Tweety Enters The Arse?

Fear not! My first article here isn't some terrible cartoon/posterior fantasy. Far from it. It is about the, quite frankly, surprising news to which I awoke this morning. Mikael Silvestre, Tweety to his... friends, has left Manchester United and joined Arsenal.

Now, let me get something cleared up here and now. I couldn't care less that he has gone. I've never rated Silvestre—at times he does a very good impression of a supporter who has won a competition to play at Old Trafford. And is colour blind, with the co-ordination of an elderly giraffe on a bouncy castle.

Whether I could care less or not is an irrelevance though. He's gone to Arsenal and I just can't fathom it. Despite my dislike for Silvestre, I would rather he not go to one of our rivals, Not out of bitterness, but purely because I am concerned he might come good. And more specifically, he might come good against us.

Classic example. Samuel Eto'o is on Real Madrid's books. They don't like the cut of his jib, so they offload him to Mallorca, where he scores a shed load of goals and earns himself a move to Barcelona.

At Barca he becomes one of the most feared strikers on the planet, let alone Spain, and scores more goals. And guess who came back to haunt Madrid on more than one occasion?

Football is littered with stories of revenge, teams avenging previous defeat, England being punished for inventing the game by penalty shootouts and players haunting their previous clubs.

Silvestre spent nine (long, and often painful, error strewn) years at Manchester United. He has a lot of qualities—lightening pace, decent delivery from out wide and a head shaped like a kidney, so he might be an attractive signing for some clubs.

The smart money at the start of the summer was a return to France with Laurent Blanc's Bordeaux, then a move to Sunderland was mooted before a move across Manchester to the bitters seemed likely. And then Arsene Wenger stepped in to take him to Arsenal. We all know Arsene has a penchant for French talent, but surely he's seen Silvestre play?!

Surely he is aware of his chronic lapses in concentration and often woeful tackling (a game against Necaxa of Mexico springs instantly to mind, where he tried to get an unwanted piggyback off an opposing striker)? I know Arsenal are thin on numbers in defence, but surely someone younger would be a better option?

Either way, Silvestre has departed Old Trafford and in Evra and hopefully in half of the da Silva twins, Fabio, United are well catered for in the left back slot.

So, farewell Tweety. I do hope you do well at Arsenal, but with the usual quota of comedy defending thrown in for good measure.

And to any Arsenal fans who may be reading this—don't be too hard on him.