Overall though I thought it was a pretty weird day for football and not necessarily a good one. We've seen money talk yet again. Manchester United behaved despicably yet still landed their man Berbacunt in a £31m deal. And Manchester City? What the fuck? From being on the point of collapse a couple of weeks ago Arab investment has now seen them with ten times more spending power than Chelsea - and nothing illustrates just how powerful money is when a player like Robinho leaves Real Madrid for Man City. It's just mad. I don't suppose it's any coincidence either that the two big deals, Robinho and Berbacunt, have involved two players who have behaved like complete and utter babies and despite my disappointment that we didn't sign anybody there's a big part of me that's glad we weren't involved in a scene like that.

It's just so utterly distasteful. Footballing sugar daddies come in all flavours. You have the guy at Villa who seems relatively decent then the likes of Abramovich whose finances make most people uneasy to the new consortium at Citeh who you just know are going to try and make the club the gold plated Rolls Royce of English football. It's obscene, grossly ostentatious and downright mercenary. It's not something I can relate to at all and while I do wish Arsene had spent a bit of money I'd rather be aligned with Arsenal's decency and temperance than that kind of thing.

I think yesterday will be the day people point to when football went completely crazy. Rules are ignored, ambition = money and bad behaviour and tantrums gets you what you want. It's the sporting equivalent of the spoiled child. Toys are thrown out of the pram and soon that's the way everyone will have to behave. In that case I'd rather not keep up with the Joneses, especially when the Joneses are such tawdry, vulgar cunts.

arseblog@oleole.com