There’s a priceless piece of dialogue from the pen of the wonderful David Nobbs on a subject which has, just this morning, provided the sand in my emotional Vaseline. His character, known to us only by his initials CJ, is expounding upon the theme of trite, stereotyped phraseology of the kind employed by lazy minds to express popular or common thoughts and ideas. Phrases entirely lacking in originality, ingenuity, and, thanks to their chronic overexposure, expressions which are so devoid of impact as to be utterly pointless.
The speech went something like this:
“Mrs C.J. and I have always avoided clichés like the plague. A cliché to me is like a red rag to a bull. However, it’s the exception that proves the rule, as they say, and there is one cliché that fits my situation like a glove: Necessity is the mother of intention.”
All writers slide into cliché, even humble part time amateur bloggers such as myself are no exception. The trick isn’t never to fall foul of the hackneyed phrase, it is rather to do one’s darnedest to avoid it wherever one can. Where the use of cliché is utterly beyond the pale isn’t when it is used as seasoning in an otherwise ordinary piece of prose. It seems to me to achieve its nadir of useless, shallow emptiness when employed as the central thrust of somebody’s argument.
Today, like birdsong, flowers and late sunsets, that hardy annual of the Transfer window has arrived right on cue to ruffle my feathers and send me running for the Anderson Shelter. Today for the first time this summer, I read the expression ‘to show intent’ in regard to the buying of players to augment our squad.
Arsène (or Wenger as he is invariably and rudely referred to by his own supporters. Or at least people who claim to support the club and therefore ought to be his supporters) needs to spend a lot of money or buy a lot of players or less players but players of the highest calibre because then he will be showing intent.
Now I’m no saint. Like you, I suspect, I’ve typed more than a few shallow, ill conceived lines and bunged them up on the internet in a thoughtless moment. So I don’t condemn everyone who uses this ridiculous phrase. Maybe they intended something else and didn’t get up today with the single intention of driving a splintered length of four by two up my backside.
But come on. Expend upon it the briefest moment of thought and really, what on earth is it supposed to mean? Transfers are complex and difficult to conclude. Expensive, drawn out and fraught with any number of complexities, of which you and I can know very little. What we can know with great certainty is that they serve one of two very simple purposes. To replace players who have left the club and to improve upon those already in the squad. That’s it. You do not engage the services of a highly paid professional footballer to send out a message of intent.
Arsène Wenger’s intentions are crystal clear. He wants to win as many games and competitions as he can. There is no doubt about this, it isn’t up for debate. Were he to buy someone simply to convey some sort of message, I ask you, who would this message be for? His rivals? The media? The fans?
His rivals already know he is serious about his job, if they don’t they’re idiots and need to look for alternative employment. The media have their own agenda and will stick slavishly to it regardless of what he does or doesn’t do. As a fan I don’t want him to spend a fortune of the club’s hard earned just to send me a message. That would be ridiculous.
So please do not repeat this awful phrase. Arsène doesn’t need to show anyone ‘intent’. His intentions are not and have never been in question. Why not watch the remaining matches of the European championships, then when they’re over have a little rest from football. Leave the professionals to do their jobs and buy the players they are able to buy and when the new season starts just try to enjoy it regardless of who did and didn’t sign in this wretched window.
Oh, and leave the clichés to those without your wit and imagination. You know you can do better.
Positively Arsenal 
clichés or soundbites are the way of the modern world, not just the football world, it makes me sick as a parrot. I’m over the moon any time we sign the players we so badly need to replace the deadwood that the failed project youth Wenger indulged in left us with, and its time we had a proper modern manager who answers to his employers, that is if, Wenger won’t change, as we all want Wenger, just not this Wenger, we want our old Wenger back, so that we can have Our Arsenal Back, as we don’t pay the highest ticket prices in world football to see failure due to this tippy tappy sideways and backways shite from our overpaid players who nobody else wanted, and silent stan is only in it for the money and its clear we have been lost since Dein left, as he was the true bains behind all our transfers, and we need true Gooners like Admas, Keown, Henry, Bergkamp, Overmars in as coaches, and then we can rid ourselves of the plastic fans who only support Arsene and not Arsenal, after all its Arsenal FC, not Arsene FC, so spend some fucking money, you stingy senile old french cunt
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Very informative post Stew and I share your frustration during these times on the football calender.
I think the use of clichés are the flawed human condition to somehow make people believe they are smarter than they actually are.
From many of the tweets I’ve seen regarding the show of “intent”, I can’t tell if many are just plain stupid or whether they deliberately put their thought processes on hold in order to be popular with the ‘in’ crowd. I suspect the former.
1st September is a long way away, good luck to all of us exposed to this ‘open mic’ madness.
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haha, So true its rather embarrassing.
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Wenger has a duty to the fans to make signings!…….or something
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Bravo, Bravo, Bravo!
We need look no further than all those scores of managers with unlimited demonstration of intent who Wenger has outlived and thrown the dustbin of history (cliche watch).
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showing intent is much easier if you have unlimited funds and a cosy relationship with agents, and don’t care for anything other than short term thinking. Then you can pay a soon to be 35 year old big name who failed to have a shot during 3 games at the Euros way over the top wages, and you can pay an agent £5M to persuade a player to join you on £100K more a week(£250K a week) than AFC offered, you can also look to spend £100M on a player your club let go for free only 4 years ago. But then this would not be the first time as a manager you would have done any or all of this.
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rumors that Mata is on his way to Everton, it seems Zlatan has been given his shirt number. We know Joe Say dumped him at CFC, and it looks like he has not wasted any time in dumping him at utd
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something I was told today that might please blackburngeorge, Arsenal have not given up hope on Arteta taking up an academy coaching role, and in fact there might very well be more chance of him being one of our coaches than there is of Henry being one. I’m told Arteta and Adams have been offered the jobs.
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back to the topic of the thread
Wenger said in the last week that we normally have four or five targets for each position we want to strengthen, and that we try for the one that we have best chance of completing, and if we can’t get it done we move on to the next one. He said this when discussing the attempt to sign Vardy.
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this day two weeks an Arsenal ix will play Boreham Wood
Tickets prices are follows:
Adults £12
Senior citizens £10
U16’s £6
U12s £3
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Positively Arsenal @Blackburngeorge 2m2 minutes ago Blackburn, England
Some Arsenal fans seem genuinely upset that Ramsey is playing well and making them look stupid for not rating him.
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The transfer window has somehow morphed into a monster.
It should be a period during which Arsenal fans would look on, optimistically, to see if a new player or player was arriving.
They might keep the fingers crossed that none or our best players were lured elsewhere, and a further set of fingers crossed that their least favourite player might be on his bike.
Somewhere along the line it turned into another excuse for a hysterical outpouring of grief and complaint from the Scarfists.
Shut the window
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I don’t look at any transfer links anymore, it was something I got excited about many years ago but the modern fan and modern media have killed it. Arsenal are “linked” with quite literally hundreds of players in the window by people who quite frankly have no more clue than myself. It’s a real shame that football journalism has died and we are left with cheap hacks making football a soap no better than EastEnders.
The same people praising Leicester last season for great scouting of lesser known players are commending maureen for his star buys and yes his statement of intent. Is his real statement “I will only ever be able to buy established stars and need vast amounts of money to assemble a team.
Quite frankly my two favourite football writers are Patrick Barclay and Steww (obviously closely followed by A5,Shotta and the rest)
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Great stuff.
Transfers are always exciting. Even imagined ones. Imagining Mkhitaryan playing off of Xhaka-Ramsey-Ozil-Alexis-Giroud, makes for fun thinking. It’s a great way to spend you day (Not greatly productive, but great nonetheless)
But most intelligent people should be able to distance this fantasy from reality. Him signing for ManU and Mourinho doesn’t make me feel angry at Arsenal. Or even just angry in general. Reality doesn’t go out the window entirely. Even the most insane ones don’t imagine Messi playing for Arsenal right now as some sort of real possibility. Perhaps if the media ran with it for 3 months they might start believing Wenger ‘refused’ to sign him.
But because it holds endless possibilities, and very little reality to temper that fantasy, the transfer market is seen as its own competition. The media declares winners and losers in this game before the season starts. The commentators constantly refer to a new signing as a (eg.) 32million pound player, as if that is his worth rather than his price.
In fact, the whole creation of these transfer windows, was to my mind, a decision made for the benefit of the agents and corrupt forces in the game. It creates an artificial scarcity, creates artificial competition, and acts as a market distorting force, allowing more money to flow out of the game and into the pockets of those who would seek to profit from this. The whole media shambles around it is just a way of keeping the mob happy/angry/entertained/distracted with the circus. And a circus it is. Arsenal and Arsene get the brunt of the ire because they generally refuse to play that game, and instead concentrate on the football. ‘Boring boring Arsenal!’
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Osman @OsmanZtheGooner 38m38 minutes ago
Reports in Brazil that Arsenal’s @wsilva11 in talks with Fluminense. Player wants to return to Brazil http://explosaotricolor.com.br/v2/atacante-wellington-silva-negocia-retorno-ao-
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Where did my last post go?
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Well Steww
If you were the pope you would be canonising me upon my demise. I have never demanded a show of intent from out manager and I have never engaged in an exchange about player values and transfers. I’m a saint, a fuckin’ saint indeed.
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No Idea Georgie, did you mean mouth Arshavin?
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Found it in the trash, No idea why
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Is there a filter for swear words? Fuck
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Are you from a European country Georgie? You might have been voted out?
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Both these teams are so well drilled…..
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would have expected more from Liam Brady, he has just said
“Ozil has been extremely disappointing again”
now I have only seen the last few minutes of the first half, and Ozil may have been very poor for all I know, but what is this bullshit “again” about, as Ozil has been very good for Germany in all games so far.
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GP you are not the only one with missing posts
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Brady wants Germany to take off Ozil
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Get in Mesut
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The ‘disappointing’ Mezut Ozil does it again!
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As that blonde fuckwit Savage would say “he had desire”
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Brady must have taken leave of his senses!
I have to say that I was just thinking that apart from Aaron, Mezut and Xhaka, the other player I have been impressed with during this tournament is Jerome Boateng.
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Time for the Italians to release the handbrake
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Ozil almost assist again, take him off? You must be mad!
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Looks like I just cursed Boateng, who has saved Germany so many times, he now puts them in the s***t
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Ozil could find claude
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Ozil now has 20 goals for Germany
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Looks like it might have to be penalties unless some piece of magic happens during extra time, unfortunately I think that would favour Italy.
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I think this Italian team is not as technically gifted as previous teams. But they know how to play as a team. Can’t help thinking that Pelle is no where near the level of Giroud. Eder flatters to deceive. If the Italians had two better players than those two they would have won in normal time.
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Ozil’s goal ignored by the panel on RTE – Brady, Giles, Dunphy
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What does Ozil have to do to get the credit he deserves? He is a brilliant player and I cannot understand how people fail to see that
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Paddy @VieiraPaddy 16m16 minutes ago
Özil is a joy to watch. Great to watch and appreciate him instead of wanting him to be Scott Parker.
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I can’t bear to watch the penalties! Hopefully Ozil will not be taking one!
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for once I don’t fancy the germans in a penalty shoot out, Ozil has missed a few later, and muller has too, and he has played poorly all tournament,
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I fancy the better team to win this – and their name begins with G
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1-0 italy
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1-1
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italy miss, ball lost in space
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muller with an awful penalty, what is the point at looking at the keeper if you are going to kick it the side he goes to
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2-1 to italy
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2-1, ozil hits the post with the keeper gone the wrong way
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italy miss, pella with as awful a penalty as mullers
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