Yesterday was a nothing day in terms of Arsenal FC, however the tabloids can always make something out of nothing.

The Nuri Sahin to Arsenal story has been stretched, turned around, pulled apart and stitched back together on numerous occasions, so much so its become of boring irrelevance to the press.

“Who’s Wenger after anyway – he’s just some young Turk.”

I never thought anything of any sports journalists until I started watching Jimmy Hill’s Sunday Supplement about ten years ago. I loved the programme, and apart from the odd exception, I thought the majority of journalist’s who took part in the programme were a set of tossers. I’m from Yorkshire, I like to say it how it is – but it made decent television.

On Sunday the shows headline regarding Arsenal was “Cazorla is a poor man’s Fabregas”, which would be laughable, if it wasn’t aimed at the club. It was a cheap and vicious shot.

Then, a couple of days ago, the main headlines in The Sun was how Santos could be jailed for dangerous driving and ‘Arsenal 0 Arsenal Old Boy’s 44’. Again, it could be laughable if it wasn’t aimed at Arsenal.

It really is poor journalism!!

These tabloids plagiarise stories from each other, adding a bit here and offering “sources within” stories along with a fact or a statistic to give it credence.

It’s lazy.

“Eduardo says it was a mistake selling Van Persie and Song”, claimed another paper aiming more negativity towards Arsenal who have also had to endure stories of how Kevin Mirallas snubbed Arsenal for Everton.

Disgraceful really.

Arsenal’s players like any other players will read the press, check out the internet and watch TV.

We all love to see our names in the spotlight, and Premier League footballers – well they are like yesterday’s pop stars.

Sir Alex Ferguson gives Danny Wellbeck, a player who is possibly one of the most mediocre forwards that has ever pulled on an England shirt, a four-year contract worth millions after paying £24M on a 29 year old with a poor injury record plus a contract worth £40M and United get the positive accolade and the plaudits.

Make no mistake here, United are a club on the slide.

They are up to their eyes in debt and have just bankrolled two players along with the purchase of a Japanese player, which is something that Arsenal would have never have done, even if they did have the money to squander.

Yet the press drool over United?

Munich ’58 brought United to the attention of the world. It was very sad, yes, but it was also a PR goldmine, and they have been living on its history ever since.

Over the past eight years Arsenal have procured various players to fit in with both the dynamics of Arsene Wenger’s system, but who have been relatively inexpensive to buy. The majority have been young foreigners who Wenger has made sure they got paid highly in return for both performance and loyalty.

Young players are young, meaning they do everything you expect of a young lad, but the upshot is that they perform erratically. When it’s good, it’s good and when it’s bad it’s bad. Young people need mentors for things to rub off on them.

Thing’s like being a winner.

Last year we had a rubbish season, which was only made half-decent due to Tottenham and Chelsea being equally as bad. It shows you how poor we have become when teams like Newcastle are biting at our heels for a place in Europe and that a poor team like Wigan can come to the Emirates and go away with three points.

There was nothing good about last year, we were dire.

Every time we went on a good run the Arsenal.com machine would trundle out the same old rubbish about this player loving the way that player was playing and that there is a real bond within the side etc., which due to the nature of our nil transparency as a club gets plastered all over the media as there is NO other news coming out of the club barring Wenger’s “mental strength” quotes.

There’s a scene in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” when Harvey Kietel has helped clear up the mess of a dead body with half its head missing. He looks at Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta who are praising each other for helping each other get out of the shit circumstance they themselves have put themselves in.

Kietel quips: “Let’s not start sucking each other dicks, yet.”

Metaphorically speaking this is exactly what the young Arsenal team did after a nice run of results and reading their self-promotion all over the press. Their fickle mentality believed what they read, however reality bites when you go one, two and three goals down in the San Siro, no matter how much Wenger says that Milan are not the Milan of yesteryear.

He was right, but nor are Arsenal the Arsenal of yesteryear.

Mentality is key within a side.

Look at Djourou, Diaby, Song, Chamakh, Bendtner and even Walcott and ask yourself, would you want these guys in the trenches with you watching your back?

There’s a realistic answer. No you would not.

Walcott may have been England’s most dynamic player at the recent Euro’s, and would have probably been even more so were it for Rooney not wanting to pass to him. Saying that, playing for England has always been a case of self-preservation – Walcott wasn’t that bothered about passing the ball to Oxlade-Chamberlain either.

One of Wenger’s chief problems at the club has been well documented. Arsenal pay too much for mediocrity, and as such we find it hard to offload. We have players picking up high wages for non-performance. It’s vile and it stinks. They are referred to as the deadwood and we can’t move them on.

Arsene Wenger recently pulled off a transfer master-stroke, bigger than that of purchase of Henry and the sale Anelka. He got shut of Alexander Song for £15M, a lazy player who was offloaded before that kind of attitude spread any further.

Steve Bould has only been in two minutes and by all accounts had Song’s ‘number’.

Bould is no shrinking violet. Over six feet tall he has been up against the best and has tasted success throughout his career. Bould is the man who backed Tony Adams up and walked into the Coventry manager’s office and threatened to knock hell out of him as he had been needlessly provoking Adams, who at the time was a recovering alcoholic.

That manager was the great Gordon Strachan. Strachan apologised and it takes a big man to apologise and mean it.

Bould is everything that Pat Rice was not. Bould is a man’s man and he no doubt hated watching a player train with a lazy attitude, so after a little word in the ear of the manager, Wenger duly packaged him off to Barcelona.

Wenger shows a humility to his players and never bad mouths them in public, that you have to admire. However there are certain players who should have been stripped of their squad number and publicly told to go. They are no good here.

It is pointless having bad apples, they spoil the whole bunch!

The media love it when we talk of the likes of M’Baye Niang ‘coming’ to Arsenal. A 17 year old French-African full of promise is the archetypical Wenger signing. Nurture him through the harsh reality of the Premier League and give him a lucrative contract so he either thinks he’s too good and shows no loyalty and leaves – or the club can’t get him out of the door without use of a crowbar.

But this pre-season hasn’t been like this at all. What Arsenal have brought in has been exceptional. I cannot believe that Arsenal as a club have invested so well in players. Good, world class players.

And it isn’t done yet.

The fact that we were at an advanced stage in talks with Mirallas suggests that we are still in the market for a striker/attacker, plus the M’Vila rumours will not go away. Over the past few days we have been linked with Jesus Navas of Sevilla and Michel Bastos of Lyon, which can only smart of ambition.

I just hope that Wenger and Bould continue what they have started.

This season Arsenal WILL win the Premier League.

Written by southyorkshiregunner