Suck it, Barca

I’ve avoided talking about the big Arsenal transfer of the window because, well, I thought there was no chance that Arsene would pony up the (inflated) fee for the Zenit playmaker. And, you know, there’s this and all. But, apparently, Arsene has pulled an, uh, owl, out of his hat at the last minute. Or, as it turns out, after the last minute, since the Premier League extended the transfer window an indeterminate number of hours because of snow.

If you’ve been following this story, then you’re just as glad as I am to have it done with. Yesterday started with rumors of Arshavin sightings outside of London and reports that the deal was done. But then, Arshavin’s spokesman said that the deal was off because Arsenal was treating Arshavin “like a 16 year old African.” Then came rumors that the deal was back on, then off again, then the league extended the window, and finally, around 11ish here, solid reports about the signing began to appear on the internets. And that was just one day.

When you add up all the private planes to and from Dubai, London, Paris and Moscow and the elaborate haggling over middlemen’s fees and the like, the whole thing took on the air of a bad Ian Fleming novel, minus the casual racism and sadism. But now it’s over, and Arsenal fans the world over can swoon over a terribly overrated creative midfield player who I’m sure will solve all the team’s defensive problems. On the plus side, Arsene now coaches Arshavin at Arsenal, and that’s worth at least a chuckle, like Eboue’s shooting.

I’ve been told that there are other teams that made significant moves, and in the interest of plurality, I should probably mention them as well, at least the teams that did something interesting:

The biggest news is that Tottenham has stumbled upon a new transfer model. Instead of overpaying for flash-in-the-pan sexy players, they’ve decided to overpay for players who used to play for Tottenham. This way, their fans can progress through the soul-crushing and finger-pointing without having to go through hopeless optimism first. Although the typical Tottenham supporter has the attention span of a puppy and is distracted by shiny things, even they know that Pascal Chimbonda kinda sucks.

They’ve also brought in Carlo Cudicini, the forgotten man at Chelsea, who was at the start of a very promising career before Peter Cech was brought in and supplanted him. Despite his obvious talent, Cudicini earned the title of “least ambitious man alive” by staying at Chelsea for these past four years, content to sit on the bench and draw a paycheck.  “Least ambitious man alive?” Perfect for Spurs.

Epic crazy utterly failed to come to Man City, the way we all predicted, and secretly wished. The world’s richest club now enjoys the services of Wayne Bridge, Craig “Fore!” Bellamy, Shay Given and Nigel de Jong. It’s almost as if Mark Hughes is trying to spend his money wisely on players with a proven track record in order to meaningfully strengthen his squad. Well, okay, 14 million pounds for Craig Bellamy is a bit much, but Manchester City is the new, less-hateable Chelsea, and they will always have to pay that premium for players regardless of their ability or lack thereof.