Twilight time

The end of a hard week is upon us. Not a hard week in the Cesc Fabregas transfer saga sense, is he still here by the way? Oh, fancy that, he is. But a hard week personally, busy at work and the sudden, dramatic change in weather left me feeling rather drained as I ran around a football pitch in Teddington last night. I mean really drained. We won and I got off the football pitch in one piece, a relative absence of aches and pains this afternoon gives me, well I guess you'd call it a bit of a result.

But you haven't logged onto read about the ongoing 7-a-side travails of a thirtysomething, have you? Clearly, the first thing to say about Cesc is that nobody knows what's going to happen at the moment. Cesc might want to move, he might not but even if he does, he doesn't know if Arsenal are prepared to sell him. Barcelona don't know whether their offer, when it is made, will be accepted by Arsenal. I saw a minute ago that they are talking about unveiling Cesc on either the 4th or 9th of June. However, I think if they are expecting us to just bend over and accept a, frankly insulting, 30 million Euro offer on the basis that he used to be their player (nevermind the fact they haven't got a pot to piss in), then the unveiling will clearly take place on the 4th of Never. I guess it's fair to say that Arsenal don't know whether Cesc will ultimately decide to leave. Or, if he stays, whether he will be able to put that to one side at the beginning of a new season. To borrow a quote from The Big Lebowski,

"This is a very complicated case. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous. And, uh, lotta strands to keep in my head, man. Lotta strands in old Duder's head. Luckily I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind limber."

Which I think, without the drug regimen (binned in 2006) is a pretty accurate summation of the state of play today. Even despite Xavi Hernandez's latest attempt to get inside Cesc's head "He has no choice but to leave". Woah, Xavi, woah. This sounds like the proverbial offer you can't refuse, doesn't it? Not only does the brilliant midfielder look a member of the mafia, he's begun acting like one too. Stick to rolling around on the floor with your mate Busquets, please Xavi.

There seems to be increased confidence, despite Barcelona's appalling, if predictable bullying tactics that Cesc will stay at Arsenal, but I'm not so sure. I think the key thing is that if Arsenal do decide to let Cesc go, they get the money they want, not the money Barcelona want to pay. And, if Barca really want Cesc, then they will pay that money, won't they? No they won't, they're skint. Well that's the end of that then. "Mes que un club"? They're "mes que" something, but you need to replace the "l" and the "u" in club with an "n" and a "t" and I think then we're a bit closer to the truth.

Anyway...

Such is the captain's dominance of Arsenal news this week, there isn't much else to talk about. Arse.com has published more stuff from the Sol man. I don't know if it's part of the stuff he was saying earlier in the week, or he's the only Arsenal player available, and able, to string a few sentences together *joke*. Anyway, I thought this was a really good quote from Sol, he said,

"There's me not playing football for six months, that gave me the time to think about football, train at the same time, get angry, get that aggression you need, also to realise where you are in life and also how much you love football and how it is very dear to your heart."

I guess it might be that Sol, given time to think, has realised that he is very much in the twilight of his football career and needing to make the most of whatever opportunity came his way- as it happened, with us. But I think that those young players, and I know it's something I keep banging on about, really need to look at Sol and then look at themselves and ask whether they are putting everything into their careers that they have got. Or are they just coasting through? Maybe they haven't realised it if they are coasting, and some of them definitely are, because they haven't had the time to step back and analyse things themselves. After all, as Ferris Bueller once said, "Life moves pretty fast." Of course, the next part of that quote is "If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". Sol, having been given a second chance, has realised that and gone on to prove to us that he isn't the busted flush he might have been thought to be. I would like to think that those youngsters look at Sol, realise that they do only have one career and begin applying themselves accordingly.

In about the first end of season poll on Arse.com Cesc won't win; best player, best captain, top scorer, most assists, funniest goal, best goalkeeper, biggest Judas (I'm joking, I'm joking); Samir Nasri has won the goal of the season award for the magical goal he scored against Porto. I think that's about right. Actually, no "about" about it, apparently his goal got nearly half the votes, his closest rival was Cesc's hilarious goal against Spurs. Following that were Arshavin's strikes at Old Trafford and Anfield. But they were way down the voting, in that context alone, barely merit a mention. Samir seems to have developed a habit of scoring at least one belter a season, so he's clearly got something about him. It would be nice, with the spur of missing out on France's World Cup squad this summer, to see him scoring a few more in the season to come.

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