I don’t know about you, but does this year’s transfer window feel double weird on a fan level? It’s like quarantine has made people lose their minds. No chill whatsoever. I feel sorry for journalists. I saw someone sending around a petition to sack the Arsenal social guy the other day. It’s fucking nuts. Also, people are so desperate to seek out information, they start to behave like your gran on Facebook.

‘Pete, it’s honestly true. I have a friend that’s close with the army and covid was the lizard people’

A few things to remember with transfers.

If the account is called @TransferSourceNUMERuno with a bio of ‘LEGIT NEWS NO BS’, the chances are 100% this account is a teenager in their bedroom with zero intel on anything.

‘HE GETS THINGS RIGHT’

No. He hedges bets on everything based on real journo news, then deletes tweets that are incorrect.

There are very few people with legitimate sources on the internet that don’t work in the game or have a platform worth talking to. Clubs do not like leaks. If a nobody is tweeting things that are legitimate, clubs often try and track the leak within the club. That is such a fucking rarity though. The bigger problem is people making things up that damage the club or internal relationships.

If you are in a position of power (gatekeeper of elite info), you are generally pretty guarded about what you share and with who (there is a collection of prominent old school Arsenal fans with elite info that don’t put it on their feeds because they don’t want to fuck over their people). If you work as a coach at Arsenal, you cherish that job. If your mate Dave that you share beers with on a Friday starts tweeting out off-the-record goss and builds a following of 50,000 in two weeks, someone will work out what is going on. Leakers generally have nothing to gain by giving their friends internet stardom, which is why these people are generally bullshitters.

So in short, don’t work yourself up over nobodies that are literally getting sexually aroused by sharing fake rumours about the club.

Today we have a HUGE game against West Ham. They are in a very negative position at the moment, literally doing anything they can to buy a defender. The dressing room is a mess, the football is absolutely shite, and they are looking like relegation fodder this year… which means they are more than capable of beating us with a shithoused goal in the 89th.

This is Arteta on West Ham.

‘Well they have many strengths and some weaknesses, like we all have. I know David, the manager, really well and I know what he will be trying to do tomorrow to hurt us as well. It will be a tough game and I am expecting a difficult battle tomorrow.’

This is the sort of game where I think we’ll learn something about the sort of Arsenal we’re dealing with this season. Last year, West Ham might have caused a problem, will they this year? Or will the players turn up with fire in their stomachs and execute the plan at 100%? If we can deal with the teams that’ll sling 8 behind the ball on a downer, then it’ll start to build belief. We cannot have games like we did against Villa and Watford. We need to progress the way we operate in situations where we ‘could’ be complacent.

The press still can’t leave the Auba story alone, they once again probed with ‘Are you happy your best striker signed’ questions. This answer, about outside interest in him, was the one I liked.

‘Yes, but the size of our clubs is as big as those names. That is what I am saying, the most important thing is the club, what we inspire, who we are as a club and what we can achieve in the future as well, and how we can explain what we are trying to do so the players believe in our project.’

Perception is sometimes more important than reality. Mikel has been doing a fantastic job of late reengineering our reputation off the pitch. There’s a conviction in his communications when he talks about the greatness of the badge. He doesn’t budge. We are a big club, with great facilities, and we’re going back to the top. If you keep repeating things over and over, people start to believe them. Too many Arsenal fans spent the last decade bemoaning fans with standards. ‘Spoilt Arsenal fans shouldn’t expect trophies’… how wrong was that? Arteta expects trophies. The players know that. He communicates how they’ll do it. Everything pushes in that direction. Football is solely about winning trophies, if your standards aren’t at that level, what are you doing?

The club is still trying to do business to make BIG trophies more likely. Ignore anyone that tells you we’re finished for the window. That is absolutely incorrect. We will bring in a keeper and we’ll push hard for a 6 and an 8. It doesn’t matter that Aulas thinks we’ll miss out on Aouar, do you think one of the greatest negotiators in the history of football is giving the real story to a random off Twitter? Don’t be soft. Aulas will push and push and push to extract the max fee he can earn.

There were rumours in the air that we’re looking at a swap deal for Zaha and Reiss. Stories are creeping out of Spain that Simeone has told Torreira that he wants him in Madrid. All of it could be nonsense, but these are the sort of surprise moves that can happen in the blink of an eye. We might not be close to any sales yet, but they’ll arrive as clubs start to realise they have to move on their squads.

In short. It doesn’t matter that clubs, agents and virgins are leaking against us. All that matters is where things land on October 6th, and trust me, things will move.

Right, enjoy the game today, steer clear of fake Twitter. x

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