World Cup and Cesc *sigh*

Hello all.

The World Cup is upon us which means Arsenal news is sparse. But no matter because it's the World Cup. Ecuador may have just lost me some sweepstake money by conceding a last minute winner to a drab Switzerland, but it's been thoroughly enjoyable this time around. If I had to describe the tournament so far, I would paraphrase Mötley Crüe: goals goals goals.

But as I write the France team has been announced and there is some Arsenal relevance. Well sort of. None of Arsenal's three French squad members have been included in the starting line up for the Honduras game. Bit of a weird one. Giroud has started all the warm up games and scored in most of them, Koscielny is behind Varane and Sakho in the pecking order for some reason and Deschamps rates Debuchy more than Sagna. I'd obviously start all three but, as a little disclaimer, I can't claim to have paid any real attention to their competitors for places. I may be a fan of football, but specifically noting the contribution of Mathieu Debuchy in Newcastle games is beyond me.

But there's no getting away from it. The biggest news of the week is Cesc. Some things have happened and they have caused Cesc Fabregas to become a Chelsea player. Personally, I still find that hard to write. Sometimes, football fans act melodramatically, perhaps forcing tears after a pretty irrelevant goal to portray themselves as die hard fans, who 'bleed' [insert club name] and care more about football than, say, their jobs or food or something. That's pretty silly and most of the time they fool no-one. But in this situation, the non signing of a player has provoked genuine emotion from many Arsenal fans, myself included. It rankles, on an emotional level, that Cesc now plays for them.

The whole fiasco played out like a nightmare. We all know that feeling in a dream where you try and act but nothing happens, a horrible event takes place in agonising slow motion and there is nothing you can do to stop it, no matter how you try. As Cesc became available, it seemed like a fairytale reunion was on the cards (I don't bear as much ill will as some others over his departure). Then bad things happened. Other clubs were linked. Rumours we would turn him down surfaced, and were subsequently confirmed. Chelsea made their interest clear and moved into pole position. Then this. It's the last bit that gets me.You can tell from his tone of voice and the little tilt of the head that his enthusiasm is entirely scripted, that it was not a move he particularly wanted. He had a will to return to N5, which makes it even worse.

And as a friend of mine said, blue doesn't suit him. He may have been talking literally (I agree, it just looks wrong) but, metaphorically, he couldn't have been more correct. Chelsea is a club we oppose on so many levels. I know it's only football, but we don't like their arrogant, childish manager, we don't like their racist captain, we don't like their sugar daddy owner and his tanks on our lawn. Personally, I think the way they stockpile young players in order to weave around FFP is wrong but that's perhaps an issue with the rules themselves. The bottom line is we have a reason to dislike this club. It's not a blind, postcode rivalry (not to take anything away from the tug-of-war for North London top spot). And now a player who owes, well, pretty much everything to us, will turn out for them. And to make it worse, he counts as a home grown player thanks to the work we put in to his development!

To clarify, I don' think this is a disloyal move from Cesc. He would have come back if he could. And although I said that he owes us everything, I don't think that applies to his future career choices. Once we rejected him, there was no obligation to harm his reputation (or his coffers. grrr.) by signing for a lesser club than Chelsea. Nevertheless, I still felt an urge to boo him during the Spain game. I suppressed it on this occasion but I suspect his reception will not be particularly warm when he returns to the Emirates in the coming season. Insert joke about 'warm' and the burning of shirts and Panini stickers here.

Right lets move on. Joel Campbell. Wow! If it comes to pass that his future will not be with Arsenal, then he is a puppy and this World Cup is his shop window. His pass for the third Costa Rican goal was just sublime. One of the assists of the tournament. Joel Iniestampbell. It occurs to me that he could play the Carlos Vela role in our squad next season though. He may not have scored 20 goals in one of Europe top league's last year* but in the two big games that most of us have watched him in, he's delivered, big time. And he's a lot that Giroud isn't.

I want Griezmann. The more I watch, the more I want.

Anyway. It's reached that stage where I'm bored again so I'll sign off. Expect more frequent posts now that summer is here.

I bid you adieu.

*I'm not using this to say we should have purchased Vela. I was never behind the signing and those who say that Wenger has made a massive mistake are just plain wrong.