Some stuff and some other things.

I don't even know where I am on the season any longer. I suppose there is a champions league thing going on within the next day or so. That's nice.

All in all, this perspective has got me thinking. I think a lot and it usually gets me into trouble. However, I am beginning to understand how certain club players feel at the end of the day.

You sit there, give your all for your club; maybe some internationals thrown into the mix. Then for some reason, things going on in your life or whatever, start distracting you. Your 20+ goal season in the league has now become around 8 - 10 and you're just feeling like you're on cruise control. You've taken the playmaker role and have started to drop a little deep while a younger more pacey finisher has come up from the academy.

You shrug, the captain's band graces your arm. You deserve it. Showing the strength and leadership throughout the seasons, even when the tide of good fortune is rolling out.

Then some yokel starts complaining about you being half the player you used to be and how you haven't scored in a month of Sundays. That setting up plays doesn't make goals.

You scratch your head and look around. Isn't this a team sport? Don't we depend on each other working like a cog to get a final result?

So you thought, as the nimble toed winger dances through the box and you hit the ball just within his reach, so he can round the keeper and put another one into row z. At the end of the day, somehow this is all your fault; a working cog in the machine that has just gone off rails.

Hmm, maybe I should put in that transfer request. I only have 2 years on my contract and it could all end next week by being the recipient of someone's badly time challenge... now where is my agent?

~LeChat

Swansea at Home, Borussia Dortmund (CL)

So much talk, still, about the 8-2 dismantling of the Arsenal by the hands or should I say feet of the MancScum that you would think the season was over... in September. It can be like that, life, over-dramatic and unnecessarily inaccurate (double negative, I know). We tend to forget about what will happen the next week or the week after that. It's not all fatalistic.

I have a grand idea, let's keep watching until May, then decide what the story was/is going to be.

The next week has happened. It wasn't the overwhelming success that one would think for a top whatever side against a newly promoted Swansea but there is that shred of hope. Even in the darkest hour there shall be light.

I never quite understood how one can have some thing that at the time seemed so debilitating, so overwhelming, so dreadful, be the end all and be all. It may have been about 3 years ago now, during the apex of the whole mortgage foreclosure crisis in the US. A woman decided to throw herself off the topish floor of a garage downtown. It caused a bit of a mess.

Now, that is a way to go, about 10 floors of just free-fall and hitting the ground. While, I never got a full clear story about why she did it, the only thing I could think is, “what was the trigger that made her do it.” I have no idea whether she was married or had children or even elderly parents to look after. The whole thing comes off as a really selfish act, albeit, quite a dramatic one.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, were the problems she had really that bad? Did the issues she have really affect her in a way that there was no other way out? Like I said, I'm not her and I couldn't have any possible way to know what was going through her mind or what pushed her over the edge in such a manner. I wonder if anyone ever helped put it all in perspective.

Perspective, I guess that is the most important thing. Keeping everything in perspective. Sure an 8-2 loss seems like the end of the world. Sure 6 seasons with no proper silverware seems like an end to an era but the reality of it is... it's not.

A few trades, Swansea and Borussia Dortmund later, there is a whole new look, a beacon at the end of a really long and dark tunnel. The only hope is that the beacon of light is not a train but actual light.

Funny thing about that analogy, I've been hiking through a tunnel when a train decided to come by. Mind you and me, not the most fun thing in the world to have happen. However, it could have been worst...much worst.

~LeChat

Udinese CL and United Away

My mind says I should have written this about a week ago. My heart says I was right to wait a bit before putting something down. I'm not going to dwell on the victory or the loss. What's the point in doing that now?

So here we are, the close of the transfer window that had quite a few last minute decisions made. I can't say either way but sometimes in life you got to make decisions. Sometimes you have to say am I going to keep letting this happen or do I just make a firm decision. I assume the later happened for now we see Benayoun and Arteta pulling on the red and white.

I can neither be shocked nor surprised. In reality, I care about as much as... wow, can't even come up with a proper analogy. By the way, I'm about to drop kick blogger in a minute; keeps refreshing in the middle of sentences.

Two weeks ago, whilst watching the utter demise of the sp*rs followed by the superior drubbing of the Arsenal. It was quite interesting to have this odd fellow go on a tirade about spending for players and having a plan and other such nosh. When in fact the only way to get his point across was to get exponentially louder when anyone offered any differing opinion. No sense in trying to have a practical conversation about football at that point.

It is as if the blinders had been put in place and there was nothing you could say or suggest that would make a difference. I don't want to compare that with a current political rhetoric that is occurring right now and has been for the last 10 years or so. I really don't understand it nor shall I try.

Full circle and I still lack an analogy for not caring and wanting to drop kick something for the sake of just drop kicking something. The dull thud of foot to body contact or better yet the hollow thunk of hitting someone directly in the chest cavity.

Anyways, the last couple of weeks; a sound thrashing at the hands of MancScum, an earthquake, a hurricane (that wasn't too bad), a few decent trades, and a grand prix that people decided to complain about. I like to agree with one observant fellow who stated, "you knew about it for over a year!"

Thank you and good night.


~LeChat