- People define “rivals” differently. A common complaint from Arsenal fans is that they shouldn’t be selling their best player to their “closest rivals”. The points difference between Manchester United and Arsenal in the Premier League the past four seasons has been 19, 12, 10 and 28. Wigan finished closer to Liverpool last season than Arsenal have to United since 2008.
- It probably won’t harm Arsenal as much as you think. Getting a reported £22m, rising to £24m, out of an injury-prone, 29-year old who has one year left on his contract is pretty good going, especially when you have Olivier Giroud, Lukasz Podolski, Santi Cazorla on your books. Oh and Gervinho.
- Schadenfreude is fun. Especially when Arsenal have fans as bad as @FourFourTom and @PiersMorgan. You would never have thought there would have been as much outrage at a worker signing a contract which brings higher pay and more chance of success at his job. Especially not amongst Arsenal fans, who should be used to this after recently seeing Patrick Vieira, Mathieu Flamini, Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri deciding they’re more likely to win silverware elsewhere. But seeing Piers Morgan and all the other cyber-morons have a Jason Russell-style breakdown every summer certainly passes the time. I can’t wait for the Jack Wilshere saga next in August 2013.
- People still expect footballers to act like Disney characters. Twitter was full of Arsenal fans for whom, up until this summer, had seen Robin Van Persie as their club’s hero. A big contract comes in from another, rival company and he is expected to turn it down out of some vague notion of ‘loyalty’ and ‘honour’. Gratitude for doing his best for the team (which turned out to be very good) seems to be in short supply. He is a world class player and only has an FA Cup winners’ medal to show for it.
- In Other News. While the van Persie news was breaking on the newswires on Wednesday evening, Jake Livermore made his debut for England in their 2-1 win against Italy. Spain must be shitting themselves for 2014.
