Hello and how are you? I feel utterly disenfranchised from life, football and whatever else is important, so I’ll be as brief as possible before I get tucked into my chicken soup.

Having won comfortably against Coventry we now head up to the midlands and take on Aston Villa at Villa Park. KO is 8.00pm (UK time) Monday 31st of August. This is a Villa side much changed from our last encounter; however, they and the 12^th (person) of Villa Park are not to be under estimated, especially if we are serious about retaining the title. Are we?

Soon the games will come thick and fast, five in September for a start. By the time this game is done and dusted and the analysis echoes around the bot-blown world of the internet ( all utopian visons fail so why the heck we not tempering our visions a bit at least?) have faded, the transfer window will be closed. ” Shut that window and keep it shut!”.

Some stalwarts of the Arsenal will have gone and maybe some new faces in. There seems less and less room for sentimentality in this world so I’ll keep it to myself. I still feel convinced though that the pursuit of perfection is haunted by the unseen spirit self-destruction. A strange game of Russian roulette…

I proved this week I haven’t any clue as the scales of evaluation of players, any more than I have of the new rules and regulations that have come in this season and the old parameters of talent and age now seem to have swum off to look for green cheese on the moon with the clangers. So, I’ll hold my peace with that one in the future!

I look around and wonder; what has this Arsenal to do with the Arsenal I started supporting nearly fifty years ago, and the answers is not much but name? And that’s the way of life? No wonder many Arsenal fans of the long-bearded type go awol from the internet’s bragging, bullshot banter and just stick to the game and try to enjoy it wind, rain or shine? It seems more and more tempting?

Perhaps I’m a plastic fan, perhaps the scales of fan evaluation mean that where ever you are on it, people will see you as a phoney. Are they right? Does anyone care? What does it mean to be real? What is a phoney? What about all the faces in the crowd at Highbury in the years when my Grandfather went? Do they care? In a few years when Ive gone and few others who will even recall my Grandfather? None.

Even the fame game and its illusion of immortality is a dicey one, fame is obscurity waiting, eventually. And even those that push on through to fame immortality have their legacy assessed and assessed as times change from epoch to epoch. Ideas of good and bad flipping like a pancake laden with the syrup of relativity?

Like Johnny Cash sang: ” I don’t like, but I guess things happen that way”…

Saliba and Timber! and maybe new Bruno are crocked for the Arsenal, Gomes is on a three-match ban and Onana, Manzambi and Madjo, are all stuck in the infirmary.

Having escaped to holiday climes last week, I eventually tracked the stattos from Statto HQ ( they were on holiday in Dymchurch eating crispy pancakes in a static caravan discussing advanced vectors) and they calculated for me: Aston Villa have a 14.2% chance of winning and the mighty Cannon have 64.9%. Let’s hope so, up next a clash with deep-pockets of west Londres, Chelsea. Till then, may your force be with ye.

COYG!

Mills