By Tony Attwood
- Chelsea v Arsenal in the league cup. Who is best prepared?
- Chelsea v Arsenal: why Arsenal need to be very careful in front of this referee
So after all the huffing and puffing and multiple rumours, we end up with the news at the end of the transfer window that Arsenal have bought Evan Mooney from St Mirren. He is a Scottish Under 19 international who plays both as an attacking midfielder and as a forward, and will, of course, go into the academy. The fee was undisclosed but said to be around three-quarters of a million pounds.
Travelling the other way, it would appear that Arsenal have sold Osman Kamara to Blackburn, although how much the club got for him, we don’t know.
And that was it. All those rumours and “about to sign” bits and pieces in the media, and there was nothing else. So all the stuff about “Arsenal submit ‘surprise approach’ to sign Newcastle star ‘pushing’ to secure on deadline day transfer” (that was from Football 365, but there were multiple stories in multiple other sources) also turned out to reveal a poor level of predictability by the media. Just as in the last window, and the one before that or the one before that or…. well, you know. Summer ofr winter, it makes no difference. It is all make-believe nonsense.
And so as ever, we have the choice. Either we take it that Arsenal are uniquely incompetent at buying players (which would imply that the club’s current league position, and the fact that they won all eight Champions League games, and the fact are actually still in all four competitions, is a pure fluke and the club is liable to fall apart at any moment) or else the media make it all up. Or, just maybe, the clubs put out all these non-existent transfer stories to ensure that the media is kept well away from the actual events that are happening, and the media men don’t realise. Now that would be amusing. All these years, and they still haven’t caught on.
Indeed, it certainly seems that the journalists seem to have no idea what is going on, but continue to write it up, and their editors take it and publish it.
So was the “window” worth all the fuss? For the media, yes, because it fills up space, and indeed, as they have got away with between two and three per cent of their predictions being true for so many years, why would they want to stop now? But for us fans? No, not really.
But thankfully it is all done, and tonight we have a match to watch – Arsenal v Chelsea in the League Cup semi-final, although there really isn’t too much coverage of the match in the media. Maybe the journos are all still in the pub.
But we need some caution, because of our habit of two-leg semi-finals, which means we tend to lose them.
Indeed, several writers who have realised there is a match on mention that Arsenal have lost each of their last four semi-finals over two legs, scoring just two goals in total. But to stop us being a bit too run down about it all, there is a general feeling that this time we’ll go through.
Arsenal have only lost three times this season: away to Liverpool 1-0, away to Aston Villa 2-1, and at home to ManU 2-3 and we do need to remember that. And also be pleased that the media have edged away from the endless baiting of Viktor Gyokeres.
The criticism was, of course, is largely because the media fail to see him as anything other than a goal scorer, whereas in fact, in this Arsenal team, he is being used to keep the defenders busy while others score. Arsenal are the second-highest scorers in the league, just three goals behind ManC – so the team can’t be that bad.
