Mark Burnham
New Season Checklist:
Shiny new season ticket after two years of jacking it in - now in the noisier Northbank. Check
Shiny new season ticket wallet from Arsenal - nope. Gee thanks for that - never got checked
Tolerable amount of optimism - nah, that's already gone West - Uncheck
Foreboding, fear, resignation, resentment and realization that the club have already collectively p***ed away the season before a ball is kicked - sadly check.
We are still locked into Austerity Arsenal mode whatever the dancing monkey sings about money to burn. Still trying to chisel out a low cost deal for a decent centreback or strangest of all lap dancing around the least likeable, most bannable, striking liability since Jack the Ripper pulled on a number 9 shirt and turned out for the Whitechapel 11.
So what do we do now? Clearly the people who run this club are inept, hidebound and failing fast. As the clock drags its weary hand around the face of a window so dirty and unopened that Victorian skeletons are barely glimpsed inside we jabber away in the frustrated arena of cyberspace. Which emotion are you channelling right now? Embarrassment? Rage? Wrist biting frustration? (at least we can keep company with the most unlikely, unpleasant and unwelcome transfer ghost flitting behind the window) or near carbonised anger?
We have no first choice team. We have an only choice team that has had 50 foot neon letters blinking on and off since May, no, since two seasons ago, saying these positions need filling. Bale has not left their building, several very decent players have arrived down at the Lane and we have kept our powder dry. Indeed we have so much bloody powder that N5 could go up in some sort of mushroom cloud of dissipated rage and sadness.
What final confirmation do we need that our undoubtedly gifted and charming manager has driven this club into the shallows of another underachieveing season? He and the motley crew of technocrats and absentee owner have done the one thing they had no reason to do. Possibly they are mad, most definitely they are useless, quite possibly, in ways only a really good therapist can get at, they hate us.
Imagine the scene. You awake in the middle of a state of the art but somewhat abandoned futuristic stadium, its sides curving to the sky, a lonely fan tied to a chair. We are Bond getting our nads whacked over and over again whilst the screaming, snarling face of evil genius leans in and screams, with spittle flecking their lips. Somewhere, off camera hovers a malicious little imp with a deadly bowler hat and metallic teeth with shreds of football shirt between the steel dentures, throwing himself to the floor with gleeful abandon and watching his master with a mixture of sadistic delight and expectation. (He is on loan from another story, another cracked empire)
'How much money Mr Bond?' whack, wince. 'How much money Mr Bond? - deranged laugh, whack, wince.
"Let me tell you." The villain grips the fans head, leaning in even further. "We have more money than you can dream of, sooooo much money we can control the world, money piled as high as the North Bank and all we have to do Mr Bond, all we simply have to do is snap our fingers and buy those players that will bring us world domination. With our new centre forward, holding mid, right back and goalkeeper there won't be a club in the world that can compete"
You mutter through gritted teeth "Spend it, just spend it-go on do it - blow them all sky high"
The eagle lookalike twitches; the dvd's, glossies from scouts and opta index sheets blow amongst the emptied out promise of the stadium. "But just think, if we spend we become like them, like all the rest of mewling dreamers. If we don't spend we prove our strength, our dignity, our power, our control."
And he keeps screaming and screaming and hitting until you black out and the season starts and you realize they are like every blowhard Bond villain, a major f***up, although clearly never actually investing, kidnapping or borrowing the actual shiny toys of destruction and the large explosion at the end carries no gratification.
So what do we bloody do? Scream about spending money at an appropriate point against Villa when Benteke has muscled one in the net - too negative. Sit sullenly outside the stadium on the roundabout for 15 minutes into kickoff - where's the fun in that? Write letters to the club - they must have bloody sackfuls. Tweet, blog and stroke the keyboard until we feel better - well, we don't. We can E-petition them - gather thousands of signatures stating we collectively deplore the club's transfer strategy and failure to improve the squad? Maybe, I'm game, but it's not going to change the horror show of the season about to unfold.
Like little Alex with his eyes jammed open we are about to get the full Ludovico treament of a season except there is no cure that works.
Like Jack wandering the Overlook Hotel, the ghosts of the past have driven us mad.
No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy… No signings and no hope make Jack a dull boy…
