At what point do the media give up on a story, is the chance to persist on with a though conceived over a pint of Magners too irresistible? The Express has run with a report that AW has told the Board to sign Nicolas Anelka. According to the paper, Anelka was his first choice after the sale of Thierry Henry; this was apparently met with resistance from the Directors, concerned with his ‘disruptive’ reputation. It is believed that an offer of £10m would be ‘too good to refuse’, according to The Times. This follows on from The Daily Mail’s insistence that Arsene’s words earlier in the week about how he had to sign a forward before the season started – he did – and how he had signed Bacari as cover across the defence for the ACN, ‘raised the possibility of a big signing’ in the next few weeks. Not sure where The Mail got their interpretation from because at no point did Arsene rule in signing someone else. He also never ruled it out either so I guess there is leeway there for an ‘out of the box’ leap in imagination.

However, are we seriously expected to believe that the Board would not sanction a move for a player who AW wanted other than on cost. That is not to say that they would not raise such concerns but I do not think that Le Boss would go to them in the first place with the suggestion have thought through every angle about a possible move. And I understand why some people may want Anelka back, buying into this charade. He has a high reputation amongst supporters, many showing complete and irrational fear when it was mooted he may be off to the Glazerbowl. I do not doubt that he will score fifteen goals a season at Bolton but will he be anymore productive at Arsenal. And how can anyone say he is better than da Silva? We’ve not seen the lad play so no-one can reach a judgement on him yet. It comes back to the same thing with Anelka though for me. He has not put down roots anywhere for more than two seasons or so at a time so what makes anyone convinced he will do so at Arsenal again?

So why then do the newspapers expect us to believe this, especially after the events of this week when they were all sucked into a swirl of speculation over the non-signing of Palacio? Surely we are not that desperate for a forward that we will believe anything that is written? Off the top of my head, the following forwards have been linked with the Club – Tevez, Torres, Babbel, Anelka, Owen, Eto’o, Trezeguet, Martins. And that took ten seconds. And none of them came off. No-one spotted the da Silva signing, no-one saw it coming. And that it seems is Arsene’s cardinal sin, he did obey the whims and fancies of the media in signing someone so we are left with more speculation, which is highly irritating to me.

Meanwhile Stan Kroenke has almost certainly put his cards on the table as publicly as possible without actually mentioning the ‘t’ word. His spokesman stated yesterday that he had a ‘healthy’ relationship with PHW and that he wants to meet the other members of the Board. I bet he does. So far he has met with the Chairman who may have influence on the other Directors but his shareholding is unlikely to hold much sway if it comes to a sale. If a takeover is to succeed he has to get Fiszman and Bracewell-Smith on Board; with them will come other shareholders, including some of the more substantial minority holdings. But that it is all speculative as he, and his staff, would not be able to utter a word about it. Summed up indeed by his spokesman who would not ‘dare’ to comment on the future plans.

It seems that the pair may well be the stuff that the Arsenal Board’s nightmares are made of. Indeed, almost an anagram of the word ‘Satanic’. Now there’s a thought.

’til Tomorrow,