UNCLE ARSENE WANTS YOU. OR YOU. OR YOU. OR YOU. OR YOU. ANYONE REALLY, AT THIS STAGE
When Impassioned Shouty Pointy Arsenal Man was interviewed outside the Emirates (parental advisory: contains much effing and jeffing) in the wake of his side's defeat at the hands of Aston Villa on Saturday he had a message for all us media luvvies: "get off your [beep!] and start saying it like it is".
Specifically: that everybody in the Arsenal boardroom has let all the fans down and should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves and either they or Arsène Wenger need to leave the club.
"You can't have £180m in the bank and you're playing Cazorla who's just got off the plane from Ecuador and people are booing him because he made a mistake," Impassioned Shouty Pointy Arsenal Man shouted and pointed impassionedly, who seemed to surprise even himself by his own strength of feeling on the matter. "The reason he's made a mistake is because he shouldn't have been on the pitch in the first place because he's knackered. What is going on at this club?"
Lots and nothing, appears to be the short answer to that particular question. Having lost 17 players during the summer, Wenger claimed those in charge of the Gooners' recruitment drive were "analysing every single player in the world and work 24 hours a day for that" in their failed attempts to sign Gonzalo Higuaín, Luiz Gustavo, Luis Suárez and every single other player in the world except Yaya Sanogo, who, wouldn't you know, is knacked. The young Frenchman is one of many lame and halt players forming an orderly queue outside the physio's room, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain likely to miss at least three months with knee-knack, while Bacary Sagna, Kieran Gibbs, Tomas Rosicky and Aaron Ramsey are all doubts for Wednesday's Big Cup qualifier against Fenerbahce in the placid, tranquil surroundings of the Sukru Saracoglu Stadium in Istanbul: the ideal occasion and venue for a team with only 11 fit senior players after one match of the season to blood their inexperienced young'uns.
Today has been another frantically busy day in and around the Emirates, in which little or nothing has actually got done. Bids are being hastily prepared for Swansea City duo Michu and Ashley Williams, but even if the pair are actually for sale, they will cost way more now than they did 90 days ago, when the transfer window opened. With Newcastle believed to want at least double the £10m offered to them by Arsenal for Yohan Cabaye, the Fiver can't help but feel we've now reached the point where clubs everywhere are refusing to sell their players to Arsenal because ... well, it's quite funny and they could all do with some early-season yuks and giggles.
One group of people who remain unamused are the Arsenal Supporters' Trust, a group of more than 800 members who have decided the club's lack of activity in the transfer market means it would be "inappropriate" for the board to offer Wenger a new contract until the transfer window has closed and they can see just how much gas there is in this particular explosion. In the meantime, Wenger will continue with the least successful recruitment drive since the Fiver put an ad on Soulmates.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"It wasn't a big deal. There are matches where you are spat at for the whole match and they throw other liquids which you can't identify" – Atlético Mineiro goalkeeper Victor explains why he elected to turn around and blather a ball at abusive fans after his side's 0-0 draw with Internacional.
FIVER LETTERS
"It has been said that 'a revolution begins with the actions of one person'. Though you seem not to have heeded your own advice, I decided to Stop Football this summer and I haven't paid attention to the game from the time of the last Premier League match in May to the resumption of the competition this weekend. Did I miss anything? I should note that I have been following other sports from your country/countries. You're actually quite good at things other than football. You have the reigning US Open golf champion, the reigning Wimbledon champion, the reigning Tour de France champion, the best athlete this side of Usain Bolt and you've destroyed the Australians at cricket. On second thoughts maybe it's not a one-man revolution" – R Reisman.
"At Luke Taylor's behest, last week I signed up for the 1,057 Pedants fantasy league (Fiver letters passim). I have just checked my team's performance, and it seems that I am currently sitting in 1,128th place. As a proud pedant, I have immediately spotted a problem with this" – Chris Clough.
"Re David Morgans's assertion that Joe Dudley 'couldn't have been more wrong' (Friday's letters). 'More wrong? Wrong is an absolute state and not subject to gradation,' according to Sheldon. Do I hear a 'No, it's a little wrong to call the Fiver a take on the world of football, it's a lot wrong to call it a tea-timely take on the world of football'?" – Mike Veillard.
"Iain Naylor's argument for a transfer to Man Citeh (Friday's letters) is imaginative, however flawed. If football teams were a simple equation of the sum of their individual parts, then he would be quite right assuming 15 Iain Naylors (or players of equal ability) would beat one Jesús Navas – he would be around 7% of the ability of Jesús Navas. However Man Citeh are probably aware that you can only play 11 players (meaning 'over-investment' in the best 11 players you can find is worthwhile) and each of the 11 playing has an effect on the ability of the other 10. I suggest he writes to Harry Redknapp" – Jordan Glossop.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Also, if you've nothing better to do, you can tweet the Fiver. Today's winner of our prizeless letter o' the day prize is: R Reisman.
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BITS AND BOBS
After Manchester United waited for Marouane Fellaini's £23.5m buyout clause to expire, then offered only £4.5m more for him and Leighton Baines, Everton suits have worked themselves up into a hot enough funk to call the bid "derisory and insulting".
André Villas-Boas has denied making an approach for the Black Eye Peas' Willian, before adding that Real Madrid knack has ruled Gareth Bale out of Tottenham's Big Vase tie against Dinamo Tbilisi.
Football club with a heart shock: Bayern Munich have re-employed former defender Breno as a youth coach while he is on day release from his jail spell for setting fire to his own house. "Breno is a member of the big Bayern family, who once had problems. Now there is a glimmer of hope and we want to give it to him," said club president Uli Hoeness.
Accrington Stanley managing director Robert Heys has been given a 21-month ban from football after admitting to a whopping 735 breaches of the FA's betting rules, including over 200 games that involved his own side and 37 bets on Accrington to lose. "It is important to note that I did not make any profit from the bets," he sniffed, proving to be even worse at gambling than he is at observing FA rules.
And Lazio will be forced to close the Curva Nord for the club's first game of the season after fans in the stand directed r@cist abuse at Juventus players during the weekend's Italian Supercoppa.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
Link to video: Peruvian footballer Renzo Reaños scores embarrassing own goal What to do when under no pressure in your own penalty area? Shoot inexplicably into your own net, of course.
STILL WANT MORE?
DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! Or at least in a bit when it's up.
Real Madrid were a few minutes away from dropping out of the title race on the opening weekend of La Liga, writes Sid Lowe. Meanwhile Raphael Honigstein has the skinny on the goings-on in the Bundesliga.
And in what will come as bad news for fans of discussions on semaphore, our talking points blog is about the weekend football.
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