Editor – Arsenal do.
Me – Huh?
Editor – It’s quite simple. You know how you wrote at the start of this article that you love this time of year? Well so do Arsenal, because it’s season ticket renewal time. All of that lovely stadium revenue is about to fall into the board’s lap like an Easter egg made out of myrrh, and it certainly wouldn’t be a good time for fans to start thinking about possibly not renewing their hugely expensive tickets.
Me – So Arsenal are leaking details of their transfer plans in order to curry favour with the fans? That seems a bit short-sighted, no? I get that it might encourage a few fans into renewing their season tickets, but won’t making their interest in players end up inflating the market and costing them money in the summer?
Editor – Nope, because look at who they’re linked with. Xhaka has a release clause, so Arsenal could paint his name on the North Bank and they still wouldn’t have to pay a penny extra if they bought him. As for Mkhitaryan, it might bump up his transfer fee by a few million, but because he has one year left on his contract, he’s available for around £20m. So if Arsenal ended up paying £24 million and managed to get a few extra ticket renewals up front, then it’s win-win. It also doesn’t hurt them if the fans are not talking about wanting to the manager to leave, because nobody on the board wants Wenger to go, even Alisher Usmanov.
Me – So because Arsenal want some good PR, the rest of us now have to put up with transfer gossip until the end of the season. Sigh.
Editor – Pretty much. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Have you seen the size of my ad revenue lately?
Me – Euphemism?
Editor – Yes and no. I am pretty excited about it.
Me – Does that mean I’ll finally get that pay rise we’ve discussed?
Editor – Erm… no. They said it wasn’t feasible at this time.
Me – They?! Who are ‘they’?!
Editor – Er… it was an anonymous source… *runs*
Me – *sighs* What a massive, massive clickbait that man is.