So we’ve gone from being very sad at the lack of activity, to me and Johnny dropping a miserable Patreon about how anxious we were, TO ACTION!

Fabio Vieira is in for a medical today, the story around the silence of the deal is that he only wanted to play for Arsenal, despite interest from a host of other clubs. Kind of knocks the idea Europa League being an impediment on the head, right?

It’s also expected that Eddie Nkeitiah is going to sign a new deal, Fabrizio Romano saying it’s a 5 year offer, there was interest from Germany and England, and there are also strong rumours he’ll be our new #14. I like that because why the fuck not? He was treated poorly by Arteta last season and when he was asked to play because Lacazette picked up covid, he absolutely smashed his chance with goals and gut busting contributions. He has earned that new deal and if you don’t like it, keep quiet, because he will deliver next season. Most of the slander around him is because Premier League fans still can’t accept that it is really hard to make it as a young player in the hardest league in the world, especially as a striker. BIG season from him incoming.

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‘VIEIRA OHHHH OHHH OHHHH, HE COMES FROM PORTUGAL, HE WANTS TO WIN IT ALL!’

COME ON THAT IS A GOOD SONG!

Oh, you want to know what I’m talking about?

🚨 Fabio Vieira set to join Arsenal from Porto. Fee €35m + €5m, 5yr deal. 22yo AMF flying to London today & will undergo medical before completing move. Process started + managed by Jorge Mendes, @TheAthleticUK after @pedromsepulveda scoop #AFC #FCPorto https://t.co/b839GEGBRC

— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) June 16, 2022

David Ornstein and Fabrizio Romano and a bunch of Portuguese journos are saying that we are in for attacking midfielder Fabio Vieira.

Talk about classic early 2000s Arsenal WOAH WHERE DID THAT COME FROM transfer news.

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We knew it would happen at some point.

A team.

Somewhere in the world.

Would sign Yves Bissouma.

It happened.

It was Spurs.

You can’t argue with the talent. He plays the sort of powerful-base-of-midfield-football that Premier League fans LOVE. Brighton are no mugs, he’s usually at the centre of all the good things they do, and our rivals have snapped him up for £25m.

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It’s weird that I want to talk about a transfer window like it’s a person:

I feel weirdly disconnected to it. Is it me? Or them? Maybe it’s because I see the power of other clubs and know that there’s no point in getting to excited until we see how the chess pieces land? Maybe I’ve grown up and realised that the exchange of grown men for money shouldn’t be the most important thing in my life?

Ok, the last bit was too far… I BLOODY LOVE TRANSFERS.

Though I am a bit despondent at the money being thrown around that we quite simply don’t have.

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I’m gonna be straight here, if you call Arsene Wenger ‘daddy’, ‘papa’, or ‘father’ it’s straight up weird. What is it with grown men doing stuff like that? Do their friends see? What do they say? What would your partner say if they saw the tweet?

‘Frank, did you call a man who is not your father, ‘father’ on the internet?’

I wouldn’t like that question if it were true. It’s so very, very odd. Almost as odd as 30 year old Arsenal fans notstalgia-jerking about the good old days of Olivier Giroud like that was some sort of joyous period for Arsenal fans.

I was there.

It was not.

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There’s a story in The Daily Mail today stating that Arteta is not happy at our slow start to the transfer window. Could that be true? Likely. I mean, there were similar stories that he was pissed about how we ran the window last summer. He was raging before the Brentford game and you could kind of understand why.

Though I must say, it does feel a little early to be getting upset about deals. Not a lot of action has been had by other clubs and I think our reality transfers-wise is that we’re trying to play in a higher tier without having higher tier money. That means we’re competing for the dregs of the upper echelon and that might mean waiting.

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How are you today?

I’m in New York on a work thing, so I am going to be low on posting at the moment, but… when the post land, they land, you know what I’m saying?

I just want to clear up a couple of things from my expose on the Premier League fixtures because there were a lot of angry Spurs fans and there were a few Arsenal fans that cannot stand to see data that in any way looks like it might harm their naive view of how the sporting world works.

1. We didn’t finish in the top 4 last season for a whole host of reasons that I have covered in some detail. If you think I was saying the only reason we failed was due to the fixtures, you are wrong and likely projecting onto the work.
2. Marginal gains are a thing. If you don’t understand that, you don’t get modern sport. Clubs will try and edge out advantages all over the place. Liverpool don’t let key players go on international duty because of ‘injury’, Arsenal do, Liverpool end the season with Trent on the pitch, Arsenal end the season with Tavares at left-back. We had a whole conversation about the weirdos that thought removing mayo from the canteen was a marginal gain because Conte is a genius. So when we look at fixtures, don’t tell me that’s not a marginal gain opportunity.
3. Finally, the key message: Arsenal drop out of Europe for the first time in 25 years and we didn’t face a single team that had played a European game. There’s a 3.4% chance of that happening. You have to ask questions about that, especially when you know the random fixture generator has human intervention involved. Calling it ‘luck’ is to sit on your hands. The same people telling you not to be curious about hard data were those that were telling you to put on your big boy boots when we didn’t have the Brentford game cancelled. What happened after they said the games couldn’t be cancelled? The games got cancelled when other clubs screamed louder. Everything can be influenced in football, we’ve seen it time and time again, Arsenal should be banging the table on this ‘freak’ roll of the dice and demanding it does not happen again.

Anyway, thanks to all the fans that carried that message.

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