The worst of times

I hate the transfer window. More specifically, I hate the transfer window on Twitter. It's a place full of stress, anger, frustration, fake news and mass overreaction. And that's just 5 days in!

I remember growing up, before social media, I would wake up in the morning, switch on Ceefax on BBC, football headlines on page 302, check for any Arsenal links and then, if none, off to page 316 for the brief snips of news. And that was it for the day. Nothing about Arsenal? No problem, they know what they're doing. I'll check again tomorrow. Simple times.


These days with Twitter, it is completely different. With  journalists with various levels of connections to the club and even more varying levels of accuracy, self-proclaimed ITKs telling us that they heard through the hairdresser of their mates cousin who is best friends with the agent of a mid level talent from the Bundesliga that a player is definitely joining us, YouTube fan channels who need to say something to put out some form of content, it is an absolute minefield. 

Before the transfer window even opened, we were told that "Gabriel Jesus is joining", that he has "agreed personal terms but nothing has been agreed with Man City", that actually he "doesn't want to come to Arsenal he wants to go to Real Madrid" and of course, the one that journalists know is guaranteed to generate the clicks they need for their website, "Spurs are showing an interest and are set to steal him from Arsenal" and everything in between. 

It's utter madness. The large majority of these reports are from people who know nothing about the reality of the situation, but just now how to stoke up the tension of the Arsenal faithful on Twitter. The Arteta outers are absolutely fuming and further convinced that Arteta and Edu need to go because a report they read from someone tweeting from his mums bedroom in Sao Paolo told them Jesus would be an Arsenal player. The other side (I don't think there is a name yet and I can't bring myself to type "artetasexuals". Except that time) are staying calm and relaxed because, again, WE'RE ONLY 5 DAYS IN. but they of course get abuse because they can't support Arsenal if they aren't angry about this, they only love Arteta and mediocrity! And we have weeks more of this!

Of course Twitter, and other social media, is not the only problem. Without actual football to show and talk about, Sky Sports also have hours to fill. This means the call to arms has been sent to Darmesh and Kaveh. Football transfer gossips answer to Laurel and Hardy. Two men who manage to know nothing of a situation, yet say so much about it. Who can forget Kaveh's borderline slander on Tomiyasu last summer, saying he got a text from an agent trying to tout him but he isn't a center back, isn't a right back, no one knows what position he is meant to be. Well strap in, there's a whole summer more of that nonsense still ahead of us.





I think the last time i genuinely felt excite about a transfer was 2015/16. there was upheaval in management of all the main competing clubs, we'd been ok the season before to the point were we just needed 1 or 2 more signings to really push on (that old chestnut!) and we started early by getting one of those players. A top, experienced keeper in Petr Cech! And then...nothing. Despite weeks of rumors and ITKs telling us what was coming, there was nothing. It was around about then I realized that, actually, these people don't know what they are talking about. They're just chasing followers (and mainly succeeding) and that they should just be ignored. Yes they may pop up on the timeline from time to time, but scroll on.



So that's what I do these day, and it's what I suggest everyone else does too. for your own sanity and peace of mind. There is absolutely no point in ripping each other to pieces because we as fans have different approaches to this Sky manufactured show that is the transfer window, culminating in their grand finale, Deadline Day Live. If we can all see what is needed then we need to trust that the club do too and that they are working on it. 

But of course, when it gets to one week to go, we've lost our first couple of games of the season and we haven't signed anyone by then, by all means go mental.

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