Trossard? Jorginho? Worst. 10th Anniversary. Ever.

31 January 2013. It was late in the evening, and a furious Gooner took to the web to launch a blog that would rattle a few feathers, shake a few cages, upend a few tables. I would be a latter-day Jonathan Swift, using an acerbically satirical voice to speak truth to power, to afllict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. The target of my inescapable ire? The deadline-day signing, the only signing of that window, of Nacho "La Cabra" Monreal. That signing was accelerated from the ensuing summer due to the injury of Kieran Gibbs. I look back on that first post with a mix of pride and humility. I was so young back then, so full of...well, knowing me, scotch. And pizza. In any case, here we are now on the tenth anniversary of this l'il blog, and so much has changed and so much has remained the same...

Arsenal make SHOCK £12m move for Brazilian DM!

It's Jorginho. I tried to put lipstick on this pig, but I just can't summon the energy. If the rumours are true—and they're flying too fast and too furious to be false at this point—our deadline-day singing is 31 year old Jorginho, not 21 year old Caicedo. To say this news is underwhelming would be the understatement of the year. It feels somewhat like we've been offered really really old sausage when we had been promised caviar. I'm torn between hating this move because of what it isn't and hating this move becauase of what it is. I'm trying to tell myself that it's a sensible, pragmatic move, but I'm having a hard time doing so.

Trossard & White tell Caicedo what to expect...

     As Arsenal attempt to convince Brighton to sell Caicdeo, they enlisted a flock of Seagulls (okay, two), and the conversation went something like this.

     Leandro Trossard, sat in front of his locker after Arsenal's FA Cup fourth round loss to Man City, picked up his phone. "47 notifications? What's that about?" the Belgian wondered aloud.

     "Mate, there's all this talk of us signing Caicedo! What rock have you been under?" Ben White sat down to strip off his boots, socks, and shin guards. "It's all anyone's talking about. What d'you reckon?"

De Zerbi's thrown in the towel on Caicedo.

Brighton's Roberto De Zerbi is starting to sound a bit like a manager who's seen the last of his player. With Caicedo frozen out of the squad, similar to how ex-teaammate Leandro Trossard was frozne out, De Zerbi has spoken about how it's time to "go forward without him". It was just a few days ago that De Zerbi said that Caicedo is "only focused on Brighton. I hope he can stay with us until the end of the season". Happier times on the southern shore. Those were the days. De Zerbi's more-recent words seem to insinuate that a parting of ways is inevitable, and the only question is whether happens in the next few days or in the summer.

Man City 1-0 Arsenal: Player Ratings Poll Results

Only 210 of us weighed in for this one, depressed, perhaps by the result or only by the match ending so late in the evening. So it goes. Tierney, Saka, Holding, and Vieira suffered the brunt of our disappointment, scoring below the standard six, but it was Lokonga who felt our wrath with a 3.83, the kind of score one earns for actively undermining the squad's efforts. Lokonga didn't concede an own goal or commit a foul leading to a pen, but he was derelict when City scored, leaving Aké open for the shot. Matt Turner claimed MOTM honours with 29.5% of the vote, narrowly ahead of Leandro Trossard at 27.1%. Ah, well. A heavily rotated side went into the Etihad and put our hosts on the back foot for long stretches. It's a pity we couldn't get the result but shuld still come away with some grim determination as well as grit for the next time we face off.