“No thanks, Andre. You can keep your jersey. I don’t particularly care for it–or did you not notice?”

So, it’s apparently official: Andre Santos’s “dream” of playing for Vanderlei Luxemburgo has finally come true. Who knew that his long-term plan was to leverage a move to Arsenal in order to engineer  a loan-out? Well-played, Andre; well-played. In this light, your jersey-swap with Van Persie looks less like star-struck fanboy nonsense and more like Machiavellian plotting. Who knew?

All this time, we had come to see Santos as a bumbling, cheerful oaf who enjoys nothing more than having fun on the pitch and maybe kicking a ball once in a while. All this time, however, each missed tackle or feeble clearance was just another artful brush-stroke for his masterpiece. I could dub us all fools, but to do so insults the fiendish genius of the plan, the likes of which would have ensnared Poirot himself.

I kid. I think the move will be good for the lad. After all, he returns home to Brazil to play for a perennial league-champion. Even if it leaves us a little sparse on the back-line, I rather prefer dropping Ramsey back as we did against Sunderland over fielding Santos at all. A panicked signing after the 8-2 mauling at Old Trafford, he was thrown on with little time to adjust to EPL football. Too bad.  Nice guy, I’m sure, just not a nice signing. “¡Tudo de melhor, André! ¡Só não deixe a porta bater na bunda em seu caminho para fora!”