The Warm-Up: Arsenal scuppered by a house-buying chain

It’s impossible not to feel pretty sorry for Daniel Sturridge, really. For all the whispers that he only wants to play when fully fit, and a demeanour that does sometimes suggest he is not exactly the greatest laugh in the world, here is a man who at his best is a brilliant, deadly finisher with a bazooka in his left foot.

But thanks to constant fitness problems his career has essentially been scuppered in the last few years, to the point where a bit-part role at Liverpool would represent a step-up, having fallen behind fellow treatment room regular Danny Ings in the pecking order.

Sturridge has seemingly realised that moping around, not even on the bench will do nobody any good, and with the World Cup in the summer looming has sorted a loan move to West Brom. In some ways it is slightly ridiculous that no bigger clubs than Newcastle or the Baggies were interested in him, although there were reports that Inter were keen.

But let’s all hope it works out for him. His faults are obvious, but at times there’s nothing more thrilling than the anticipation of what is about to happen when Sturridge shifts the ball onto his left foot and lets fly.

Much like an irritated house-buyer whose efforts are being held up by people down the chain dithering, Arsenal’s attempt to purchase themselves a roomy, luxurious, seven-bedroom mansion of a centre-forward are, at the time of writing, being held up by circumstances beyond their control.

Let’s see if we’ve got this right. Several reports state that Arsenal have agreed a fee worth around £55million for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with Borussia Dortmund. Only thing is Dortmund won’t sell until they’ve got a replacement, and they quite fancy either Olivier Giroud (and who wouldn’t?) or Michy Batshuayi.

The latter is keen, the former not quite so much, because his head has been turned by the potential of replacing Batshuayi at Chelsea, staying in London and all that. Trouble is Chelsea have been put off by Arsenal’s asking price for the immaculately-groomed Frenchman, so are looking at other options.

Make sense? No? We get the feeling that, like a riddle or a David Lynch film, it’s not supposed to.

Spitting is bad. There’s a revolutionary statement for you. It’s unpleasant. It’s the sort of thing a child does. That horrible, dozy child at school who almost certainly ended up being the hapless fourth man on a bank job and got everyone caught because he lost the keys to the getaway car.

Arthur Matsuaku is the latest player to commit what is apparently the ultimate football sin, the one that as Dean Saunders utterly absurdly says here, is worse than a punch in the face.

Saunders’ statement is the sort of thing that’s easy to mock, the sort of cartoon Proper Football Man stuff that’s crashingly simple to parody, but it appears that the FA agree with him, for Matsuaku has been given a six-game suspension for gobbing at Wigan’s Nick Powell on Saturday, the sort of absolutely absurd punishment that makes you wonder if the entire game is being run by old-fashioned ex-pros.

Look, we hate to be this guy, and these sort of comparisons always end up sounding a bit daft, but it is worth pointing out that John Terry was only suspended for four games after being found guilty of “using abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour towards Queens Park Rangers’ Anton Ferdinand and which included a reference to colour and/or race contrary.”

Ever think football just needs to grow up a bit?

That said, let’s hope football doesn’t grow up to the point where this stuff no longer happens. The looks of bafflement on the faces of everyone involved are just superb.

You may have heard that the sainted one himself, David Beckham, has a new venture. He’s now a team owner, having announced that he will be the top dog for the latest MLS franchise, in Miami. He’s paid $25m for his team to enter the league in two years, and he’s certainly talking a good game.

“We want to reach for the stars,” he said, giving the impression that his speech was written by Aaron Sorkin. “We want the best players in, but more importantly for us we want to create a state of the art academy where we have a hotbed of talent in this part of America.”

Of course, this team as yet has no name, no players, no manager, no colours and no stadium (there’s still an ongoing appeal against the proposed location for the ground they plan to build). All of which are problems that don’t need to be solved just yet, they do have two years to do it, but the problem when the team does actually start up is whether anyone will go.

To generalise wildly, Florida is not an especially enthusiastic sports state. The basketball team does fine, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers struggle with attendance and virtually nobody goes to either the Tampa Bay Rays or the Miami Marlins baseball teams. We’re sure lots of marketing research has gone into all this, but call us sceptics about whether Beckso’s plan will ultimately work in the long-run.

Paolo Bandini takes a look at Gennaro Gattuso’s tenure at Milan so far which appears to be….erm….working. Huh. Who knew?

It’s a big happy birthday to Dimitar Berbatov, 37 today and as fast as he was when he was 21. Celebrating by watching, and drinking in, that absurd goal he scored for Monaco.

It’s midweek Premier League! Oh yes! Yes! Yes! YES! A few tasty little morsels this evening, featuring Arsenal paying Swansea a visit, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and all, Liverpool at Huddersfield West Ham face Crystal Palace.