transfer window – Gambeano Snitch AFC

First day of the summer transfer window opening and Arsenal took the opportunity to make the signing of Yaya Sanogo official by announcing it on the official website. The young Frenchman’s signing is one of the worst kept secrets amongst those connected with Arsenal and it was simply a case of when would he be confirmed by the club.

Due to his commitments to the France team at the current on-going U-20 World Cup tournament in Turkey the striker has not been available to do the customary photo shoot in the Arsenal kit alongside an exclusive interview. It will come in time of course but for now the official announcement may be enough to stem the frustrations of the fans that have had to contend with the past month of name after name linked.

On a personal level the past month has been unbearable as an Arsenal fan. Twitter is an enjoyable pastime, the banter and shared opinions with Arsenal fans is second to none. The last 30 or so days leading up to the opening of the transfer window coupled with the admission from Ivan Gazidis that Arsenal has the spending power to compete with the richer clubs for players has led to an apparent untold number of exclusive signings being claimed.

On a daily basis a different player was “in advanced negotiations” and a “done deal to be announced in a matter of days” only or the anticipation to be met with silence. It reminded me of a few years back when some preacher predicted the end of the world. He gave a date for the so called ‘rapture’ in which we laughed off, as the day came most of us despite the lack of credibility in the man’s claims slept the night before with one eye open. The day came and went, we even waited an extra day in case the guy miscalculated and forgot to carry the one, still nothing. When it was time to question this preacher on something he embarrassingly got so wrong it turns out he did a runner, fled in shame and eventually owned up and apologised.

The point I am trying to get to is we live in a world of false prophets, forever claiming to be the ones in the know yet never backing up their prophecies and in most cases doing a runner with the church roof fund in their back pocket. We have a new dawn of false prophets whose congregation are the social media dependant stratosphere we all rely on.

end is near

Despite genuine folk out there in the know for every one of those there are fifty or so who take to Twitter, gossip sites, Facebook or whatever else platform they can get their word out on to spread absolute fabricated tripe.The nameless twitter accounts and website authors who feed the news show no sign of going away, the difference is they have no need to apologize, they can just reinvent themselves under a new name.There are no true sources to many of the stories but it just takes one person to believe for it to be shared and then it spreads. Sometimes the red tops fall for these stories and run with it in their publications, this in turn adds more credibility to the stories and then the lie is so believable the only way to nip it in the blood is for Arsene to come out himself and deny point blank. That’s not going to happen so we have to live with it, take each name mentioned with a pinch of salt.

Stay strong Gooners, now that the window is officially open business will happen, we just need to stay calm and you never know the likes of Higuain, Fellaini and Rooney could surprise us and become Arsenal players by start of the season on the down side the world may actually end. For now Yaya is an Arsenal player, let’s appreciate that and welcome the Frenchman to our club before it all ends .

Enjoy your day people.

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There is no better master at pulling the wool over your eyes in a press conference than our very own Arsene Wenger. As we move ever so closely to the closure of the January Transfer Window the signing of players at the club is a big fat zero and it’s now hard to envisage that changing.

As Arsenal fans we have to trust in the manager’s thinking and believe he has explored every option and has made the best choices to benefit the club. I still believe this season will be make or break for the manager and he will live or die based on the decisions he makes or fails to make during this window if at least 4th place isn’t achieved this season. The board won’t necessary sack him, he has their trust as he has taken position in the front line and used his earned respect from Arsenal fans to deflect all the negativity.

That respect has been chipped away over the years as the patience has run thin with many fans, this season especially has seen many question whether he is the man to turn our fortunes back around without the willingness to spend the money that is regularly touted as available to spend on players.

The problem for Arsene this season is this has been one of the most inconsistent campaigns competed by the Arsenal in recent years. There has been no sustained run of form to calm the disbelievers. Like a pot threatening to bubble over there has been no one to turn down the fire, the pot keeps on bubbling and refusing to go away, one way or the other it’s going to get messy.

For every one or two games we come away with a good result there follows an awful game that reinforces that the squad is maybe not good enough to compete for the title (or even 4^th place). The further we fall behind in the title race the more the fans call for changes, the fact our best player last season is now sitting pretty at the top of the table for Manchester United stings the tails of all the passionate Gooners out there.

It seems with every defeat Wenger has talked to the media and claimed he is looking for the right players to improve the squad but with every victory he then champions the players we already have and pleads the case for not adding players.

He is content with the squad stating that he has able cover for every position and so the squad is satisfactory for him but one glance at the premier league table shows us more than 20 points behind the leaders. I refuse to condemn the manager but it doesn’t stop me from assessing where we are at right now and applying some logic to the situation.

M’vila: Potential move tarnished by his antics

If we accept that Arsene will only sign exceptional players that become available during the window we must also recognize exceptional players do not become available unless they have done something fundamentally wrong to force them into the situation. Once a player falls under that bracket then they rule themselves out of an Arsenal move because Wenger would not sign a disruptive or dirty player. The only way to sign an exceptional player is to actively seek out the talent, negotiate and make them and their club an offer they can’t refuse. That’s the only way it works, if we can’t guarantee titles we don’t have the bargaining chips to ensure an exceptional player would want to join us. So apart from players with release clauses in their contracts I don’t hold too much optimism to seeing a marquee signing to boost our season.

Emmanuel Frimpong yesterday sealed a loan move to Fulham for the rest of the season, could that signal the one in one out policy Arsene talked about? Who knows, in the grand scheme of things it’s a good move for Frimpong; another chance to prove himself in the premiership and overcome the injury sustained last year.

Beyond the talk of the transfer window we have a game coming up today against Brighton in the one competition we have a realistic chance of picking up silverware, the FA Cup. Maybe in the past this may have been looked upon as a fixture that shouldn’t pose too many problems, a draw as a worst case scenario. However the result against Bradford has put everything into perspective and Brighton cannot be taken for granted. Wenger’s pre-match talk has already been done for him; he only needs to hold up a newspaper clipping from that game to the players; they don’t need reminding of what complacency can give you.

Lets hope the boys approach the game focused and grind out a win with a good performance.

Enjoy your day people.

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