The big shop



Every week my girlfriend and I put together our shopping list. It’s largely the same week on week, with things that we have noticed we have been short on or ran out of during the last week. Nothing too specific goes on there. It’s just a generic list of generic items. No brands, no labels, just milk, bread, etc. 

Then, when she gets home from the shop, it’s like the list never existed. Sure, she might have the bread, she might have the milk, but the bread will be some weird, seeded thing. The milk will be completely different to what we are used to. This might be because what I was expecting had ran out. Could be that she has completely different ideas on how to approach the shop to me. More often than not, there may even be some kind of treat for me and our two boys. They love trying to guess what it will be. Never get it right though. But who cares? Everyone loves a treat. Unless it’s fruit. I cannot emphasize enough that fruit is not a treat*.


Anyway, I digress. My point is that I see many parallels between Arsenal’s transfer window and our weekly shop. The club and us fans have taken stock of what we need during the first half of the season. For the most part everyone has noticed that the central midfield cupboard is bare and that we could do with some fresh center forward. But that’s all we know. We don’t really know what labels are on the midfielders and strikers that are on Edu and Mikel Arteta’s shopping list. All we have is the rumor and innuendo of the media and ITK twitter accounts who, on the whole, aren’t as ITK as they like to think.


We’re told that Dusan Vlahovic was the number one striking target, but he is now signing for Juventus. That’s fine. If the list has been put together properly, and we have no reason to believe it hasn’t been, there will be back up options to look at. If the other options are a bit expensive at the moment or aren’t available yet, you can always borrow one for a few months. The same applies to the midfield search. No point in splashing out more money than you want to on a product that isn’t quite what you are after at this point.


Ultimately, everyone needs to stop getting worked up about a shopping trip that is outside of their control. I appreciate the potential long-term impact of this shop. It could feed us for a long time if done right, or we could be left starving. Stop hanging on the every word of Twitter accounts looking to boost their profile by regurgitating days old news that doesn’t actually tell you anything of substance. And just wait until Mikel and Edu walk back through the door and begin to unpack the shopping to see if they got the essentials and what treat they have brought home for us.


*By the way, I appreciate that with how this metaphor has played out, assuming that the CM and CF are the bread and milk, that may well mean that the “treat” is New England Revolution goalkeeper Matt Turner. This would be more towards the “fruit” end of the treat scale, but as long as the other two items are also in the bag, it would be an acceptable treat.

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