Arsene Wenger's Law and a top-secret signing

The extraordinarily enigmatic Mr. Wenger

I’m on to something so top-secret I’m afraid to share the details for fear of queering the deal. After all of the fuss over Jovetic, we never signed him and he’s now at Man City.

After whipping ourselves into a frenzy over Higuain, he’s gone and signed with Napoli. Finally, it seems that we’re going to go all-in on pursuing Luis Suarez, something I’ve inveighed against over and over again in my writings. In fact, I’m going to continue to do so as often as possible, if only to trigger a clause in Wenger’s contract, one that very nearly operates as a universal constant: Wenger’s Law of Inverse Relationships.

In brief, this Law stipulates that there exists an inverse relationship between the number of headlines linking us to a player and the likelihood of us signing him. Consider Higuain and Jovetic as the most-recent examples. Yes, more-rigorous studies are needed, as will publication in a peer-review journal, but the evidence is strong.

So it goes with Luis Suarez. The more our attention turns to Suarez, and the more headlines there are linking us to him, the less likely it is that we’ll sign him. The blog Arsenal‘s Silly Season details just how many headlines there have been already, and with Higuain gone, that list is only going to grow.

This brings me to the top-secret signing I mentioned. In my despair yesterday at learning that Higuain was off the market, I worried that Arséne was like a rube at the poker table being hustled by card-sharks.

However, after drinking and yelling and punching drywall (try it—great fun. Might want to use a studfinder first, though), I remembered Wenger’s Law. I realized then that everything’s going to be alright (please tell me it’s going to be all fine).

Here’s my current delusional dream: Arséne has been playing the game on such a level that none of us even understand that a game exists. It’s as if we’re all Campbell Scott in The Spanish Prisoner and Arséne is, well, every other character. He’s got us so befuddled that we don’t even know which way is up anymore, and just when we’re about to give in to despair, he’s going to announce a signing so surprising that none of us even saw it coming, not even the crack investigative reporters at The Sun or The Mirror. It’s so secretive that I’m afraid of even floating a name.

After all, if I casually toss off a name, no matter how far-fetched, I might trigger Wenger’s Law, and that player will just become the latest fox for the hounds. We know that almost anything is possible, even a racist biter being worth £50m, and so we need not get our knickers in too much of twist. Money talks, and we have a fair amount of it.

If we don’t use it, especially after all of the boasting and posturing from Gazidis, I…well, I’m afraid to finish that sentence for fear of what might come out. I just hope that Arséne is half as cunning as I’m making him out to be.

In the meantime, let the “Suarez-to-Arsenal” headlines roll on. By all means.

Lastly, I believe that your chance to vote in the 2012-13 YAMA Awards for Best Arsenal bloggers, tweeters, and so on is just about up. If you haven’t voted, go on over and do so—there are a lot of great Gooners out there deserving recognition. I’m honored that Woolwich 1886 is simply nominated as a “Best New Arsenal Blog”. Thank you!