devious and spiteful, they captured a player who failed to meet any of the criteria for a Window winning signing. Not only is he not an internationally renowned player with a Name but, and I can barely bring myself to type this, he didn’t cost anything. OK so he has bags of top level experience and once upon a time not costing anything would be a reason to celebrate the canny business minds at any club, and he knows the manager and his system perfectly, he can play well in multiple positions including those where injuries have left us needing experienced cover and he’s been training with us for a while now so knows the other players. Granted he made up a quarter of our most talented midfield of recent seasons and played right through to the European Cup final but all these mean nothing. His suitability, the precise way he fills a need , the fact that he didn’t cost us an obscene amount of money are all just sidetracking, bushwhacking baloney designed to distract from the fact that his signing means the club hate you and your family and would like to see you all drown in a vat of acid and piss.
Luckily enough everyone on Twitter put me straight and prevented me from looking forward to today’s match. I’m sincerely grateful to you all, everyone who has played their part in helping this poor deluded old man to see what really matters in the modern game. Regardless of the result or the final placings come next May, Tottenham have already beaten us, and were relegation from the Window possible we’d be going down and deservedly so.
Dark days to follow the Arsenal. I just hope the close season goes well between Tuesday and the January tournament and we come back stronger and ready to spend some money, faster, earlier and above all more and on the right names.
Positively Arsenal 
Morning STEWW.
time to put on the war paint. I fancy a home team winner.
UP WITH THE GUNNERS!!!!!!!!!
ONE & ALL.
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I sense you feel better for the purge Stew – if there is no word for a loathing of transfer Windows then there same well should be.
Looking at the sides today for all the nonsense spouted we begin as favourites and the pressure seems to me to be on the Totts to make good on their expenditure. I think we will see Flamini at some point today. I suspect it will not be a goal fest this year and the opposition will be a lot more cautious after their two recent disasters. A one goal thriller on the cards.
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Don’t let the blogs,media, radio and twater get you down mate. Pick them spirits up. There is game on this afternoon. Time to kick the spudniks into orbit baby. No better time to play them than now. Time to inflict a nice little physical and emotional blow on them that will not be forgotten all season.
Boomshakashaka.
WENGER NOT WONGA……..
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Going crazy with excitement over today’s match!
Agree with you Steww. People are more interested in the transfer window. Personally, I have been bubbling for a week for today’s match.
My only small concern is that if we dont win, any players we buy would be named panic buys when they arent. Arteta still has the label of a panic buy. I am sure he was not. Wenger wouldnt give a shit about these labels. I guess we shouldnt either.
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Don’t misunderstand me. I’m a carnaptious old bastard but I’m still looking forward to the match no matter how hard the rest of the world tries to change the subject. I just have absolutely zero interest in transfers or speculating on them.
Why can’t people learn? No matter how often the facts prove that a transfer may look great on paper and not work out or may look irrelevant and be the best thing the club ever did, still they try to second guess the future.
All that matters is the players here now with the fucking shirts on their backs.
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You old GOONER. support like yours doesn’t come by these days too often. One in ten thousand. It will be a fine game and a great opportunity to shut some people up and change their mindset. COYG…….
I was thinking of using MONREAL as left back and pushing JETHRO up a left winger forward. Santo center attacking mid with TOMAS & AARON supporting him and protecting the back four of BAC, SAKER , KOSHER , IGGY.
front line of OG , THEO & JETHRO..
hit them early and hard.
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I don’t know much but I do know that Carzola will be the best player on the park today.
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fins – only if Aaron has a bad day!
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I pick THEO to have a killer game.
We will torment Loris from get go.
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Can’t believe you wrote that whole piece without saying Venga Aht or Spend Some Fackin Money. You’re slipping! Actually I hope it was little bit cathartic Stew. I’m very happy to have such a thoughtful, intelligent and sensitive (yes, sensitive) fellow Gooner as a (virtual) friend. You’ve eloquently expressed what many of us have been thinking the last couple of months, thank you. On with the match and COYG!
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Oh, steww, brilliant. My thoughts exactly and you really made me laugh. I was saying to a friend, how funny that those who scream that there is no trophy for fourth place apparently believe that there *is* a Transfer Window trophy.
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I remember hearing John Cross saying that X to Arsenal for £50m would be great for the Premier League because “people love these big transfers”.
The French have a phrase for it – “deformation professionelle”.
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Up The Arsenal!
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“ready to spend some money, faster, earlier and above all more and on the right names.”
Got to pick you up on that, steww – what you should have said was “ready to spend some money, faster, earlier and above all more”. (banned smiley face).
***
Calamity Jane, are you “Jane” as well or is that someone else?
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I stand corrected FG
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Steww, that pre-season performance up against Fernandinho by Ramsey really was one of them Statement of Intent thingymajobbies.
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Interesting interview with Ramsey after the last game talking about “mentally recovering” or completing his rehab. It’s like I wrote on t’other blog: we’ve seen enough serious injuries now to know that one year out takes a year to recover from, to get back the conditioning required at that level. So I would disagree with Aaron, it was physical as well as mental rehab he was going through: all the great artists poets scientists/alchemists and philosophers ( not Dawkins then 😉 ) tell us the mind and body are linked and I’m happy to agree.
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If the Flamster is not starting then we could see the rested Rozza start alongside St.Jack & Rambo. With Santi playing the old wandering wizard role from the left.
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Da North London Darby mean nothing if we not buy new player soon. Wat is Venga n Iven Godzilla plain at? De spurs no how to do biz n der players r much better dan ours….
Sorry about that, I seemed to have a little idiot stuck in my throat. Thankfully the line about their new players being better than our existing ones brought me to my senses.
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Unbelievably funny and sharp writing today Steww! You have outdone yourself, I salute you.
“and I can barely bring myself to type this, he didn’t cost anything.” ahahahaha
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Probably the best – and certainly most apt – post of any blog anywhere since, well, I guess the Transfer Window opened. You’ve nailed the whole ‘Transfer Window Trophy’ concept and most observers would surely salute you for that.
It’s been easier to ignore the whole lot in recent days – Twitter, blogs etc – but one thing I feel confident about is the likelihood that in the virtually impossible-to-imagine parallel-universe of AFC actually winning the TW Trophy and heralding such a victory, such an accomplishment would then be derided for being “like a trophy” and devalued in the eyes of whom for which it is currently the most important thing imaginable.
Which isn’t me, either, by the way.
Can’t wait to get to the ground today, I’ve no doubt it’ll be a thriller, too.
But whilst to my uncultured eye the spuds look weak down the left of the pitch, depending on how things go in the first half hour or so, we have the potential to look vulnerable all round the bloody stadium. Tragic to consider I trust our players way more than the bulk of my fellow supporters at this point in time.
On the positive side, the anticipated (by me, at least) home win could well be followed by some crowd-pleasing signings over the next 36 hours. It might at least stiffen the resolve of the Emirates crowd for the autumn – until the winter TW competition gets going again, anyway.
Enjoy the game everyone!
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Just the tonic I needed before I set off for the game Number 10,gonna cheer on the boys from The Arsenal-I do hope some people going to the game have remembered how to do that.
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Enjoy yourself, Mel and everyone else who’s going!
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brilliantly funny stew excellent as always,
CJ remember all wob pronounce his name as wenger not with a v and apparently he has no first name.
I always used to think a free transfer was a good thing now its like a black mark anyway im off to the game now COYG
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Steww: We are eternally grateful to you among the few who refuse to bow to the brainwashing and mindlessness that is now part and parcel of football as exemplified by the transfer window. Despite years of the Spuds outspending the Gunners on xfers and finishing behind us, the media and twitter is awash with fears that we have fallen behind. When will we learn that the window is a vehicle for “robbery”, as described by Platini. It is a means of transferring wealth to the seller and the host of agents and other 3rd parties with the media as cheerleaders. Fortunately for us Wenger is very aware of the pitfalls and has played the window very well up till now extracting substantial profit on behalf of the club. Now more than ever there are desperate parties who see the Bank of Arsenal and are itching to rob us. Thankfully the club has the discipline to be patient and not overpay for quality players who will really improve us.
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You guys are making me jealous. Hopefully one day, I get to go to this derby at our home stadium.
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You sound as coherent as that old, cranky idiot who was shouting at Wenger to spend some money after the Villa game. “Blah, blah, blah spend some money, you French wanker, froth, argle barle, blehhhhh!!!!!!!”
If I were Arsene I’d show the boys a slide show of every article that’s been written about the way Spuds are supposed to end up above us this season. I can picture little Santi ripping out a urinal from the wall of the players’ wash room before the game because of this.
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A grim 72 minutes at Anfield
Best comment I have seen describes Manyoo’s midfield as flailing around like a daddy long legs in an empty bath
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Good Morning, all. These are the days when I’m glad I live in the states – I don’t know how you guys wait all day for a match to start! I’m doing well to stay busy until 10:00 am.
Genius writing, as usual, Stew. I will always have a soft spot for blogs and Twitter, as without them I wouldn’t have any Arsenal friends, and I wouldn’t know all of you. That being said, I hate Twitter right now. People that I really like and enjoy talking to are losing perspective over the Transfer Window Tournament. But I will say that those folks have the right attitude about today: To hell with transfers, let’s crush that Spud scum! People who don’t have that attitude I don’t even bother with.
Time for some household chores to burn off nervous energy. I’m confident the boys are well ready for this clash. My pre-match nerves are all down to me, not to them. Come on you Gunners!
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Less than one hour to go…
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Ladies won their match earlier today, now top of the league by one point for the first time this season
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Right now the provincial dispute – let’s get on with the capital punishment – for Spuds I trust
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Just you and me, anicoll5…
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Could be Fun ! Looking good
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Top free kick
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Good start.
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Kyle Walker = brittle
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Centre backs looking solid
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Come on Theo – get into it
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There’s your bloody 30 goal a season striker, doomers.
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Girooooooooooooooooooooooooooooud
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Was it a Walcott assist?
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Nice
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Yeah good movement and sharp cross to near post by TW
He heard me !
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our boys are giving it everything
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Thanks, anicoll5. He’s so reliable with his assists.
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Come on – spring that lock
Nearly nearly
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He did not look right
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Good half, lads.
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Could have been 3 up, but hey.
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Apparently, 110 million aren’t enough to buy class.
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wilshere was just a precaution..somebody tell me please.
i dont have english commntary here.
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