As seems to be the way at the moment, a new day brings about a rehashed story, in relation to Arsenal’s comings and goings. Yesterday there were some flickers about Icardi and as much as I think he would be a great signing, I can’t really see it happening, if I’m honest. He’s the Inter Milan captain. He’s already said that he wants to stay at the club and his wife/agent has spoken about the conversations surrounding an extension. He’s also part-Italian I believe. So to me, all of this points towards using Arsenal – or other clubs too – as a bargaining chip with which to try to force Inter’s hands. So personally, I can’t see it happening.

There’s also the small matter of the guys personality. He’s already been booted out of the Argentinian national team because of his off-field shenanigans, one of which included stealing another man’s wife, in a very Bridge-Terryesque storyline. That kind of act is certainly deplorable, assuming the story is as cut and dry as the media are making out, but a debate that Steve and I had via Whatsapp yesterday was around whether you could really back somebody like that coming to your club.

Footballistically speaking, of course you could, because he’d be a great asset and would get goals. But when the question comes around morally speaking, what is the best course of action? Would you ever not support an Arsenal player who had behaved so poorly? Can you support somebody who has a questionable attitude? 

I guess there are different ways of dealing with a situation. John Terry and Luis Suarez are questionable characters. Neither Chelski, not formally Liverpool fans had to back him so vehemently as a person, but as a player then it becomes a sort of ‘marriage of convenience’ of sorts I believe. The Suarez stuff is slightly  different because his issues are still on the pitch, but his own ability forced Liverpool fans to forgive and forget almost everything that he said and did on the field. I’ll admit however, the whole ‘Suarez 7’ shirts things from the Liverpool players at the time was a little much, but that says more about the club’s actions, than it does the fans.

The same is with Messi at the moment. This horrific campaign to ‘stand with Leo’ is wrong on so many levels, you wonder if it’s actually some kind of parody set up by a fake social media account, but when the official Barcelona feed is promoting the campaign so blatantly, you see just how blinded football fans can force themselves to be.

But whilst the moral dilemma is still yet to sit before us – because the player hasn’t signed and I don’t think he will – there may come a time in the future where we do have a player who we will back, despite their obvious character flaws (perhaps you could say that about That Dutch Bloke, but nothing was proven and it all got thrown out I believe, so we don’t really have that as a case study), and as football fans it’s up to us to make our own minds up individually. Ultimately though, when a player crosses the white line, they’ll be cheered on. That’s the beauty of football, you see, for whilst it is blind to most things in the world, it also means there’s an element of purity about it. About everything that is stripped away in a persons life and then it boils down to the simple aim of getting that ball in the net more times than the opponent. And for that, at least, we can be grateful.

One more final point from me on this subject, which is that I guess your own opinion on redemption is also key with any human, which also plays a part. 99% of humans aren’t, I believe, inherently evil and set out to do bad things. But many humans do. When somebody does something bad, if they are punished for it in some way, or if justice is served, then they should have the ability to change. Sometimes justice isn’t served, as in Icardi’s case, but everybody deserves to show that they are not a certain character they have been made out to be. Take broadcaster Stan Collymore. He’s be found to have acted pretty reprehensibly in his life and has done things that no man should ever be proud of. But by his own admission he is no longer the same person he was. He has grown, he has made a conscious decision to change and as a result, you don’t hear about him gallivanting all around the country behaving as he may have done at some time earlier in his life. I guess my point is that people can change. Life isn’t as simple as putting labels on somebody and that label remaining with them for the rest of their lives. Perhaps the same can be said about Icardi? Perhaps not, of course, but life isn’t black and white and people aren’t always the same sort of person that they’re often made out to be.

Anyway, that’s probably about all I should ramble on about for one day, as I think my soapbox is buckling under my own weight! 

Have a good one peeps.