Nasri to Barca, Cesc to Real M, Henry to Arsenal

If you have never read it, and you like a spot of laughter, it is always worth taking a peek at page 338 on BBC Teletext.

It is a summary, updated daily, of the madcap ramblings of a drunken bunch of nae’r do wells with nothing else to say (ie Fleet Street’s Finest).   Each story lasts a few lines and they tell you absolutely that the Lord Wenger is plotting to buy some reserve geek you’ve never heard of from a second division club that probably doesn’t exist in a country somewhere east of Afghanistan.

To be fair none of them actually said any of the things in my headline – but they might have done, because just as I made that lot up, so do the papers.

My point is, apart from  the jolly amusement that the BBC Gossip column gives each day (it was there, for example that I read last summer that we were selling Adebayor and buying Peter Crouch instead), it is a reminder that it is all going to happen again.

The journalists, having had a swift half of G&T are even now sharpening their noses to write up the wind up in the walk up to the start up of the transfer window being opened (if you get my drift).

And some people will get worried.   “Why is it always our players that want to leave,” they will scream in anguish, forgetting that the same gibberish is being written about the players of every team.   Chrissy Ronald Ronaldo wants £800 million a second to stay at Manchester Bankrupts otherwise he is off to Antarctica, Tevez wants to leave whoever he plays for, and it is the same old barmy army of Real Mad, BarBarBarcaSheep, WC Milan, Inter, and someone else I can’t be bothered to remember who are doing the buying.

So, let me strike a word in first.

It’s all a load of tripe.   This is how it goes:

Agent says to player – “you are worth more than this” and makes a fuss.

Manager ignores it, but at proper time says yes or no and opens negotiations or not depending on what he thinks of the deal.

Meanwhile agent puts story to drunked up hacks saying “Peter Crouch to Arsenal” and the silly boys down the pub print it because they lost any sense of reality years ago.

Agent then says to his boy, “look sunshine everyone wants you…”

So it goes round and round.  But in the end, the Lord Wenger usually gets who he wants, where he wants him and when.  Not every time – Flamini was an exception, but mostly those who go, go with Wenger’s blessing – from Vieira on.

And for what it is worth, my guess is that Wenger didn’t mind Hleb going once he knew he had Nasri.  And if that is the case, I am with him all the way.

Last little word before I make the long treck from the wild and windy Midlands to glorious sunny north London: goonernews has decided it doesn’t like us – or rather it did yesterday – so if you fancy reading about Arsenal’s Genetic Production Factory and other exciting stories, go back a page or two (or see the list top right, depending which sort of page you are looking at).

Right, time to start the old Austin 7.