Suddenly the transfer scene has woken up with an explosion of stories. We have names!

By Sir Hardly Anyone.

Just as I was about to take a couple of weeks in the south of France with the jolly old yacht being airlifted from Rutland Water to Monaco (which of course I know isn’t in France but I’m not one for details), so I am asked to write another column because Arsenal has AWOKEN.

The key to it all is that Mesut Ozil has been offered a salary of £14,300,000 a year, which gets to almost 25% of the income of my old friend Boris Johnson, to stay at Arsenal.   At least that is what it says in Red London (a bloggetta), and the Daily Mirror.

And after months of derision and statements about Mesut not being worth 50p a week Red London now calls him the “brilliant 29 year old”.  Actually I’d like to be called a “brilliant 29 year old”.  Or come to that just a “29 year old”.

Mesut will have to choose his currency of course because Soccerisma is telling us that the offer is actually $20,800,000 a year, which makes the £1 work $1.42.  On that basis Mesut should take it in dollars because my banker is telling me that as of today £1 is only worth $1.33.   Those few cents could pay for his holiday on one of the moons of Jupiter.

But of course these things are never fully straightforward as we are told by the Express that “Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez will still leave Arsenal even with Europa League win – Smith.”

Now the use of the word “smith” at the end might look a bit confusing, and you may be thinking that the paper that found a baby’s toy on Mars is now asking the men who shoe the horses and were the powerhouse behind the Viking invasion of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries, have now taken an interest in football transfers.  But this Smith is Alan Smith, a commentator who once played for Arsenal but was then kicked out of the ground for writing critical comments about Arsenal players while under contract to Arsenal to do articles for the club magazine.

The Daily Star is saying that it is Mr Wenger who is  “attempting” to keep Ozil at Arsenal, not the club,  but then since the main news on its front page today is that “Baywatch Babe Iskra Lawrence shows off eye catching assets in plunging bikini” one can make of this what one wants.

Now there is the suggestion that there might be a transfer in the offing with the headline “Record equaling (sic) striker opens door to complete Arsenal transfer in January” in the IBTimes.co.uk but that publication does its usual thing of playing all sides against the out rim of reality by telling us that the transfer is an out rather than an in with “Olivier Giroud opens the door for a potential January exit from Arsenal” and that “Giroud is keen to play regularly and will consider Arsenal exit in January” while also telling us that “Arsene Wenger has ruled out the possibility of allowing Giroud to leave the club.”  A sort of non-story as we used to call it.

So it is all around the houses for no apparent purpose.   Which leaves one contemplating that with under 20 days to go until the window swings open (note it swings open but slams shut, it is important to get these things right), is there no other transfer news around apart from Goncalo Guedes who we covered in the last little piece on transfers?

Well maybe there is because the Transfer Tavern, a popular bloggetta, is running “2 players who could follow Goncalo Guedes to Arsenal in January”

Now this piece starts of disappointingly, with “Arsene Wenger is currently the longest-serving manager in the Premier League, having been appointed back in 1996.”  And I wondered, don’t these publications have editors who scream and shout at junior journos to “make it start with a bang you ignorant cretin”?  That’s how it used to be in my day.   Of course I’ve had a knighthood since then, so they can’t talk to me like that any more.  Actually newspapers don’t talk to me at all, which is even better.