UNTOLD ARSENAL » Blog Archive » What will happen to Hleb if/when he goes?

Or put another way, will he too suffer the Curse of Arsenal?

Just to refresh your memory in case you have gone beyond the age of 18 and thus have started to lose the brain cells, almost every player who has left Arsenal has done badly – often very badly.   The last one who did ok was a certain Liam Brady who had success in Italy (although later mucked it up at West Ham, and had a dreadful time trying to be manager at Celtic).
The Curse of Arsenal extends not just to the players but also those who muck around with them.   Thus within days of Flamini deciding to leave, his new club failed to make it into the Champions League (although they were favourites to do so at the time of the transfer).  Flamini was dropped by France, reinstated, and then found himself in the middle of a team going into self-destruct.

Patrick Vieira, Robert Pires, Edu and Thierry Henry have all suffered from a decline in form and a very high level of injury – Pires and Edu in particular suffering in this regard.

As for what happened at Birmingham City after the attack on Eduardo – that story of police raids, arrests and relegation has been told several times.

So what of Hleb if/when he goes.  Will he suffer as other have done before him?   The answer is almost certainly yes – as will Adebayor if any of the stories about him are true.

At one level, players at Arsenal reach their peak, and perform beyond their abilities, and then upon leaving go into decline.  But this does not explain the situation that affected Flamini, where disaster has struck Milan and France before he has even kicked a ball.  Is there a deeper malign influence at work – and will it affect Hleb?

Flamini was, of course, free to leave the club – his contract had run out, exactly as happened with Edu and Pires.  Hleb on the other hand is more akin to A. Cole who simply decided he wanted to go somewhere else.  What happened to Cole was that his form took a dive, he had injuries, and (perhaps more notably) his personal life disintegrated, leaving him (and his club) the laughing stock of football.

Certainly, the Curse of Arsenal appears in all sorts of shapes and guises, and it does not seem to let anyone escape.

You would think therefore that by now players would have realised this, and to be fair I suspect some of them have.  But agents, on the other hand, are greedy beings, and as we know, they can twist players minds.

What we know is that if a player wants to go, mid-contract, he can make a fuss about it, and can force the club to take action.  The club can’t let the player just sit out his contract (that falls foul of “restraint of trade” regulations, although you wouldn’t know that judging by the failure to report it in the press).  It is the same for an  airline pilot.  To be a pilot you have to keep flying, otherwise you lose the licence.   To be a player you have to play, otherwise you lose your sharpness, and you can’t be kept out of the team for an obviously non-football reason.  Deliberately stopping a person perform  their trade for your own private motives is against EU legislation.

So in the end the club has to sell if the player wants to go – although as Arsenal proved over Cole, you can get a good deal if you hold out beyond the last minute (Cole was sold a couple of hours after the transfer deadline went by).

Thus if any of the stories surrounding Hleb are true we could expect that he will be sold at a good price, maybe with the exchange of the mystery player we seemingly want from Barca.  Hleb will then lose form, Barca will have a bad season, and there might even be an injury in the offing.

All in all it is better both for players and teams not to mess with Arsenal.  The Curse (whether you believe in it or not) is there – at least in effect if not in substance.