So the World Cup has crashed to a close, and around the world, millions of people are losing interest in soccer/football for another four years (cough, or one year if you’re interested in how awesome the Matildas are going to be in the REAL World Cup next year).

Unless, you know, you follow a regular team!

For Arsenal supporters, the next few weeks are critical. We’re watching the slow, painful process of our boys making their way back into regular training, sporting bruises, groin strains and emotional scars, and knowing our boys a few of the ones who spent their holidays at the beach will have been accidentally decapitated while sunbaking. Yes, they’re that fragile.

But just because the season is several weeks away doesn’t mean there isn’t a rollercoaster of melodramatic angst, heartbreak, romance and hope to keep us all riveted to our laptops.

We thought the biggest stress this summer break was going to be whether or not our beloved leader (in Arsene we Trust… mostly… ish… as long as he buys some freaking players) actually caved and admitted to the world that none of our goalkeepers are any good. Almunia, our No. 1, had a catastrophic lack of form last season, matched only by the screaming panic attacks we witnessed whenever his backup, Fabianski, took the job on. By the end of it every Arsenal fan was begging for random people off the street to be put in goal.

So yes, we were expecting a summer of nailbiting. Would Arsene buy a new goalie? Would he not? Would we be stuck with a twelve-year-old in the position and honestly, could that be worse? But instead, another drama swept into the foreground, and we stopped biting our nails and started chewing our hands off instead.

Cesc. Our adored boy captain, the one and only, the baby-faced hero of the team, and the BEST HOLDING MIDFIELDER IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. Otherwise known to the rest of you as that chap who passed Iniesta the ball so he could kick the goal that won the World Cup. Since the beginning of the summer, the papers have been full of the news. Cesc wants to leave Arsenal. Cesc wants to go home to Barcelona, to the team we always knew he would return to… one day. But not this summer. Not at 23, with only a season and a half wearing our captain’s band, having spent a significant chunk of that time out on injury. Not with four years left on his contract.

But what Barcelona wants, Barcelona gets. After weeks of blatant tapping up through the media (in which we heard from Cesc’s dad, his mates and just about every Barcelona player how much he wants to join their team, though the man himself had not spoken publicly about it, Barca finally made a financial offer. An insulting offer. An offer which did not in any way compensate for Arsenal losing their captain, a player nurtured by them for six years, who still has so many years left on contract. Arsenal said no, and oh by the way? Don’t bother negotiating, he is NOT FOR SALE AT ALL.

We cheered, but oh there was a sickening feeling in our stomach, and sure enough, it hasn’t stopped. What Barca wants, Barca gets. The World Cup has come to an end and we still don’t know if our captain is coming back this season. He dedicated the Spain win to our team, and we don’t know if that was a sign of loyalty or a farewell gesture. Through it all, Cesc has stayed classy, and the rest of them have… not. Because yeah, that funny joke where two Barca players forced their team shirt over him in front of the cameras during the final World Cup celebration? Not actually funny, especially when you can see how one of them held his hands so he couldn’t take the damn thing off. And yeah, though things are looking hopeful, we still don’t know how this one’s going to end.

The Arsenal angst doesn’t end there. What about poor old Robin Van Persie, whose World Cup dreams were smashed by that final game between Spain and the Netherlands, and who barely even got the ball passed to him? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m just grateful he got out of it with his limbs unbroken. And the quote about how Cesc’s first thought on winning the World Cup was going to comfort his Arsenal teammate? Awwww. You know there was cuddling.

Then there’s Theo Walcott, whose dreams were dashed before the World Cup even started when he was left out of the England team in a shock move, right at the last minute. Of course, considering how badly the English team bombed out (wayyy too many roosters in that henhouse) he probably ended up looking better than the rest of them, but I doubt Theo sees it that way. And don’t get me started on Andrey Arshavin, whose heart was broken a year ago when Russia didn’t make it in at all, and subsequently lost his playing mojo. Come back to us, Andrey. We need our little pocket rocket back in action!

Thank goodness for Nicky B, who can always be relied on for the comic relief or feel good factor. The lanky lad once known for his pink books, crashing sports cars and dropping his daks in public has knocked up his Danish baroness, and they are getting married! Everyone, awwww.

Will our boys return to Arsenal with their hearts, souls and hamstrings intact? Will new boys Chamakh and Koscielny fit in with the gang as well as the awesome assassin-faced Vermaelen, last season’s hit signing? Will Eboue continue to hide the belongings of the other players in the change rooms? Will Diaby lose the facial hair? Will Denilson be able to grow some? Will Alex Dmitri SONG Billong get to stay in midfield, or be pushed back into defence again? Most importantly of all, what will Nasri and Rosicky do with their hair this season?

And people wonder why I don’t bother watching Bold and the Beautiful any more…

Tags: andrey arshavin, arsenal, arsene wenger, cesc fabregas, fabianski, football, manuel almunia, nicky bendtner, theo walcott, thomas vermaelen