Transfer Window creaking closed not with a bang but with tedium.

by Sir Hardly Anyone

Maybe it is the change of arrangements, what with bringing the end of the window back to mid-August – a bit like having an extension done to your house by making the garden bigger and the living room smaller.  (Sorry that doesn’t quite work but I am trying to play with the window imagery.)

Yet we have a handful of raggle taggle leftovers to mull.  But they really are leftovers.

Yet one must remember here that there are some people, not many but a few, who when their advice as who the club should buy and indeed who the club should not buy, is ignored and disaster ensues, do not say “I told you so”.

The scribblers in the newspapers, bloggettas. along with the computer programmers working for Foot Lond and the like who use machine code to generate 40 Arsenal stories a day, are not of their number.

Their thesis is that if they produce enough transfer rumours during the summer, then when Arsenal lose a game (as surely will happen at some stage of the season) they can say, “If only the club had taken my advice and bought Nosoy Nadie from Ushuaia Unido that problem would not have occurred.”

So to the last tired hands are pounding out mindless tales in the hope of covering every eventuality that may befall Arsenal during the season.   Here are today’s tired tips… 

1: Gabriele Corbo

The Express reckons, at least at the start of this article they reckoned, that a deal to bring this under 20 international to Arsenal could be on, and talk about the lad being “one of Italy’s brightest defensive prospects in the past couple of years.”  La Repubblica is cited as saying that Serie A sides like Fiorentina and Juventus have also looked on, while noting that Bayern Munich took the 18-year-old on trial last season to have a closer look at how he’s developing.

But then they suddenly counter all that by saying Bologna are said to have struck a deal with Spezia Calcio, the second division team with whom he plays.  Bit of a let down that and it is hard to see what the point of the story was, except to set up “We told Arsenal to buy Corbo” when the first goals against goes in.

2: Exclusive, read all about it, last week’s story.

Yes TeamTalk have come out with last weeks story that a “host of Premier League and Championship clubs are looking at Gillingham’s brilliant Czech goalkeeper Tomas Holy,” which was in all the papers last week, and called it an exclusive.  Arsenal who have the largest collection of goalkeepers ever assembled on the planet, reckon that with one more they have enough to get a gold star and move up to the next level.

3: M’Baye Niang is still that thiang

It looks like the Niang story is going for the record of the length of time a single story stays on the rumours list, as we hear from Arsenal Mania (who, in passing, blame Gianluca Di Marzio), that the Nice offer for the player has been rejected by AC Milan, and he could still come to Arsenal, having failed in a loan spell at Watford.  (You can just see them setting up “Arsenal sign Watford flop”).

The Express has “Unai Emery eyes fifth signing as Gunners make M’Baye Niang enquiry.”  It’s interesting that no one uses the word “considers” any more.  It’s always “eyes”.

4: Stop this Emery Love in

Football Fan Cast have sought to be ahead of the game by bringing  the Emery Love Fest to a stop before the season starts by repeating a few tweets around the theme of “Max Meyer to Palace? Confused, if we can’t afford his wage demands how is it that Palace can? Is it a case of offloading players beforehand? We should be in for this lad if he’s available.”

Next in this series: Arsenal’s dithering results in loss of boy wonder.

5: Sell before you buy.