The sun is out, it’s a beautiful day. I’m going to ruin it now. Sorry about that, but I am. And I will do so by asking you all one simple question: are we all over Chelsea winning the Champions League on Saturday night? I assume most of you had moved on and had forgotten about it, so won’t thank me for bringing it up again. Especially as they won it in what now appears to be typical Chelsea style- shut up shop and wait for the Drog. At least he won’t be around to torture us anymore. And Spurs are fucked. Every cloud and all that…

SPOILER ALERT!

In retrospect, it was apt that I chose the image of the famous box from Seven. You know, the box that contained the head of Gwyneth Paltrow’s character, Tracy. If that is a spoiler then I’m sorry, but Seven’s been around since 1995 and, really, you should have seen it by now. Anyway, the head in the box, even referred to as “a trophy”, is a representation of the sin of Envy and brings about the final, climactic act of the film. Yes, even more climactic than opening a box with a severed head in it. I’m digressing here, I know. My point, simply, is that as Drogba slid his winning penalty into the bottom corner of the Munich goal, I’m sure we were all feeling pretty fucking envious.

I felt so envious that the TV went straight off and so I was spared the sight of John Terry charging around in full kit as if he hadn’t been suspended from duty. The idiot. Yes, the photos will record is presence, but he will live- to his dying day- with the knowledge that his own stupidity ruled him out of the biggest night in his club’s history. Well done Roman, it only took 9 years and €1 bn.

Anyway, lest you think that this blog is just going to be a bitter rant, which- to be fair- it pretty much has been so far, let’s move onto more important things. Like, er, Arsenal. That’s why we’re all here right?

As the Netherlands are currently preparing for the Euros, there is no new news regarding Robin van Persie staying or going. I’ve said before that I think he will stay and sign a new deal and I gather- although I’ve seen little concrete evidence of it myself- that the media wind is blowing in that direction now. Let’s hope it’s not just hot air, eh? Sorry, I just can’t take any more broken cannon images, we saw enough of those last summer. Cesc Fabregas, once of our parish, stuck his oar in the other day, venturing the opinion that Robin should stay and end our trophy drought. Er, like you did, Cesc? I probably would have thought nothing of these Fabregas comments had he not skanked us just one year ago. But it seems a little rich coming from the Catalan maestro now.

Another player we are hoping to sign up, albeit from Rennes is Yann M’Vila. Twitter was all ablaze with rumours that the deal was 100% done a couple of days ago. Rumours that were swiftly debunked by various ITKs who may or may not be genuinely ITK. Twitter, clearly, is no place to spend a summer following transfer rumours. You’ll just end up like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. I reckon £17m is a fuckload of money for a defensive midfielder, but if he is worth that kind of transfer fee, then he must be some player.

On the other hand, Salmon Kalou…. released by Chelsea, linked to Arsenal for what seems like forever. Just no. Please God, no. No good can possibly come out of us signing this player. If he isn’t good enough for Chelsea, and clearly, he isn’t, then he shouldn’t be good enough for us. I’d like to think that we’ve been sufficiently burned by Marouane Chamakh to resist someone just because there is no transfer fee involved. Though coming from the family I do, I certainly understand the lure of an alleged “bargain”.

And on the theme of players not good enough for the Arsenal, the only concrete news of arrivals and departures this week is the news that Manuel Almunia, Gavin Hoyte plus five others have been given their bus fare home and told never to return. Through Gavin’s older brother Justin, who played a few first team matches in that great Arsenal team of 2003-05, the Hoytes had a family connection to the club going back a few years. So I’m sad to see Gavin go, though he probably won’t be missed. As for Manuel… well, we all know what he was good at (shot stopping, mainly) and what he was bad at (everything else). It’s still a source of amazement that Arsene ended up preferring Almunia to the erratic, but generally brilliant, Jens Lehmann.

But that’s water under the bridge now.