By Sir Hardly Anyone
Football has been thrown into absolute turmoil by the news that the Daily Telegraph has been leading the readers of its web site a merry dance over Juventus midfielder Arturo Vidal. While the lead story on Goonernews.com is that Arsenal have signed a five-year contract with Arturo Vidal, the Telegraph has abandoned all credibility with a complete about face – twice.
On 28 June the Telegraph suddenly ran the story Arsene Wenger beats Manchester United to Juventus midfielder Arturo Vidal but then on 29 June sneaked in Arsenal end interest in Arturo Vidal. On 30 June what had appeared to be a two fingered gesture by the right wing paper to all Arsenal fans then started to look more like a bout of psychosis from the sports editor as the web site was found to be promoting both stories at once – with the first saying the deal is done, the second saying there was never a deal and the latest one suggesting that there could be a deal in the offing after all.
Questions to the paper that it’s owners has bought shares in Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw’s psychiatric clinic on the North Circular Road have been met with a stoney silence.
The source of the “Arsenal will sign Vidal” story seems to be a DirecTV journalist called Hernan Feler –Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw, head of psychiatry and odd behaviour at the University College Hospital of the North Circular Road also commented but we don’t really need to go into that here.
The Telegraph’s “Arsenal doing nothing” talke of woe then focussed on the thought that Arsenal were not only not recruiting a Juventus midfielder Arsenal were “yet to make move for Southampton’s Morgan Schneiderlin too,” which they had been telling us was happening for weeks!
In other words they were now claiming the whole thing had all been made up – and wilfully propogated by the Telegraph as a way of setting up another of its “Arsenal could have had player x y z if only Wenger had acted more quickly.
Even the BBC was taken in by the Telegraph’s antics running ‘Arsenal beat United to Juve midfielder Vidal‘ on Monday evening following the Telegraph’s own “Juventus midfielder Arturo Vidal, 28, appears set to join Arsenal this summer,” earlier in the day.
The fact that the Metro ran with Arsenal ‘agree £21m transfer fee to sign Arturo Vidal … – Metro need not detain us long however. If I told them Arsenal were going to sign my pet parrot they’d go along with it.
Arsenal have ended their interest in Chile international Arturo Vidal and are also yet to follow up an enquiry for Morgan Schneiderlin as Arsène Wenger reviews whether he still needs another central midfielder this summer.
says the report, saying that now however Mr Wenger is rethinking his strategy. That presumably is an opinion.
With Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Mikel Arteta, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Mathieu Flamini and Tomas Rosicky also competing for those places, Wenger is still deciding whether he needs additional quality in that area.
which of course sets the reporter-inventor up for another “Wenger can’t make up his mind” piece.
But then the whole thing is thrown into doubt again with this comment.
Arsene Wenger may feel he has no need for Morgan Schneiderlin.
You will notice how we slip from the assertion of Arsenal have ended their interest in Chile international Arturo Vidal and moved into the world of “Wenger may feel”. Given that the Telegraph has no insight into Mr Wenger’s feelings, it becomes clear that by and large they don’t have a clue.
The main issue is the defensive midfield role that is currently occupied by Coquelin. Arteta would be the natural back-up but he is still in negotiations about signing a new contract while Arsenal would also be open to offers for Flamini.
Given the slippage between fact, fiction and fantasy, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to take the above paragraph as a statement of anything other than complete whimsy. But the Telegraph has never let that get in the way of suggesting trouble ahead.
That essentially leaves only Wilshere, who performed strongly in that role for England, but has had significant injury problems and is seen as more of an attacking midfielder by Wenger. Juventus’s Vidal has been monitored closely over the past year but would be a similar profile of box-to-box player as Ramsey.
“Only leaves Wilshere” is one of the most bizarre comments imaginable when contemplating back ups, and perhaps not surprisingly, the Telegraph never ever reports on how over the years Mr Wenger has taken players from one position and shown them how they can play even better in another. A certain T Henry came to Arsenal claiming he was not a goal scoring centre forward.
So it is that the article attempts to recover at the end with the saying,
It could be that Arsenal will still enter the bidding, with Wenger overseeing a budget this summer of around £50 million. That includes wages and he has already spent £10 million on signing Petr Cech from Chelsea.
But no, wait, what’s this…
Wenger has also been tracking the two German brothers, Sven and Lars Bender. He may now wait until later in the window before making a final decision when he has had the chance to further assess his existing options during pre-season.
Oh.
- The Untold Banner that will be on display inside the Emirates Stadium in the coming season will be delivered this week
- ANNIVERSARY: 30 June 2010: Jens Lehmann, the only goalkeeper ever to go 42 games in a 1st Division or Premier League season unbeaten, retired as a player. Although he did make a comeback – by chance.
Boring.
Daily Torygragh exclusive: Wenger may feel dizzy if he reads all this rubbish in the newspapers!
The question is , “Where is Arsene ?” . Has he been heard from by anyone ? That there is the story !
The first group of senior players (those who haven’t had international commitments) are due back for training today. The others will follow once their post international holiday periods (normally 4 weeks) have expired.
We made one other signing yesterday – this is an extract from a bulletin from Huddersfield Town FC
James Haycock, Town’s Head of Medical and First Team physio, is leaving to join Premier League Arsenal’s medical team, working under Head Physio Colin Lewin.
Brickfields, he probably is lying on some beach somewhere doing nothing. How dare he!
I wonder what he will see at the crack of dawn… 🙂
Hm, I think there was a report of Arsene being in Chile at Copa America.
How come Hardly Anyone gets a “Sir” before his name (from the pope or the queen?) and Arsene Wenger doesn’t – from the pope or the queen?
– Puzzled Gooner
We always called Mr Wenger “The Lord Wenger” in the early days, and then some people were critical of that, so we took him back to just Mr.
But he does have the award of Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur so maybe we should write Arsene Wenger Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur each time. He also has an OBE, so I guess it is
Mr Wenger Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur OBE.
What do you think?
I firmly believe that Arsene is closeted deep in the bowels of the Emirates, along with his staff, working out who to sign. (as usual Arsenal have set each player’s value and won’t pay beyond this). 😉
“If I told them Arsenal were going to sign my pet parrot they’d go along with it.”
Hey don’t be cruel it is the Metro! They can’t help it. If they don’t write such gibberish their humane and upstanding oligarchial owner who could put the likes of Henry Norris in their place (or so some hope!) will treat them as badly as Roman has just treated their favourite pin up and friend of special agents, poor old Mourinho 🙂
Allegedly wild parakeets have been roaming the gardens of S.London but unlike the Royal Arsenal they haven’t made the Norris assited migration North of the pipe (river). I’d say this rumour is not true, yet.
Roman to Ivan:
“Look. Please don’t be offended but my employee begged that in return for this insult against his ego following his public posturing and grandstanding that I attempt to sign one of England’s brightest talents (there are a few in the Arsenal squad) off you guys in return. I know I know! I tried to explain to him how Buisness works, that it is not 2006 any longer, but his eyes simply glazed over with tears as he began to reptitively head butt my desk. So, £10M to help us out a little bit with FFP, if you won’t give me £15M, and we can can all happliy ignore the irritating bleatings of the Special friend of the Special Agents.
It’s no secret, letting Carlo go was my biggest mistake…”
There are wild parakeets all over London. Loads around Richmond and Ealing. I’d be surprised if they weren’t already around the NW/N/NE post code parks.
Thanks, I haven’t seen any!
Andy Mack
They are ‘Ring Necked Parakeets’ to be exact, I had a pair nesting in my garden this spring.
Look lovely but noisy buggers.
We have Magpies nesting, been there for years but haven’t seen any Parakeets.
The club seem happy with the birdies that they have flying around the new arsenal stadium, little ones. I have no idea what they are called but they seem to have fun with their hunts when a game is being played and the lights are on.
I hope that the club are not thinking of signing up any old parrot to take their place. We need to put a stop to these scurrilous rumours!
Ring Necked Parakeets today, Black Winged Lovebirds tomorrow. Where will it all end? #AgainstModernAviaries
It’s like I always say, wait till it appears on arsenal.com. Everything else is a waste of time.
Tony, I think we can refer to him just as “Arsene Wenger, Legend!”
“Football in turmoil and outragous Arsenal behavior ” , or should the headline rather say ; ” Outragous Arsene behavior ”
What was Arsene thinking anyways , signing an over the hill , overpriced , tainted by association with everything that’s unholy Petr Cech?
The man is clearly losing his marbles. No surprise there, at 65 he clearly has his judgment clouded.
First the Suarez bid and now this?
What about the loyalty to our other keepers? Maybe we can keep all four in our squad and rotate them every game. That should keep everyone happy.
God forbid Wenger should bring in another player or two before the season starts. That would really upset the chemistry of the squad.
I really hate this new Wenger. First he lets Diaby go, when it’s clear to all he should keep him on till at least Diaby’s natural retiring age of 35, because he got injured on the job and the club owes him that.
He should bring back Sanogo immediately and install him in the starting eleven , because this loan spell is not good for his self esteem .
He should elevate Bielik to first team duties as well , otherwise what’s the point of buying such a promising talent and have him wasting away in some youth squad.
Unless Wenger makes all this happen , I refuse to watch any more Arsenal games hence forth, and further more, I will begin to support whatever club David Ospina or Szczesny gets picked up by, whether on loan or permanently.
these Parakeets; http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/britains-naturalised-parrot-now-officially-a-pest-1795555.html
Tom, AW hasn’t completely let Diaby go yet. Until he signs for someone else, there’s the possibility he’s do a ‘game by game/ pay for playing’ contract…..
Hope that helps you.
Well the torygraph spew some much rubbish for their political elite, they forget about the real world.
Ryo Miyaichi has found a new home at St.Pauli. His mention is towards end of article.
http://www.vavel.com/en/international-football/germany-bundesliga/507759-st-pauli-loan-out-sobota-again.html
Just love the way, time and time again, Wenger ties the media in knots. They should stick to someone predictable when it comes to transfers, maybe Brendan Rogers. How they must miss Arry with the little transfer scoops he leaked to certain journalists.
Andy
The well publicised offer to Abou is, well, it is well known. Which would helpfully explain why this video just went up on the website?
http://player.arsenal.com/player/6445-the-best-of-diaby?
😉
…or Abou has rejected that offer!
We’ll find out. If he has moved on his last appearance for the first team was opposite Schneiderlan and Wanyama and though he only had the legs for 45mins he played well.
Moved on, or retired.
Anyone with any physio credentials not worthy of relegation to the bog roll *coughs* would understand the above. They’d also understand why the club’s conduct was always the correct one in this instance.
And for those incapable of understanding how the body works in spite of their discredited gibberisms it doesn’t matter because those who do matter, the parents of the likes of Ramsey and Chamberlian, they’ve noticed.
Abou Diaby*, Jack Jebb, Austin Lipman, Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill and Josh Vickers released by AFC.
I think Josh Vickers has gone out on loan to Concord Rangers a number of times in the past. Concord Rangers are in what is now called National South, and are listed as a team to be participating in 2015-16. A wikipedia page exists, but the club website is “unavailable”. While there are 16 players listed as current for Concord Rangers, Josh Vickers is not listed.