Puma | Woolwich 1886, an Arsenal site

Depending on whom you trust these days, there are reports that Puma, excited at its new deal with Arsenal, would love to bring Balotelli to Arsenal as a way of combining two of their biggest brands and might even be willing to pony up £15m to overcome Arsène’s reluctance to spend the £40m or so that AC Milan rates him. At first blush, I thought, “hell no. Yeah, he is capable of scoring boatloads of goals, but he’s a basket-case just as likely to lose his head or disappear into a sulk as he is to score. No thanks.” At second blush, I reconsidered it: “well, maybe Arsène could calm him down, draw out the man from the man-child, and turn him into the lethal striker he sometimes is.” At third blush (I’m kind of a bashful guy), I realized, “why focus on Balotelli? Surely, other players have deals with Puma?”

A quick search revealed that I was right. If we’re going to let Puma start making suggestions, we could do worse than to field a starting XI that includes Cazorla, Giroud, Arteta, Sagna, and Rosický, each of whom already has a Puma sponsorship. However, scrolling through the list reveals a savory variety of possibilities, Balotelli included. Here, then, is a quick run-down some of the more mouth-watering prospects…

Player	Current Club	Value	Advantages		Drawbacks
Sergio Agüero	Man City	£39m	· 15 goals in 17 matches. · Continues tradition of signing players with umlauts in name. · Face it. He’s adorable.	· Unlikely to leave a league rival. · Spats with Giroud over “sexy” vs. “adorable” could get messy.
Radamel Falcao	AS Monaco	£53m	· 9 goals in 17 matches. · We’d see what Arteta’s hair would look like if he grew it out.	· We’d have to explain what “taxes” are. · We already have two players with torn ACLs.
Mario Balotelli	AC Milan	£40m	· 13 goals in 25 matches. · Acquainted with Prem. · Instantly ups the “lunatic” element.	· Did I mention that he might be crazy? · Falling-out with Arsene over what’s harder to use: zippers or trainers.
Marco Reus	Dortmund	£30m	· 12 goals in 26 matches. · Idolizes Rosicky. Good taste. · Dortmund might have to sell him.	· I think there’s a limit to how many midfielders a club can have. Some kind of quota? · Can he transition from heavy metal to orchestra?
Marta	Tyresö FF	£400k	· Accustomed to winning silverware. · A comparative bargain. · Think of the marketing boost ahead of the World Cup…	· Accustomed to winning silverware. · Is the Prem ready for its first female-player?
Cesc Fàbregas	Barcelona	£44m	· C’mon. It’s Cesc.	· It’d be kinda like that awkward fourth-form dance, wouldn’t it?

Now, to be honest, I was surprised to see that Puma’s roster contains so many older players—Gianluigi Buffon (36), Yaya Toure (30), Dante (30), Nemanja Vidic (32), Michael Carrick (32), Alessandro Diamianti (30), and Stephan Lichtsteiner (30) are all long in the tooth, and that’s not including Thierry Henry (∞). It looks like Puma sees the deal with Arsenal as a chance to reinvigorate its own international profile. With that in mind, rather than letting them try to leverage us to bring on a player from their stable, perhaps we should be leveraging them. Our allure is now so strong that we’re now the most-popular club in China, home to 20% of all of humanity and untapped market for football gear.

After all, it’s not as if Arsène would suddenly say, after more than 17 years managing the club by his own prerogatives, would suddenly say, “Oh, Puma? You want a little bit to tell me who to sign? This is okay with me” and let them run with it. No, it’s far-more likely that the money from the Puma deal will go signing someone whom Arsène prefers, whether it’s the likes of Draxler or whoever. Still, there’s no harm in dreaming, is there?

Arsenal fans were greeted today by a pair of wonderful news items and third solid one: the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson, the announcement of a new sponsorship deal with Puma, and a draw between Spurs and Chelsea. Between the first two, our long-term future looks much, much rosier than it did earlier in the week. It’s not that Man U will suddenly slump from the top of the table, nor will the infusion of cash from the Puma deal drive us to the top, but, all the same, it’s quite a good day for us. That third item strengthens our hold on 4th while keeping 3rd within reach. Not bad. Not bad at all.

First, Ferguson’s retirement. Congratulations and all to him on a storied career. Moving on. There’s bound to be speculation about his replacement, currently focusing on Everton’s David Moyes (checks all the right boxes: grouchy, Scottish, dislikes Wenger…). Whoever it is will inherit a strong squad and buckets of cash to spend in the summer. Who they bring in will matter a great deal, of course, and will certainly have an influence on who’s there next year. I doubt that Ferguson’s departure will dampen Ronaldo’s interest in returning, for example, but it might just hasten Rooney’s departure. Before I get too busy rumor-mongering, though, we’ll leave those issues aside. Of more direct predictability is that the new Man U manager will likely have less, um influence over referees and the FA than Ferguson has had. He’s been one of the Prem’s most-successful managers of the last twenty years, presiding over an impressive run of league championships and other honors. It seems that the only one he couldn’t win is the Champions League. Therefore, for him to step down presents Man U with a tremendous set of shoes to fill. One way or another, there’s likely to be a slight dip in Man U’s stature, if not its position on the table, especially if the wrong manager is brought on. Something tells me they already have their man all lined up. I doubt Ferguson would simply jump ship without Man U having a plan of succession. They’re not Chelsea, after all.

One design making the rounds. Not wild about those stripes…

That’s all fine and dandy, but the even-better news is the announcement of the new deal with Puma. I’ve never liked Nike, seeing them as relative latecomers to football. I haven’t seen details of the deal yet, but it’s apparently a record-setting deal in the realm of £30m per season, absolutely obliterating the terms of our Nike deal, which was closer to £8m per season. To make another comparison, Man U’s current deal with Nike gets them about £19m per season. Liverpool’s deal with Warrior gets them £25m. Good God. All of these are eye-popping sums of money. However, having money means little to nothing unless you put it to good use. We’ve seen some pretty snazzy new facilities go up in recent years, so I’m not alone in begging that this money be used on the players, old and new, who use those facilities. I’ve long been opposed to becoming just another Chelsea or Man City, brazenly throwing piles of cash around until they get what they want. I know that money makes the world go around and that we all have a selling price, but let’s maintain some sanity around this. For one thing, once we splurge on a player, we run the risk of not just overpaying for him but also of breeding resentment among our current players, some of whom will look elsewhere even if we do make them a better offer. In some cases, that’s a good thing, to be sure, but it’s still something to be mindful of. Before we go out and go crazy in the transfer market, then, let’s enjoy this for what it is: one more step towards restoring ourselves to glory. To cadge from Arsène, this might mean the end of sausages, but we need not indulge in caviar three times a day. As tough as it’s been at times, we’ve known that we’d have to finance the new stadium and therefore be much-more judicious with spending. Now that we’re about to emerge from that burden, we don’t have to go crazy. This isn’t Brewster’s Millions.

Last but not least, yet another result has gone our way as Chelsea and Spurs fought to a testy 2-2 draw, leaving Chelsea in 3rd and Spurs in 5th. Although many of us were hoping for a Chelsea win to clarify 4th place on our behalf, a draw works almost as well. With Spurs now a point behind us, we control our fates. By winning over Wigan and Newcastle, we stay in 4th with nothing Spurs can say or do to stop us. We retain a decent chance of catching Chelsea as well, but I’m less concerned with that than I am with holding 4th. We’ll take a closer look at those issues later. In brief, Chelsea has a trip to face a stubborn Aston Villa, fighting to avoid relegation; their Europa final, and a visit from Everton, all in the space of eight days. Spurs have an easier go of it, with a trip to face Stoke, who look to be safe from relegation, and then hosting Sunderland, who are still in the thick of that fight, at least for the moment.

We very nearly bagged a hat-trick of great news today. I’m certainly not complaining. I’ll take it.