Arsenal News » 2010 » January » 27

I have been interested of late at the way the Anti-Arsenal brigade has been developing its tactics.

In the olden days (ie last year) they would mostly spend their time saying that our players were all leaving just like Flamini and Hleb before them.  Cesc was going to Barca and the world would end.

Now the reason this story lasted for quite so long was that it looked viable.  Using the old “no one in Britain speaks alien” tactic the papers kept reporting that Cesc had said that he would love to play for Barca and wasn’t there a plane leaving in 7 minutes.  In fact he had spoken in Spanish and said, “Why don’t you toddle off to Barca you stupid Daily Express reporter, there is a plane leaving in 7 minutes. “  But since no one here speaks the lingo, no one bothered to check.

Such claims were boosted by the old Flamini and Hleb routine.  They had played a couple of moderate to ordinary seasons for us, and then one good year.   So the doggerel and gibberish (ie D and G) fans said that it was a total disaster that the pair were leaving and Arsenal were now a selling club.

In fact it was clear that both players had reached their peak and were on the way down – and so moving them on was no bad move.  If Barca would pay far more for Hleb than he was worth, fine, and if Milan were to cripple themselves with an insane salary for a guy who had done well for one season, that simply lessened their spending power.

The brilliance of the Wengarian tactic was to use the Doggerel and Gibberish brigade to his own advantage.  The Bar-Bar-Barca-Sheep mob and WC Milan both picked up the message, and thinking they had a line into the Arsenal camp, took  on the players.

We may not that since then neither has been a huge success.   Hleb has moved on and publically spoken of his regret at leaving, and Flamini has sat their taking the dosh for only playing half the matches.

The question now is, how can the doggerel and gibberish doom and gloom brigade be used again to Arsenal’s advantage?

For a while they have just been talking tosh – as with the post that pointed out last year that the simple difference between Arsenal and the rest of the top four is that we didn’t take our chances.  In fact we had scored the same number of goals as two of the other top four teams.

Now we have the guys saying, the club is in a desperate state – no forwards, rubbish full backs, no reserves etc, when we sit second in the league and top scorers.

Now this may seem like nonsense, but consider this scenario.

Let’s suppose that there is a club that is near to bankrupt. We’ can call them Man IOU – although Liverpool, Hull, Portsmouth, the Tiny Totts, Everton  would be names that are just as good.

They want to sign someone.  Arsenal move in and say, we are interested.  So the price goes up, and the player’s salary goes up.  Manchester or whoever, puts in more money that they don’t have and bids away.   Having just spent what is it – £40m in Bankers Fees on getting their bond off the ground they now have to pay far more in salary and fee for a player they only half thought they wanted in the first place.

Then the doggerel and gibberish mob move in and say, “Arsenal are crap, we can’t even sign that player, we don’t sign anyone,” and the deal is done.  The doggerel mob have done Wenger’s bidding, and sunk Manchester even deeper.

So, my point, young fella-me-lads is that the D and G brigade are incredibly useful.  They help in the great task.  They con the opposition, while we move on guys we don’t want, and don’t sign players we don’t want.  Of course they are conned themselves into thinking that they are opposing the Lord Wenger when in fact they are simply doing his work.

Meanwhile, in deep consultation with Billy the Dog, and with a quick email from Mr Wenger’s cat, I can tell you the fantabuloso news….

We have more players this week than we did last week.

All the following people are able to walk, and some of them can even run a bit despite not playing recently

• Bacary Sagna – ready to play
• Samir Nasri – back in training, probably bench tonight, ok for the weekend
• Theo Walcott – as far as I know didn’t get injured at Stoke!
• Aaron Ramsey – all fit and raring to go
• Alex Song – back from holiday, although still taking the CJD pills which are now essential when entering the UK.  Back for Sunday.
• Jack Wilshere – fit again after a bout of fibliocontritis
• Gale Clichy – fit again
• Emmanuel Eboue – back from holiday as per Song
• Fran Merida – not sure but I think he might be ok
• Nicky Bendtner – ready to play – maybe against Villa on bench, probably in the game next weekend.

Now you have to admit that is quite a line up of people we haven’t seen since some time around the stone age.  (Incidentally did you know that the stone age only ended because they ran out of stones?)

So for the D and G team the new story is – these players will want to leave because they can’t get a game.

Meanwhile, here’s the jolly old team

Arshavin

Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy

Denilson, Cesc, Ramsey

Arshavin, Eduardo, Rosicky (Theo) (Vela)

Others: Eastmond, Merida, Bendtner, Wilshire, Nasri, Wilshire, Campbell, Silvestre

Aston Villa – who will make up the numbers tonight, played their first match against the local Aston Brook St Mary’s Rugby team.  The first half was played under rugby rules and the second half as football.    Villa however soon tired of this arrangement and these days play the whole match following the rules of rugby.

The local name for the city is ‘Bromwicham’ – or “home of the witches” and this history is celebrated each match day with a burning of a visiting supporter – so it is very important not to turn up too early for a game.

The number of Arsenal supporters who are allowed into the ground is limited because it is claimed we tend to stand up.    I think they also got annoyed when last year a bunch of us approached one of the queues of Villa supporters who were waiting to enter the ground and looking particularly moronic, and said, “The trick is to rub the sticks together guys”.

The area came to the fore in the Industrial Revolution, but has since been in decline, and is now thought to have reached the Dark Ages.   In six years time the Romans will arrive, walking backwards, and Aston Villa will join the Italian League.

English is not spoken locally.

(c) Tony Attwood 2010.