Arsene Goes After Paulinho For His Mental Tougness

Arsenal eye £9m move for Brazilian star, Paulinho.

Now that was a decent rumour to wake up to this morning. Been a while since we had a decent one to   whet our appetence for fresh blood to add to Giroud and Podolski. A Brazilian. Wait a minute it isn’t just any Brazilian, it’s a Brazilian STAR.  

I know what you’re thinking, “Denilson is Brazilian too”. I did think it too but I didn’t let that dampen my euphoria. The boys from Brazil are usually fantastic ballers. Was sheer bad luck we got the 1-ina-million who isn’t. Besides this one’s name ends with “nho”. Like Ronaldinho and Robinho.


I did a quick jig in my head before good old common sense kicked me in my back-side. “Paulinho Who?”

With that in mind I composed my first tweet of the day

Wikipedia is short on information on this 23 year old unknown for whom good old Scrooge is ready to splurge all of £9m.

“José Paulo Bezerra Maciel Júnior, commonly known as Paulinho, (born 25 July 1988 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian football player, currently playing as a midfielder for Corinthians. He is well known to possess extreme levels of mental toughness.”

I’m one of those people who rush off to Google or Wikipedia when I need information and this is the shortest bio I’ve ever seen on Wiki. And that term “mental toughness”, where have I heard it before. Oh! I remember now. It’s that term Wenger usually uses to describe the team in post match media chats whenever we lose a game that riles a lot of Arsenal fans.

Is that the quality that informed the decision to go after this unknown Brazilian Star. I have a gut feeling this might be a decoy to send the Spurs and Man City scouts off to Brazil since they usually wait for us to spot a prospect before coming after the prospects.

While they are away we can complete the signing of that young French starlet, M’baye Niang who both clubs have in their cross-hairs after he completed trials with us. Hear we have made  Caen an official  6m bid for him after Man City  went sniffing after him. City asked Caen for permission to fly him out to Austria for a short trial and the club in turn notified Arsenal of City’s interest and Arsenal immediately made an official offer. What in Heaven's name is wrong with those people. Drunk on Arab oil?

Reports say Van Persie  reported back at the club yesterday. He underwent a routine medical on arrival and has been informed he’s expected to be on the plane next week with the rest of the team for the pre-season tour of Asia.  Now that’s telling him, isn’t it? Not taking any more lip from you, boy!

Goal.com today reported in what they called an exclusive that Arsenal is set to tell Van Persie he will not be granted his wish to leave this summer. They reason like some of us have reasoned without  making any claims to exclusivity that RVP will be a less attractive bride at the age of 30 next summer when he will be free to leave on a free transfer and that his age and injury records will make it unlikely that any one will offer him a four year contract. Arsenal will then hold out hope that he will resign under those circumstances.

The catch is that we heard the club express those same sentiments shortly before Fabregas and Nasri packed up their suitcases. Ooh! To be a Gooner.

Before I go, below is a screen shot of some of the things that make me laugh and take away the pain.

Kachifo!