Would you like to write about Arsenal’s latest transfers? Here’s how.

Posted on by Tony Attwood

If you want to run a blog and entrap readers the rule is simple: write a headline such as “Arsenal to sign mega super star” or “Arsenal winning race to sign top defender” or whatever.  Just don’t mention the name, or that the source for your story is the Metro, the Star or the Express.

If you want to try and sound as if you are the voice of knowledge passing on your insight from on high then it is “Arsenal fans will be worried” (or as the very occasioinal variation, “Arsenal fans will be delighted”.)

And if you want to write about Arsenal for a national newspaper, you need to be about 13 months behind the times but still write as if what you have to say is a revelation.

And throughout the twist has to be that you, the writer were there first, and that the slow, oh so slow, Arsenal, are bringing up the rear, bobbing around in your slipstream.  As it were.

For example:

“It has been confirmed that Arsenal striker Benik Afobe has joined League One side MK Dons on a season-long loan.”

“Confirmed” suggests that you already said it and eventually forced an admission of guilt out of the club.  That’s how you do it.  And if you can make it that they only “confirmed” with great reluctance because you forced them to admit what they were keeping quiet, so much the better.

The trouble with the national press is that they still like to think it is the pre-internet era in which they actually did break the sporting news.  In those days they created their own consensus at the matches and in the pub, and told us the world as they saw it.  It was a vision of reality that didn’t have too much to do with the truth, just a simplistic interpretation, but it suited them as football was, in their terms, for morons who couldn’t handle the real news at the front of the paper.  (That’s why it is always at the back – for the backwards readers).

Just how far behind the times they are can be seen with a piece in which the Guardian seems to have got half of the notion of the phantom transfer just over a year since we wrote the first story explaining how it all worked

Their tale relates to Arsenal’s “£16m deal for Porto’s Juan Fernando Quintero,” described as “a shiny, young playmaker with quicksilver feet and a propensity for outlandish tricks in all the wrong areas.”

This is what the Guardian said about the deal…

“Journalists in the 21-year-old’s native Colombia say he will fly into London on Monday to complete a £16m move, with one even publishing what he claims are details of the new James Rodríguez’s flight from Bogotá to Heathrow. Cue Roman Abramovich scrambling the private jet to hijack the deal, especially if Porto refuse to accept anything less than Quintero’s £31.7m release clause.”

You maybe see the hint within the story that the whole thing was a set up to get Chelsea (or someone else) all excited and thus distracted from another actual transfer that is going through.

Next thing we know they’ll be using the phrase “vapour transfer” as their own.  Anyway, needless to say there was no transfer, there was no flight to Heathrow.  As to whether Chelsea were duped, I have no idea.

The Telegraph has been keeping its feet a little closer to the ground of late, lurking around the news that “Barcelona is ready to bid for Vermaelen”.  Barcelona is in a strange state – with all its financial worries of two years ago seemingly paid off by Qatar, and with a feeling that they have the Court of Arbitration for Sport in their pocket after their successful appeal against the Fifa ban on transfers, they are living in a brave new world of spending and ground development.   The sacred shirt has long since gone, new gas money is all the rage.   It will end in tears, you mark my words!

“Schneiderlin has signalled his intention to leave St Mary’s, tweeting his unhappiness at what appeared to be the departure of five of his team-mates earlier this week and reportedly handing in a transfer request to the club’s hierarchy.”

Southampton say the selling has ended, but the press don’t believe them.

So what else do we have?   Arsenal are preparing to bid for Daniel Agger.  And Thomas Vermaelen is actually not heading to the sun, but to the rain, as he is really going to Man U for a paltry £10m.

Another rule of being a journalist is “never give up on a story once you have set it running” – largely because it saves you thinking of anything else.   Thus the Sami Khedira tale is back on, and wow, this one suggests Arsenal may have been clever.  By pulling out of the deal Arsenal are forcing Real Mad to lower their price, in order to get something for him, rather than nothing next summer.

Mind you that was in the Metro.  Actually so was the Agger story.

But staying with the theme of recycling last year’s stories, and ignoring Mr Wenger’s statement about not buying a new centre forward, and ignoring the fact that we just got that super star fella from Chile who can play on the wing or number 9, plus Joel Campbell who can score while facing the wrong way and falling over, not to mention Mr Four-Goal Sanogo, “Arsenal and Liverpool lead £80m Gonzalo Higuain race.”

Hard to believe any paper would write that.  Well no, actually it isn’t.  Nor is it hard to believe that some blogs will reproduce it without any sense of hilarity or irony.   But according to The Daily Express, fanatical hater of all things foreign, both Liverpool and Arsenal are trying to buy him from Napoli.  For £80m.

Now given that he transferred last summer for a highly inflated £30m as part of the merry-go-round that saw Real Mad buy Bale and Arsenal buy Ozil, £80m seems a trifle odd.

But if you are still awake and want more, “Manchester City have put up promising center back Matija Nastasic up for sale this summer and with Arsenal interested in signing the 21 year old, a formal bid for the Serbian is an event waiting to happen according to…”

That sounds interesting, except… Oh bugger.  It’s in the Metro.

To finish, here’s one I really love…”German champions Bayern Munich have revealed to the Daily Star that they have rejected bumper bids for exciting youngster Xherdan Shaqiri this summer and their CEO stated, “We’ve had several enquiries from teams in England and Italy.”

Now as if Bayern Munich would reveal anything to the Star.  More likely Pep Guardiola said, “The Daily Star?  No, I’ve never read it.  I think I trod in it once though.”

Moving ever further into outer space Daily Express for whom the phrase “when in a hole stop digging” doesn’t exist, reports Arsenal are after Shakthar’s Douglas Costa.  Die Welt however says we want Marco Reus,  and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge helpfully says the release clause is only €25m.

So there we have it.  Or don’t as the case may be. 

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18 Replies to “Would you like to write about Arsenal’s latest transfers? Here’s how.”

  1. LOL I also read the Higuain fairy tale on the internet. I couldn’t stop laughing. Really how do they invent such bullshit? Or they have no brains or no shame. Or both.
    £80M for Higuain… LOL LOL LOL 🙂

  3. Sammy,
    oh FFS these days people are writing part of my articles before I have published them… 🙂 😉

    We will mention it later…

  4. THE AAAA REVOLT AS ARSENAL’S SPENDING SPREE HITS A BRICKWALL !
    The AAAA are up in arms and none too pleased as it appears that the fabled 100 million Pounds purse strings have now been forcible closed shut .
    It appears that the Arsenal board have finally come to their collective senses after their unprecedented and contrary to usual form spending spree – a new player every week ! Unheard of in recent memory.
    The AAAA are not taking this lightly and have demanded the sacking of Arsene Wenger as he has failed to deliver the urgently needed pivotal and final piece of the puzzle – the DM .
    They will be outside the ground on opening day with their familiar ‘ SPEND SOME FUCKING MONEY !’ , ‘ARSENE WENGER OUT !’ posters as well as burning their season tickets .
    They have also warned the members of that ‘ultra’ group ,the AKBs to beware as they will be gunning for them too.

  5. All I want to say about Arsenal Transfer…Arsenal should Marco Rues cos it be a great boost to Arsenal & Marco Rues is a very good player that will make the team very unstoppable n untouchable…. Also for the No.6 go for Lars Bender b’cos is young n wit a long pace Semi Khdira is a No.6 that can not take too long on the pitch n No.6 you should great n powerful…..N also the No.3 Swing need consider cos Gibbs is on & off….Gibbs should have competition.

  9. Oldgroover,
    Yes it is. But it sure was worth the reading wasn’t it?

    And I find it creepy that people are giving bits of what I had been writing and that is waiting for publication before it is published. 😉

  10. It’s becoming obvious that Özil fits at Arsenal so well.
    After all, this is how Arsenal behaves too.
    He will probably become “Herr Arsenal”,(didn’t want to replace Mr Arsenal) so I used the German, cos he is also German.

    With Özil and Zelelem we can guess why Cesc ended up where he is.

    Özil’s languid like style of play reminds me of one Dimitar Berbatov (who I think could have been so much better under Mr Wenger if he was caught earlier in his career).

    I will not be surprised if Özil gets PL player of the season, but i would be very surprised if they did actually present it to him.

  11. 80 million Higuian, that is amusing. Word has it amongst the critics Wenger dithered over him last summer, if so, on what I have seen of him most of the last year, Wenger got that one absolutely right.
    See Douglas Costa is the new flavour of the month with HM press. Not sure where we are going to put all these players!

  14. Walter while you are busy writing your new piece, be careful that Gnasher is not to close. His teeth could pass for that of a mole.

    As an exercise, I wonder if there is a chart of agents / players. I am sure that Wenger is being careful to ensure that players he signs up have acceptable agents. A greedy agent can destroy a players career while spoiling a clubs preparation for future seasons.

  15. I think you forgot to add in the bit where any transfer rumour story about Arsenal needs to include mentions about whether “Arsenal are prepared to meet the valuation” or whether “Arsenal are prepared to meet the players wage demands”. The lazy journalists know this is an easy and convenient escape clause.

    Then there is the games agents will play to engineer a profitable move or contract extension for one of their players.

  16. In that article about Özil:
    “…and you stick Özil next to his relentlessly cheery countryman and Arsenal teammate, Lukas Podolski, and, well, you start to wonder why Özil is so damned miserable.”

    Everyone is his own person. It’s obvious, isn’t it? There’s nothing to whine or wonder if two people next to each other are very different from each other. It definitely could be the case, and more, it definitely could be that these two people still enjoy each other’s company alot. Alot, really.
    We all know our three Germans get along very well. During the WC, Özil even said that he absolutely wanted to be with Podolski in a house (when asked by journalists who he would like to share the house with — German players were divided into 4 houses) and in fact, his wish was fulfilled 🙂

    People rate and criticise his game because of his character? I never can get it. Not to mention that there’s nothing wrong with his character. Life is colourful, so is our squad’s personnel. We have great solidarity and togertherness, that should be given credit instead.

  17. Thank you for the Ozil piece. Good link. Good writer and refreshing to see Ozil get some of the credit he deserves for being a decent fellow.

  18. The Marco Reus story makes no sense. Why would we be going for another attacking midfielder?

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