Apologies To Kurt Vonnegut

"People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore. I've finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt".

- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5

Listen: Connolly's agent is unstuck in time.

When he walks, he walks in the footsteps of his past. He repeats the mistakes of his past. It's as if he fell off his bike as a kid, and refused to get back on. And he's been sitting on the side of the road for all these years, waiting for someone to pick him up, dust him off, and give him a ride back home. But of course, the only way out of that park is to get back on that bike.

So it goes.

When he contemplates all the time he's wasted, Connolly's agent is so fucking annoyed that there's no way he can express his disgust. This is real life, so there are no friendly aliens from Tralfamadore to abduct him, nor any convenient metaphor to explain how some things are so awful that the only way to comprehend it is obliquely, through refracted glass and in the blackest, darkest humour.

Or maybe there is, only Kurt Vonnegut told it better than I ever could.

So it goes.

When Wenger sold Vieira, he told us to trust him. I did, although my body shook with fer at the thought of the endless seasons without him. As the season progressed, we realised something was drastically wrong. And as we started to shed Premiership winners like a tree sheds leaves in autumn, we realised that the long, hard winter was approaching. And still, we trusted him, because Wenger Knows, and because we know that after every winter comes spring.

So it goes.

Three years later, and our tree had been denuded. Of the Invincibles, only Toure and remains. Spring follows winter, though, and our season started brightly. Vieira and co. have been scattered to the four winds, and what's left is the new Arsenal. The ground has begun to thaw. Fresh buds and new leaves have emerged. There's the vibrant promise of youth, of new growth. And this season, for the first time in three years, we mounted a title challenge.

But with Flamini as good as gone, Hleb on his way and a tight transfer kitty to play with, we wonder if we've the resources to regenerate. We don't have much time. Summer will come soon, and if we're not ready, it'll be autumn before we've prepared. Our players are reaching their prime years and we're still stuck in the rebuilding stage. If we don't get a perfect replacement for Flamini, it'll be another six months to adjust, and another season wasted. And by that stage, another of our players will have become disillusioned, and agitate for a transfer.

So it goes.

There's no point to this post. It's just a circular train of thought about a team always takes retreats two steps for each advancing step. It's no bombing of Dresden, and I'm really uncomfortable for making this comparison, but I can't come up with a better way of describing my emotions right now, other than through that book. And in its own way, it is similarly tragic, pointless and difficult to come to grips with.

In the end, what else can you say but:

Poo-tee-weet?