Satire: Arry’s weird view of Arsenal, Aubameyang leaving, Bellerin injured

By Sir Hardly Anyone

Arriving at Arsenal

The headline “Arsenal mulling over move for Senegal international Keita Balde”  in the Daily Mail does take a new twist on the journo lingo that has been causing us some amusement.  “Mulling over” indeed.  Not ready to buy, not having bought, not “the deal is on” but just “mulling over”.

And I wonder, what is the world coming to when the best that can be said is that the club is just “mulling over”. Could it be perhaps a set up for an article saying that Arsenal is once again too slow with all its mullings?  What else might we have in the future?  Pondering, reflecting on, contemplating, delierating, chewing over, weighing up, medidating on, musing on, rumating ver, brooding on, evaluating, examining, studying, reviewing… the mind is a boggle.

Anyway here’s the run down.  And if you fancy it, the run up.   He is 24, he played 110 times for Lazio, then went to Monaco and played 23 games, and was then after one season loaned to Inter Milan for whom he played 24 games.  He’s a winger.

Leaving

While many Arsenal supporters appear to gobble up all transfer rumours and swallow them wholesale, in other parts of the country there appears to be a little more logic and reason on occasion.

Take this story from Stretty News.  “Reports claim Manchester United have identified Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to replace Romelu Lukaku should the Belgian leave this summer, which looks inevitable at this point.

“While I wouldn’t say no to the Gabonese striker, this doesn’t seem like it’s worth talking about knowing Arsenal wouldn’t agree to a deal.”  How very reasonable.

Not leaving but not playing

You don’t have to feel sorry for the entities that work for Football London known as FootLon or FoLo, the 40 Arsenal stories a day drainpipe run by the Daily Mirror, but it must be hell trying to invent a new Arsenal tale of woe every 30 minutes.

Take their piece about Bellerin being out injuried for the whole of the 2019/20 season.   At least that is what they seem to be saying when they write, “Hector Bellerin has seemingly committed his future to the club with a message during a kit promotional video.

“The defender has been linked with a move to Atletico Madrid this summer, with reports claiming the La Liga side are interested in signing the Spanish international.  But football.london understands that the right-back, who is currently on holiday, has offered no indication to Arsenal that he would like to move on and is instead focused on his recovery from the knee injury that is set to sideline him for the remainder of the season.”

And that appears under the tag “By  Andy Ha” with the date of writing confirmed (and an update one minute later) confirming it as  a new piece,  So it must be true.  Bellerin out for 2019/20.

And another leaving

Arsenal star ‘set to quit Emirates this summer’ in fresh blow to Gunners

This is from the Mirror which owns FoLo and which doubles up the content from the latter by publishing it also on the former but with some words changed.

Now in reading “set to quit” you might think that he’s packed his bags and is waiting outside the training ground for his taxi to arrive.   But actually when we venture into the tale a little further we find that, “Arsenal rising star Krystian Bielik could quit the club this summer if he’s not happy with Unai Emery’s plans.”

Notice that?  Suddenly it is “could” and “if” in contrast with “set to” in the headline.  This really is wholesale misleadingness on a huge scale.   But seemingly as it is the Mirror they can get away with it.

Being offensive

“Mustafi sent offensive messages on Instagram”

That was from CaughtOffside.  Is it news?  Apparently so as it got a lot of hits.  But why?  If you want to read offensive messages just set up an Arsenal blog, get a lot of readers and then sit back and look at the offensive comments that come in.  Certainly more than enough each day for me.

Arry’s opinion.

And finally Arry, a man, who, they say, has had a distinguished career.   Indeed Goal.com who ought to know better, have created this description of the semi-skimmed Redknapp Senior.

We missed out on fourth place by one goal (ie if we had scored a second against Brighton) and two points.  We were 13 points above Wolverhampton and 16 points above Everton.  Our goal difference was +21 better than Wolverhampton and +14 better than Everton, while we were only one or two points behind the teams in third and fourth place.  Our goal difference was only two worse than Chelsea.

And yet we are more likely to collapse to the level of Wolverhampton and Everton, than to rise a couple of points to the level of Chelsea.  Chelsea who can’t sign anyone because of a transfer ban, and are changing managers.