Manchester City in amazing about turn and are now NOT bidding for Saka!

By Sir Hardly Anyone

Manchester City are not currently focused on making a swoop for Arsenal and England star Bukayo Saka, instead prioritising a new central midfielder according to the Mirror.

So maybe everything is ok and we don’t have to worry about all those reports that we have noted in the last article: Arsenal engaged in seven of the top 11 transfers this summer!

Wow, that’s a relief, so thank you Dean Jones for making that clear.   And yes, let’s give a full thumbs up to Mr Jones who clearly knows a thing or three about football because he is….

err….

he is….

a columnist at Fulham FC.

Now his piece on Saka to Manchester City appears on Give Me Sport and in the article they comment, “Jones has been told ‘not to get too excited about the speculation surrounding Saka’s potential switch to the Etihad Stadium with other positions taking precedence for Guardiola and co…. In an interview, he said to GiveMeSport: “I’ve been told not to get too excited about this one just yet.

So that is it.  He’s been told by people unnamed not to get too excited about it.  And that’s lucky because we were not getting too excited about it anyway.

But hang on, the Mirror today is running the story that, “Bukayo Saka’s Arsenal contract expires in 2024 and he appears reluctant to commit his long-term future to the club amid interest from Liverpool and Manchester City.”

Their piece is written by Chris Doyle who is a “Sports Agenda Writer”.  So what does that mean?

Doing a bit of digging we find that Chris Doyle is not necessarily that close to the action given that he is based in Glasgow, (which the Mirror helpfully tell us is in Scotland, as opposed I suppose to Glasgow, Canada, or Glasgow South Island, New Zealand, or Glasgow in Suriname, or Glasgow Alabama.  I’m glad we got that cleared up.   And he covers the biggest talking points in the world of sport.)

So he’s not actually in England, and he’s not a football specialist, he’s got no inside position with Manchester City, and seemingly bugger all knowledge about Arsenal and Saka.   And yet he proclaims very proudly and strongly, that we should not get too excited about Saka to Manchester City.

Well, I’m glad.  Over excitement can trigger heart attacks, cardiac arrest, strokes and other potentially fatal medical emergencies.  Indeed we should all remember that the human body reacts to excitement in much the same way it reacts to feelings of fear or stress — by releasing the hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline.

And we really don’t want too much of that stuff sloshing around.

Not least because the Mirror has been getting a lot of people excited by telling us the five key players that Arsenal want to sign.  And they must be desperate to get at least one of these right, given that last summer in their pre-window-opening summaries they didn’t get any of the actual transfers right at least not until a day or two before it happened.

So let’s look at their list at the moment.

Gabriel Jesus – a Brazilian striker

Ruben Neves: “If Tielemans is Arsenal’s top target, Ruben Neves is firmly second on the shortlist.”   

Oleksandr Zinchenko.  No thought here that we bought a group of defenders last summer.

Aaron Hickey.  You can tell when the Mirror is worried that it has chewed off more than it has bought (or should that be the other way around) when they put the blame for these rumours on what they love to call “an outlet”.   Here we go…

“Italian outlet La Gazzetta dello Sport recently claimed that the Gunners had outbid West Ham and Brentford with a £21.75million offer and a move to the Emirates is described as being ‘very likely’. Given his tender age, Heart of Midlothian academy product Hickey seems one for the future but could be Arteta and Co.’s most immediate signing.”

So that’s it.  We look forward to finding out if a) Arsenal have put in a bid for any of these guys and b) if any of them come to Arsenal, and c) if the Mirror employs anyone who knows anything about Arsenal.