Have you heard any good jokes lately? No? How about this one? "Arsenal Set To Make £40m Franck Ribery Bid Reports."

LOL

Yeah, ok, let's just assume that Arsenal are going to bid £40m, which, according to Bayern manager Uli Hoeness, is £60m short of his valuation and would get us just a leg.

First off, I hope this morning's 3rd place Vuvuzela consolation cup match finds you well. It doesn't find Cesc Fabregas well, or maybe it does find him well and he's just not playing because his international manager is mad at him. I dunno, either way, there isn't much to say about this game since there aren't any Arsenal players on the pitch.

There's nothing going on today.

The 3rd place match for the most important trophy in the history of world sport won't kick off until 5:30am PST tomorrow and the finals won't be until 11am PST so I'm stuck here trolling the internet for rumor, innuendo, hell, even something made up would be nice.

7amkickoff.com

Those of you who are using an RSS feed to read my posts should go ahead and point your newsreaders to 7amkickoff.com because on July 1, I'm switching to my own domain. You can go over there now and look at it if you want, some CSS bits are still being manipulated and then I have to export and import all my content (no small feat in a two year old WordPress account) and then I can start whoring myself out to advertisers!

It is the official policy of 7amkickoff.com and its affiliates to never, never ever, under any circumstance link to any article published in The Sun. This is because The Sun is a steaming pile of Tottenham. There's tabloid journalism and then there's The Sun, the paper which defined tabloid journalism.

Setanta Enters Administration

Yesterday, having failed to secure the funding needed to keep the UK business going, the UK version of Setanta sports went into administration or as we call it in America, bankruptcy. Basically, as I write this lawyers and accountants are picking over Setanta UK's corpse looking for something salvageable.

What? You didn't think I could let a world class joke like that go could you?

Seriously though, the transfer window is heating up and rumors are now flying faster than ever, though for some reason, Chelsea seem to keep getting shafted in the end.

What?

Ok...

The Chelsea story is an actual story, it's just that no one is reporting on it.

First off, I hope everyone had a wonderful Father's day yesterday. I had a kickaround, then had some beer, then indulged in some razor clams and some more beer and watched Young Frankenstein with the family.

It was nice, but I was thinking, Father's day should be held on Saturday so that you can have a hangover on Sunday and be ready to go back to work on Monday.

First off, I want to give a shout out to blog commenter and new daddy Travis the Septopus and of course to all us old daddy's out there: Adrian, Alex, Caribkid, Russ, and anyone else who ever donated chromosomes!

On such an auspicious day I also want to give you guys nothing but good news!

Yesterday, amidst all the good news for Arsenal supporters, there was an announcement by the English Premier League that they are cancelling Setanta's contract for the 2009/10 season owing to the fact that Setanta could not make a £10m scheduled payment. The rights to some 46 matches are now going to be repackaged and sold to the highest bidder with Sky sports and ESPN the two most likely contenders.

So, it's official, Thomas Vermaelen has signed for Arsenal. I am as excited to see him play as I am to see what other moves Le Boss makes this summer. I've never seen Arsenal act this agressive in any transfer market. They are almost always last to sign players, looking around for a bargain, and frustrating us supporters with their talk of how so and so can fill in at such and such position.

Well, Thomas Vermaelen is supposedly signing for us today for a reported fee of £10m. IF this happens, it will be an Arsenal record for a defender and be the second record breaking price that Arsenal paid for a player in less than a year. He's a left footed, aerially adept, central defender and if he can handle the pressure of being a central defender for the most attacking team in world football he may turn out to be one of those "Wenger signings" where he takes a relative unknown at a bargain price and turns him into a star.

On April 23, 2005, 17 of the world's most adept cinematographers and sound engineers descended upon the Bernabeu and focused all of their talents on just one man; Zinedine Zidane. The result is a film that will at times move you, cause you to wander off into your own head, and in the end shock you.

Well, finally some news that isn't an Arsenal player denying that they are leaving for Real Madrid. Today's breaking news story is that the FA has released the 2009/2010 fixtures list. You lucky devils are getting this hot off the presses and chock full of analysis. When is the best time to go see a match?

Before I start, I just have to say thank you to all the folks who shared their wonderful stories of falling in love with Arsenal yesterday. It was a special thread and it confirms the validity of an idea I have had for a while now. More on that latter bit once I work out the details. In the mean time, I will try to incorporate more user generated content in the blog.

Today, I'm testing out an idea I have.

I could blah blah about Mathew Upson (sure, let's break all traditions and sign the former Gunner), I could join the chorus of voices that are saying that the Cesc to Barca story is crap, I could give you an analysis of Cesc's goal against some footballing backwater, or I could link some more speculation about so and so coming to Arsenal.

There's nothing going on today. Go outside and kick a football around. Take the family to the park. Do something, anything other than sit here and wait for no Arsenal news.

While you're kicking the ball around, think of this...

Joey Barton earned £675,000 from Newcastle for his "image rights.

Holy crap... there's nothing going on.

We're linked to PSG defender Mamadou Sakho, well it's us or Bayern. He is 19 and African Francophone, which means this is basically in the bag, right? After all, French + Young + African = Arsenal signing!

Meanwhile, Arsenal have supposedly agreed to sign in January another player for the future, Martin Angha.

It's pretty rare, but occasionally I agree with Michel Platini. Maybe it's the hangover I'm nursing, but I think I heard him on the Beeb this morning say

These excessive transfers are happening almost every day. It is very puzzling at a time when football faces some of its worst ever financial challenges.

The ink was barely dry on their one record breaking contract to snag Kaka when Real Madrid turned around and destroyed their own previous transfer record and purchased Christiano Ronaldo from Man U for £80m. No need to link to a specific article, it's all over the news, hell, it made NPR this morning.