Hey folks, how’s it going? Y’all in a good mood? Y’all super psyched at the launch of the new home kit?

Well I guess there’s nothing else really happening, so I suppose it’s all we could ponder over yesterday, wasn’t it? Personally it’s not really something I’ll bother with because football kits are far too expensive for me and once they started going north of the £40 mark I decided to opt out. But if it’s your thing then good on you, just don’t make the mistake of getting a name or number on the back of your favourite player because:

  1. They’ll end up getting sold – it’s the law of the sod don’t ya know
  2. It’ll cost you an even more extraordinarily amount of cash to get it done
  3. Nobody will see it in the depths of winter when you’re freezing your nuts off away at West Brom.

I know some aren’t fans, but I quite like a collar on a football kit, so I give that my thumbs up. The rest of it is pretty standard. It’s red. It has logos and brands on it. That’s pretty much it. 

As for the away kits, well, I don’t even think I’ll bother. They’re a bit shite and what I wouldn’t give to have a plain simple yellow and blue one, as opposed to these odd colours they keep busting out. We’re The Arsenal. We play in red and white and yellow and blue. That’s it. 

Don’t even get me started on the press release they sent out. That was blatantly given to some office intern with an English Lit degree from Bath or somewhere similar. Horror show of a PR release. In the bin, please.

Then we had a couple of players and former players modelling it, one of which was Bobby P and his tantalising comments about Mbappe and how he is confident he’ll sign, followed by some comments by ‘a family member’ that Mbappe might still sign for Arsenal if he wants to join a club as a ‘stepping stone’ before heading off to Madrid or Barca.

Forgive me for not jumping up and down wildly at this prospect. We’ve got a player who – according to said ‘family member’ – could join us with one eye on his exit before he even arrives??? He’s 18 for christ’s sake, and he’s already planning on binning Arsenal off in his early 20s???

Of course none of this has come from the player and could all be complete and utter tosh, but if that is the intended plan for him, it hardly gives me as an Arsenal fan much hope in any kind of emotional investment tied to him. It’d feel like a two to three year loan deal. The only difference would be that knowing our record with transfers – out as well as in – we’d sign him for £120million, have him on a four year deal, sell him for £60million two years later and get absolutely no value back from a player who might be the hottest property in world football by then.

It makes you feel a little like the slightly rough cousin of a model, as a man walks over to chat to you, because he’s. Even told by his mates that befriending the ugly one will endure you to the one you’re really after.

Is that what we are now? Is that how low we’ve sunk that we’re the ugly cousin? 

At first when I heard that he could still join because of Arsène I felt quite happy that the manager is still a potential draw for top players. But when you hear the further details it just feels like we’re not really that much of a draw at all. And that’s a little depressing. Especially when you hear people like Pires saying he binned off Madrid for Arsenal all those years ago because of Wenger.

I suppose that’s looking at it from the glass half empty approach. To see it half full could be to hope that a signing like that and a player who could potentially bang in 30 a season and drive is closer towards the league, would be a good thing and if he gives us four years and wins a title, then a) we might keep him and b) he’ll have helped us win the league. But I don’t think I’m the only one that thinks we’re a bit further away than just playing staff from winning the league. So I wonder if this would be yet another – albeit massive and appealing with Mickey Mouse and bright colours on it – sticking plaster.

Still, this is all conjecture and hearsay at this moment, because we’ve still got deathly silence going on and I suspect we’ll have another week of it still before any more proper rumblings happen.

We still watch this space.