Much has been made of bin Laden's death on Sunday night, & I promised yesterday that I'd bring y'all my thoughts, thoughts you've no doubt been anxiously awaiting. However, I also want to talk about the Arsenal season & summer transfer prospects. They fit nicely together because it's pretty clear that while he was living in London in the early 90's, he spent more than one Saturday afternoon on the Clock End of Highbury singing the songs & crushing the skulls of hapless Tottenham supporters. I tend to believe he probably spent more time in expensive boxed seats & less time street fighting. Although, between his time w/ the Mujahideen & Al Qaeda, I suppose he needed something on which to take out his tendencies towards violence. One would think that he would target the rich, West-End Chelsea fans more than the North London Spurs folks... or East-End West Ham dolts for that matter. It has even been suggested that he spent 6 of his years in hiding by hanging out in the Arsenal trophy cabinet since no one has looked in there since 2005.
Although Arsenal haven't won anything since that 2005 FA Cup, one might have though the US military was having a similar drought in its search for bin Laden until late Sunday evening when the news came over the wire that they'd recovered his body. I was sitting on the left end of the bar @ Sidetrack when the story broke, which means, I didn't really have a good view of the sub-titles so I was a tad confused @ first. My initial understanding was that his body had been found. Then it seemed like he was assassinated. However, as Obama finally gave his speech, the military intel got its story straight & they said he was shot in a fire-fight... a firefight in which no American forces were wounded. Whatever the truth really is, the fact is that he's dead & people around the country went bat-shit crazy celebrating. Of course, he'd been wanted for years, & the search was long & difficult, but the joy people felt just made me uncomfortable. I wish it'd been possible to arrest him instead. Obama kept talking about justice being done, but justice is only done in a court of law... not by covert ops agents. Others have suggested that a trial would have been too expensive, but considering the money we've already spent on this, it'd have been a drop in the bucket. Still others were afraid that a trial would have given him access to the media or worse still the possibility of acquittal. To that, one only has to realize he had access to the media for the last 10 years & rarely used it, & if we have so little faith in the legal process, what the hell are we fighting for? We might as well get rid of it & just bring back lynchings if we're only willing to press charges against those we know we can convict. not that conviction would have been tough. Hussein was convicted & Milosevic & McVey.
While the cheering seems to have been in bad taste, the whole thing smacks of political posturing. Bush found Hussein just in time to secure his re-election, & now Obama gets bin Laden the week after he released his long form birth certificate. of course, had bush gotten him 4 years ago, the same people who were celebrating would have been complaining about the political timing leading up to the last election. (Just as those who would have loved it then are now looking to conspiracy theories to discredit Obama's involvement. Regardless of the timing, banging pots & pans & lighting off fire-works to celebrate a death is something w/ which we here @ Drifting into Deep Water can not accept.
The other thing we cannot accept is a summer w/o some proper signings @ Arsenal. They came close this year, but after losing the League Cup Final & then getting eliminated from the FA Cup & The Champions League in the same week, things fell apart. Fabregas has run his course, & his surprise injury this week seems to signal his departure from the club. He should have been allowed to leave last year since they won't get as much money this time as they would have & his heart was clearly not into this year. Eboue, Diaby, Arshavin, Almunia, & Squillaci also need to be shown the door (& Bendtner, but I've said that every year since 2007).
This means, a center back in order, a back up goalie, a right back & some sort of goal scorer.
Center back options: Gary Cahill from Bolton, Mamadou Sakho from PSG, Phil Jagielka from Everton would be nice. I read today that an offer for Sakho has already been made... we'll see.
Goalie: I've seen rumors that Bufon might come in, but I would prefer Neuer from Schalke or Stekelenburg from Ajax. However, they might hurt the development of Szczęsny who has come along nicely this year.
Right Back: van der Wiel from Ajax would be a nice improvement on Eboue, but then so would Danny Devito or John Goodman or Zombie bin Laden.
Attacking options: At the moment, the rumors seem to be pointing to Eden Hazard from Lille or Benzema from Real Madrid.
There's also a rumor circulating that Barcelona will ship cash plus Macherano for Fabregas. That's not a bad deal, & it'd be a huge upgrade from Diaby.
As far as the captaincy goes, as Fabregas leaves, it'll probably go to van Persie, but I wonder if Vermaelen or Song would be better. I like the captain to be towards the back so as to have a good view of the squad. Henry was captain during his last 2 years @ Arsenal, but it didn't work well.
Oh, & the 2nd Arsenal fan to die this week? We lost a chicken. I went outside to feed them this morning and one was dead. It's so sad. I'm sure they supported Arsenal because they're pretty dumb but faithful. And they're pretty. They may not win, but they lose beautifully... just like Arsenal.
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