I remember, once upon a time, that I used to blog everyday on this site. It didn’t matter if I was hungover and only had a couple of hours sleep or maybe even if I was still drunk and hadn’t made it to bed, nothing got in the way of me writing a blog. Then along came a pretty face, the prettiness of which I had never seen before and tempted me away. Of course, the pretty face left, taking with it my dignity and self-respect, a story for the interlull perhaps, but since then I have struggled to be able to find the will to do daily what had been so effortless before.

I’m not sure why I’m telling you this, perhaps aware that there are new readers who don’t know this used to be a regular thing or aware that the posts recently have lacked a little of my usually oomph and sarcasm.  I guess I’m trying to stay on the horse before I attempt the Grand National.

Perhaps Arsenal played a role as well. Every day it was the same thing or at least it felt like it at times. Trying to work out why we had the handbrake jammed on and where this mental strength we were supposed to have by the bucketful was hiding. Maybe that was my problem too, I’ve had my handbrake on and not even realised it.

Arsenal-wise there has been some movement on the transfer front but all of it out and none of it confirmed by the club.  Djourou confirmed that he is leaving for Hannover but only on loan and that there is no buy option included in his contract, Squillaci is still hankering for somewhere sunny and French with Bastia being named as the most likely destination and Chamakh looks like he’s set to face-off with Andy Carroll over who can have the worst hair-cut at West Ham.

Coming this way there doesn’t seem to be much of anything going on and perhaps if there was it would have meant that people wouldn’t have gotten their panties all in a bunch over Arsene’s comments and the way the press so expertly manipulated them to gain maximum outrage.

We should know Arsene by now, know how he speaks and what he means and while I do agree that he has been infuriating, more so than usual this window with his ‘Henry yes, Henry no, Henry yes, players yes, player no’ flip-flopping from day to day, to think that he actually thinks the fans want Arsenal to sign Messi is ludicrous and to take offence at his comments, once stripped of all the tabloid hyperbole which surrounded them, makes you just as silly.

Many fans are realistic. They don’t care who comes in, where they came from and what they cost, but there is no doubt that there are a lot of fans out there who don’t quite have one foot in reality.  People laugh and ask for Falcao as a bit of a giggle but I’ve seen a quite hefty number who want him in all seriousness.  Just yesterday as Mario Balotelli and Roberto Mancini showed the class that comes with an instant-cash side there were many I witnessed asking, in all seriousness, why we couldn’t sign Balotelli.

Some fans ‘do’ want that big name and there are many out there who believe a player is only as good as the price tag he comes with. It makes no sense to the rest of us but it is those fans the tabloids play to and feed off and is those tabloid people who ask the questions in the press conferences and who twist comments to give them their headlines, without which they wouldn’t get a quarter of their hits or sell a fraction of their papers.

They feed off emotion and Arsenal fans have plenty of it to sustain them. When you read a post in The Sun or The Mirror and find yourself getting angry at the person quoted and not the person who wrote it you know you need to take a time out and look a little bit closer at what was actually said.

Anyway, I’ll shut up now. I’m sure I’ve done enough here to annoy some people which wasn’t my intention, just my head and how I see things.

Three daily blogs in a row now, maybe I might manage to stay on this horse after all.

News and gossip [which is analysed for its stupidness] thoughout the day on gossip.ladyarse.com.