Work has been utterly batshit for me with more meetings than a UN Security council going on this week… again it’s cut me out of the loop of the shenanigans of transfer idiocy (more on that in a minute) and in fact it forced me into a twitterless state for the second time in two weeks as again, I had the game on record on my home DVR for watching when I returned from meetings in San Jose. I must apologise to any friends I ignored over this period, but I’m glad I did.

After quite literally fighting my way back to the Oasis that is Marin, in the sea of Bay Area madness, I plonked my arse down on the sofa completely ignorant of what was to follow. After the initial tirade of swearing that accompanied that first Udenise goal and a 10 second break while I whizzed through the wankish nonsense of the utter toss that is the Fox Soccer Channel’s commentary team, I saw something I’ve not seen in a long time – a half time substitution that changed the game.

I won’t dwell on the result too much as there are far better scribes then I at picking the details apart with more finesse then a brain surgeon, although there are also those that try to do the same thing with a pickaxe handle – mentioning no names. What I will say is there’s something very gritty and determined about this squad… something not seen in a while: A hint of TonyAdamish sheer bloody-mindedness that makes me feel all warm and gushy myself. So, despite the heart-attack there are many, many positives to take from this result, not the least of which is another year in the Cashpions League. While writing this the results came in for the groups and while ours is no doubt a tough drawer (and Utd’s is funking easy as per usual) I was just delighted to see Shitty get it right in the arse with the worst possible draw they could have gotten. Funnily enough that leads me on to the Faux Real Madrid and some recent news.

Anyone that’s read my stuff before already knows that I don’t buy 99% of the bullsh*t that surrounds mass media’s approach to the ‘crisis’ going on at the Emirates, to them it was just a way of bumping up their clicks to make themselves more cash – to us it’s taken infighting amongst Gooners to Libyan levels. There is no doubt that many of the numerous problems in this season’s transfer window were caused by the club (notice I’m not saying Wenger here, I think he’s been fighting the board a great deal) but most of it I suspected was caused by external sources. Now we’re starting to find out just what qualifies as an external source… The Nasrigas saga is finally at an end and the truth about both transfers seems to be poking it’s ugly little head out of the trench: it is a sad fact that the two moves have a lot in common… exactly as I thought in one case, and alarmingly so in the other.

The commonality to which I allude is the tapping up of our players by friends, family, colleagues and/or national team-mates. I think I mentioned in a recent post that in my opinion the whole Cesc thing was really down to his mates; Careless Pooyol, Geretard Prique and his family chipping away at him for years. Yes, yes, Xavi had pictures of Cesc’s DNA (Dick, Nuts & Arse) up in his locker but it’s the former cnuts that were always posting sweet nothings in his tweears. That was expected and almost inevitable but what WASN’T expected was the parting shots from Na$ri that painted a horrific picture for me.

For those of you that don’t already know, it appears that Paddy Vieira is the one that has been tapping up Na$ri – that and a host of ex Arsenal players that have all funked off to the endless well of ca$h that is Shitty. That’s right – PV4 funked us over and made this summer one of the most unbearable I can remember. PATRICK VIEIRA! The same PV4 that gave us so much joy; master of the invincibles and giant of the game. The Barca situation I expected, but for one whom many Gooners consider one of our OWN to dry shaft us without lube in this fashion, I certainly did not. The Cesc thing hurt as I’ve stated in a previous post… “in the divorce the Cesc puppy chose Barca and not us” but Paddy screwing us over? Well that feels like it did when I found out my ex-wife was diddling my ex-best friend. O-H-M-Y-G-O-D-T-H-A-T-C-A-N-T-B-E-T-R-U-E (vomits).

It has outlined to me just how funking useless FIFA is as an organising body, they’re completely toothless in this new cash rich reality. Now that Shitty can outbid anyone, even the rich idiots at Real, and pay players such monumentally stupid amounts of cash, they’ve shown that the rules are pointless – with their fake Stadium naming rights deal they’ve taken the financial fair play rules and wiped their arse with them. With PV4’s tapping of Na$ri the rules surrounding player tampering are now beyond doubt about useful as a bullet-proof vest made of streaky bacon or as relevant as an IQ test is to your average Totteringham Fan (pointless). Simply put; it’s impossible to track, trace and enforce the personal relationships of ‘club ambassadors’ the likes of Vieira.

It is now obvious to yours truly that it’s more important than ever for Arsenal’s famous hush-hush policy in the transfer market to become an iron-curtain of STFU. The club needs to stop any information on targets getting out because as soon as it becomes known who we’re in for, everyone with more cash than brains is going to step in and pinch our targets and we’ll be faced with more Mata-esque situations. I can fully believe that Mata had been targeted by us, and was a possible signing all the way up until Torres gave him a buzz and mentioned the size of the Abramovich bank account, which probably turned his head faster than a Joey Barton dive. This fits in with the screeching halt of commentary that was ongoing about Mata to AFC – forget that ‘buyout clause’ nonsense – this was a player’s head being turned plain and simple and as soon as that happened we stopped even talking to them.

Something else has occurred to me about the above scenario… it strikes me that both SAF and AW had seen this situation developing and both seemingly chose an entirely different strategy. SAF bought early and as a result at high cost, De Gea, Young & Jones were all bought at a high premium to ensure the deals went through and personally at prices that are laughable. AW, I believe, truly thought he could keep Cesc around for one more year due to his close relationship, but as the Na$ri situation seems to have been ongoing since Jan (isn’t it ironic that his dip in form was at the same time as his contract rejection began?) his exit was a matter of time and dosh. AW also knew that any public targets would instantly attract the attentions of clubs that we couldn’t compete with, so he’s waited until the rich clubs filled their births before making his moves as this would guarantee that they couldn’t move for his targets… risky, but more fiscally responsible with the funds we have and ultimately it could prove to pay dividends. The fly in the ointment was that the talks with Cesc & Na$ri tied up ‘potential’ transfer budget, as if we were going to get Na$ri to re-sign, then that money would come out of the budget as it always has. The final factor is that £25 million looks to have been kept aside in case we didn’t qualify for the Cashpion’s League as we have a heavy wage bill and that would have been covered.

Consequently – all the “spend some f*cking money” chanting in the world would not have made a blind bit of difference as AW most likely could not spend until he knew the fates of a) Cesc b) Na$ri c) CL and d) if his targets were secure. Added to the usual difficulty of transfers it must be flippin’ bonkers at the Emirates right now as this is a hard, if affordable, way of doing business.

Now we know the lay of the land in the three important cases, the next week may well be interesting.