UNTOLD ARSENAL » 2008 » June » 10

One week ago Manchester Bankrupt issued a statement on their website which said that the bankrupt club was “delighted to announce it has agreed terms with Cardiff City for the transfer of Aaron Ramsey subject to terms being agreed and the player passing a medical”.

Cardiff City were a little surprised, and diffidently pointed out that actually Manchester Bankrupt were just one of four teams that had put in bids. One of those (from Liverpool) was rejected largely on the basis that Cardiff felt it unlikely that the owners of Liverpool would be able to agree anything in time. That left three.

Ramsey was given permission to speak with Arsenal, the Bankrupts and Everton.

The move by the Manchester club which is now so much in debt that it can’t even keep up payments on the interest it owes, was a typical ploy aimed at distracting the world from its financial ruin, while putting pressure on the 17 year old Welsh player.

They also used the tactic that said Cardiff would sooner have Ramsey join the Bankrupts rather than a more stable club, because Manchester would then loan him back to Cardiff in order to save money. The Ramsey family are not quite so stupid as to become part of a scheme to salvage a broken down club, and trotted off to the wild north where David Moyes told them about Everton’s forthcoming stadium.

This however backfired a bit since Moyes did not know that Cardiff are building a new stadium near the Olympic Swimming Pool as part of the continuing redevelopment of the City, and the EPL standard Cardiff Stadium will be open long before building even starts on Everton’s ground.

Moyes also told the young player that he would have a chance in the first team at once – to which Ramsey said, “having seen Everton 1 Arsenal 4 on TV I am not surprised.”

But weak though the card Moyes had to play (”I had that Rooney playing here once you know – he just paid me ten million pounds in damages for claiming in his biography I was a prat”) it was a better move than the Bankrupts could manage. The “Sir” Alex Ferguson was unwilling to meet the Ramsey family when they came to the Manchester training facilities on Friday, one day after the Everton trip, believing that the deal was already done, and he didn’t have to bother himself with some 17 year old kid.

So what of Arsenal? Well the Mighty Lord Wenger was also away when the Ramsey’s wanted to visit, so at Arsenal’s expense, the Ramsey family (all of them) were flown to Switzerland on a private jet on Saturday morning to meet the Le God for lunch.

This is exactly the ploy used by Wenger with the Fábregas family, the Anelka family, the Walcott family, and many others – and just a slight variation of the Clichy approach (where Wenger personally moved into a hotel in the village where Clicy and co lived, until they signed.)

Wenger also assured Ramsey that just like Cesc and Theo before him he would not go out on loan but would progress through the Cup Teams into the first team. He pointed at Cesc and Theo as living proof of his tactic, and mentioned in passing a certain young man playing internationals at the moment for Mexico.

Have we got him? Well, anyone with any sense would sign for Arsenal, and Arsenal only sign players with a spot of sense. So it all depends on how bright the kid is. Most journalists are writing that the Bankrupts blew it with that opening announcement, and made it worse with Ferguson refusing to see the family. If so, thank goodness for idiots.