UNTOLD ARSENAL » 2008 » August » 02

Summertime – when football journalists remind us just what total prats they are.  They make up stories, rubbish our club, and then… play the pretend game.

Ade will sign for Barca tomorrow, screams the dribbling little child, and then when Ade turns up ready to sign his new contract, they say, “while some sources predicted that Adebayor would leave…”

Some sources indeed.  It was you, you idiot.

But in the midst of all this garbage and deliberate attempt to undermine Arsenal, I wonder what Wenger is up to.   Here’s a guess…

Wenger knew at the end of the season that Hleb was going and Flamini would probably not re-sign.  Flamini had been a gamble – Wenger could have given him a new contract a year back, but didn’t know if Flamini would make it.   Hleb, I suspect, he was getting fed up with.   He could dribble to infinity – but then it you watch some of the film of last year you can see Eduardo could do that if pushed.   Big difference: Eduardo can beat two players out of a corner and put in the killer pass.

So that was his starting point.   Hleb to go, Flamini probably.

Lehmann was also gone – hence his cameo at the end – and Gilberto could be expected to leave, rather than pick up his money for 10 games a year.  There’s honour in that position, and everyone respects it.

Adebayor, having come on in leaps and bounds since his transfer from Monaco 2.5 years back clearly needed a new contract, and that was always going to happen.

Now comes the twist.   BarBarBarcaSheep and Real Mad, along with WC Milan, would all start playing silly buggers with their transfer talk – Cesc, Hleb, and that sort of thing.  Why not let them have fun dragging Ade into it, while Arsenal quietly got on with signing Ramsey, bringing in Vela, and ultimately unleashing Wilshere.  That would allow the Mail to do its “Board will sell over Wenger’s head to try and balance the books” story to run, and encourage everyone to think that Arsenal were a selling club.

But why?

Because if WC Milan, Barca or Real Mad really thought they might get their hands on Adebayor then that would destabilize them – all that energy going into the wrong place.

I was drawn along this line of thought by remembering how fast Henry left for BarBar after the end of the season – it was done on day 1.  And this year Flamini was out before the transfer window opened.

I am starting to think that there is a puppet master in all this – and the puppet master is Wenger.

Still, as the wonder S McClaren said, “It will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience that doesn’t come along that often.”