Eight two be a fan? Hardly, it's as good as Six!

Six months ago was the time when the idea was first hatched; go to Europe during their Winter, and have one last crack at a holiday overseas before life and all its commitments contrive to keep me well occupied and well happy at home. It was something I always wanted, and was even encouraged by the management, to do. I had a grin from ear to ear. Sure it would cost a bit, but I'd never been in the financial position to make this kind of pilgrimage before. It is going to be fun.

Yet the main attraction, the big ticket on the bill has lost some of its lustre, and I'm not sure that it had to be that way.

Of course, I'm talking about football. But then, I have a healthy dichotomy of readers when it comes to football and both sets of fans may take exception to me calling either game just that. So to make it plain for those who love only one or the other I'll refer to them as "AFL", or Aussie Rules Football, and "EPL", English Premier League Football.

I'm not here this evening to generate an opinion piece, you will find plenty of those surrounding the troubles that are circling the Arsenal Football Club elsewhere at the moment. What I wish to do is to further explain to my AFL audience what a true free agency could mean to them, and to my EPL audience, show that I don't got much time for money, 'cause money can't buy me love.

Last week I suggested what may happen in the Free Agency world of the AFL. I tried my best to suggest that our loyalties as fans will be tested to the utmost as players we grow to love will jump ship at the first opportunity of greater earning power or potential for success. It will upset many, but it won't be a blip on the madness that is the multi-billion dollar world of the EPL. To demonstrate such madness, I'll use the AFL's most recent powerhouse side, Geelong FC, as my model for how the world at an EPL club can change in just six months (Disclaimer: This hypothetical is the stuff of pure AFL fantasy and in no way reflects what I believe could possibly happen to the Geelong Football Club. They've been the model club on and off the field for almost six years now and I don't see that, nor their playing list, changing. We cool Cats fans? Yeah, we cool).

You see, the Cats (Geelong) have just failed at the final hurdle again. They've lost to the biggest, most popular, and now best club in the league, Collingwood FC, in the battle for the Premiership. As Geelong are an ageing side with many players choosing to retire at season's end, Geelong's opportunity for future success is limited, and although the retirements have given them much money to spend under the salary cap, the club is not an attractive place to come to as of now. They will have to rely on youth to rebuild them to the lofty heights they once reached (sound familiar EPL fans?).

Their star midfielder is Joel Selwood, a hard tackling, fiercely competitive, outstanding user of the ball by foot and is one who contributes the odd goal. He is slated for Free Agency. He is offered an enormous salary by Geelong, but decides he wants to play for the most rejuvinated club in the competition, the West Coast Eagles. His older and younger brother whom he loves dearly both play there. Western Australia has the most beautiful winter weather in the country. The club has won a premiership as recently as 2006 and are on the precipice again. He signs for less money to play with them. Geelong are weakened further.

Another player of the age and experience level that Geelong would like to keep is Travis Varcoe. He was taken at the not unsubstantial cost of a first round draft pick, and so highly thought of was he that he was given the guernsey number 5 worn by club legends such as Polly Farmer and most famously, Gary Ablett Senior. He has precocious talents, terrorising opposition defenders when he has the ball, and capable of creating a goal for himself or his teammates out of nothing. He has yet to reach a level of consistency from game to game that will set him apart as a champion. Geelong are confident this will happen given time but offer him a contract reflective of where they see his talents and development  now. Instead, he is courted by champions Collingwood with contract negotiations only scuppered when the new challengers in town, Hawthorn FC, throw a contract at him that is simply too good to refuse. Hawthorn now have an attack with a talent level that is the envy of every club in the competition; the goals will be flying in from everywhere with opposing defences being able to do scant little to stop it. Geelong must seek adequate replacements and fast.

But as they are beaten to the signings of new players one by one, and are snubbed by other players who see them as a faded force, Geelong enter the new season to one of the most embarrassing defeats in their long and proud history; how was this allowed to happen? Especially after the AFL extended the "Trade Week" and Free Agency periods right until the beginning of the season. No sporting club in their right mind the world over would allow this to happen. Would they?

Welcome to The Arsenal Football Club, the EPL team I love and am practically making the pilgrimage to Mecca for. The team that have lost two of their best, and were before that time, two of my favourite players. Although in the EPL world "lost" can be a misnomer; these players were sold for a net profit of nearly 60 million British pounds. That's not a misprint, it is what it is. Sixty. Million. Pounds. Nearly One hundred million Australian dollars.

For the AFL's Joel Selwood, the appropriate EPL analogy is Francesco "Cesc" Fabregas; Arsenal's captain and one of the greatest players in the world. For Travis Varcoe read Samir Nasri, a precocious French attacking talent who, whilst wearing the number 8 of club legends Frederik Ljungberg and the great Ian Wright, was just beginning to come into his own. Both gone due to the ineptitude of the men responsible for the management of contracts at the Arsenal Football Club, both vitally important to the success of the club, both using their not inconsiderable talents elsewhere in the prime of their careers. Six months ago I thought I was coming to watch these little magicians play and I was as excited as a little kid. Now I don't know who I'll be watching play other than that they'll wear red with white sleeves.

The real crime of the Arsenal Football Club is not for debate however. It is not the sale of these players; both wanted to leave for differing reasons and once that happens there is scant little you can do to stop it. There is a modality, however, to rectify such problems. Unlike the world of the AFL where players are traded, drafted, or as I have predicted, will soon be able to sign free agent contracts, Arsenal are allowed to buy players from other clubs to replace the ones who have departed, much like how they sold Fabregas and Nasri. And yet they have chosen not to.

I could likely accept this if the remaining players in the squad were of similar standard and quality. But nearly every Arsenal supporter, even if they disagreed exactly whether it was the manager (in AFL parlance, coach), board or owner who was to blame for not re-investing that money, nearly every supporter agreed on one thing; the remaining players were not good enough to compete for the championship. We didn't have to wait long to find out either. The only time in Arsenal's history that they have conceded eight goals in a game was in 1896. Well it was, until Sunday, against a club that used to be our nearest rivals, the Champions Manchester United. The scoreboard said it all, United 8, Arsenal 2. It didn't take long for the pun; wouldn't you eight two be an Arsenal supporter right now?

I don't hate to be an Arsenal supporter. I love my Arsenal, yes I do. An irrational love? Perhaps. I have explained my reasons as to why I do love them the first time I ever had an article posted on the web, an Arsenal FC Blog's guest post titled "How Arsenal have ensured Arsenal will host the World Cup in our Lifetime'" (Although with hindsight I may want that title back; isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?). And I'm still very, very excited about the prospect of attending a couple of home matches in North London at the magnificent Emirates stadium. There's just a tremendous amount of regret at the moment that I, like nearly every "Gooner" (Arsenal supporter) the world over, has seen their club decline; our one time stars shining elsewhere, their replacements playing for other clubs with the club unwilling or unable to pay the price to lure equally talented players to our club. Six months ago I was excited about Cesc and Nasri. Today I'm more excited about the prospect of seeing the Czech Republic and Germany.

All is not lost. As is my eccentric want, as is my taste for the romantic, Arsenal did go out and buy a player I've become a big fan of in a short period of time. This time last year, a young lad not yet out of his teenage years named Carl Jenkinson, sat in the stands of Arsenal's home ground to watch the club he loved play in a pre-season tournament called the Emirates Cup. He was a professional footballer plying his trade for Charlton Athletic, a team well below the quality of a Premier League club. Yet someone saw something special in young Carl and offered Charlton a million pounds for his services and a professional contract to play for Arsenal, the club he supported since childhood. His interview upon joining the club is quite remarkable, he is literally blinking back tears of disbelief that he has signed up to play not only for one of the biggest and best clubs in Europe, but one he has loved all his life. He's merely a wide defender and not a star striker, he's technically limited and he has a lot to learn about top level EPL football. This was evidenced in the 8-2 demolition in which his inexperience led to two poorly timed challenges that saw him receive two yellow cards and a sending off.

But he's one of us, a proper Gooner, and will never long for pastures greener nor take defeats as anything over than a heavy weight in his heart. It's for this reason, when I find myself at the Arsenal "Armoury" store I'll be buying myself a "Jenkinson" shirt even though there are far more star turns at the club. I'll get behind one of our own with nothing but my full support and will sing his name with gusto. After all, I'll let you AFL and EPL fans alike argue whether the song I've penned is a pun on a song written about Tony Lockett or Dennis Bergkamp...

"One Carl Jenkinson, There's only one Carl Jenkinson!"

And all is not yet lost, Arsenal still have but two days to spend on players before the so-called "transfer window" closes and have already signed a Brazilian international defender and are being heavily linked to Germany's champion central defender Per Mertesacker. Should he sign for Arsenal I may, just may, become a little more optimistic about this season. Maybe the club does care about the supporters. Maybe they do want to right the wrongs. Maybe they will spend again on an established attacking star. But you best get on with it lads, the time is ticking!

Of course, I can't help but leave you without an awful pun. You see, I'm glad there is only one Carl Jenkinson. After all, it's better than six!

Until next time guys,

Whitey