Monday 19th January 2009 was just another boring, dull, cold January day significant only because “experts” have labelled this “the most depressing day of the year”. Miserable bastards!! Being an Arsenal fan, January is depressing for other reasons – namely the transfer window opens and then slams shut again before Le Boss has spent any of the cash we cough up each week.

This transfer window has been remarkable mainly because of Citeh’s attempt to prise Kaka to Middle East-lands for over £100million. Luckily Kaka has proved that there are still some decent footballers at the top level by saying “It’s not all about money” and turning down a truly ridiculous £500,000 per week. Good man!! However, Man Citeh have paid £14million (plus £20million in wages) for that repulsive little git Craig Bell-end – a man joining his eighth club in nine years, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he is hated by every club he has just left.

The horrible relevance of this to Arsenal is that it demonstrates that Citeh do indeed have silly money to spend and the latest rumours circulating are that they are about to make a bid for Andrei Arshavin. You don’t want to get into a bidding war with them do you? Wouldn’t that be history repeating itself? Since 2004, we’ve suffered this from Chelski as they pinched Essien, Cech and Wright-Phillips from under our noses, simply because they could outbid anyone, even for players that would remain welded to the bench.

There are now less than two weeks until yet another transfer window closes and it remains to be seen if Arshavin or anybody else will arrive at Highbury (sorry – old habits die hard) to bolster our fragile squad. Personally, I would like to see Arshavin arrive but only if he is joined by some sensibly priced, defensive replacements like Brede Hangeland or Marcos Senna as keeping clean sheets remains our biggest problem.

Arsène will probably say that the right players aren’t around in January but Moan Utd managed to sign probably the best defender in the league, Nemanja Vidic, for £7million in January 2006 so it can be done. Hopefully Arsène will pull a couple of rabbits out of his Magic Hat in the next 13 days - if not, February 2nd will be the most depressing day of the year, whatever the miserable bastard experts say.