The silly season is almost coming to an end and regardless of how it pans out in the next few weeks, it’ll still remain one of the best any Arsenal fan has witnessed over the last 10 years.
I reckon we are just a couple of signings from a squad that will be strong enough and well equipped to gun for all trophies come March (cliché yeah? If I pulled out a strand of hair off my head – note, I’m sporting an afro at the moment – for every time I’ve read that same analysis, I’d have gone bald in less than two weeks).
I must confess, I’ll miss the silly season because for some, normalcy will be restored and they’ll stop giving us beautiful dreams of signing Cavani, Pogba, Reus, Vidal, and *insert name of really expensive player* in the same window. The thrill of checking my Arsenal list on twitter for new rumors of the next player who’ll be having a medical at London Colney and hoping they don’t get on a plane that will disappear or be shot down. Oh how I’ll miss all the jobless sprout their expert analysis of how X player would suit our system and Y player won’t.
That being said, the end of the silly season spells the beginning of competitive football around the world or in my case, the beginning of Arsenal F.C competing against all the other teams in the world in a game of football on weekends or weekdays; and Derbies with the guys with a battered chicken on their badge.
As has been made evident over previous seasons, this period of competitive football brings with it extreme highs and absolutely unbearable lows and I am pretty sure this season has quite a lot of both in store for us, crossing my fingers hoping it’s more of former. Whilst the highs during the season can be likened to the effects you feel from having a few drags of ahem…grass, the lows I’d liken to the effect of having to face a Dementor for 30 seconds.
Lost are ya? You see, Dementors are the guards of Azkaban (prison for dark wizards) whose only power is the ability to repress all your happy memories whilst bringing to the fore your sad- sad memories, leaving you in a state of severe depression. *Note, this is just from a 30 second exposure.
Every Arsenal loss leaves me in a state identical to this and I would like to assume it does the same to you. You feel like nothing in the world is right, nothing gives you joy, every opposition fan saying anything about the previous match is like further exposure to a dementor and you are left wondering why you continue to expose yourself to such emotional vulnerability, the thought of killing it all crosses your mind, it becomes ultimately unbearable because everywhere you turn, there’s either discussion about football or highlights reel.
We all feel this and as much as you would love to hear that there is a solution, I’m sorry to say there isn’t. For we can only learn to survive the effect of a dementor, whilst waiting, until the Arsenal can supply us with magic (An Arsenal win) to drive the dementor away.
But how do we then survive the dementor?
Simple. If constant exposure to a dementor leaves us in a constant state of depression then to survive it, we have to limit the amount of exposure we have with them (highlights, football discussions unless with Arsenal fans who feel the same way).
For example, you never want to go on twitter after a loss, I know I don’t. I avoid all football discussions for the next week until such a time I feel strong enough mentally, I never watch highlights again until we win the next game (am I MAD?). These few practices helps me survive dementors until Arsenal provide me with a Patronous aka magic.
So then, the new season is upon us and as always I’m optimistic and I know you are. Let’s hope the new season will provide us with much less demontors than in previous seasons. When these dementors eventually turn up, I’m sure rather than let it drive you to tweeting absurd opinions and launching attacks against the manager and players, you’ll survive it until a Patronus comes along.
