I find this picture somewhat confusing, emotionistically.

[Ashberto]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Busquets,_F%C3%A0bregas_%26_Van_Persie.jpg/220px-Busquets,_F%C3%A0bregas_%26_Van_Persie.jpg

Caption ideas?

[Monty91]

becoming independent, flying the nest and achieving great things.

Any Arsenal fan who doesn't feel that way I would suggest is emotionally defective and probably had a problematic relationship with their own parents as a child.

[Maravilloso Marvo]

[Ashberto]

[7evens]

when in hindsight, knew that the 48" was needed to placate the family members ...... sort of.

[Maravilloso Marvo]

[Monty91]

How many players of their quality stay at one club for their whole careers, or even beyond 7-8 years? Even Man Utd couldn't keep hold of Ronaldo.

[Pokster]

[Monty91]

brought on by a difficult childhood. You eat because you hate yourself, and you hate yourself because you eat. It's a classic vicious circle that affects many people suffering from deep-rooted psychological angst that can be traced back to adolescence.

[Maravilloso Marvo]

Anymore.

[Guns 'n' Roses]

Not insult intended - you pride yourself in distancing yourself from the typical football fan, don't you?

[Bergkamp's Brain]

The only downside is that they have left a gap behind that is yet to be filled.

[Curly]

[Monty91]

are nothing of the sort. I think football fandom is built on one giant lie that claims their "support" is based on something other than self-interest.

[Guns 'n' Roses]

Some people will say that the best supporters are those who support the team and only those players who play for the team - hence the word "supporter".

You're talking about being interested in football, where you can actually manage to feel joy watching classy football players that don't play for the club you wish will win. And even enjoy players that left the club you like.

[Luis Anaconda]

[Monty91]

Today is a good day, but tomorrow is another challenge.

[Bergkamp's Brain]

[Monty91]

It's people you love. And yet football supporters display no evidence that they care about their club's representatives beyond the point that they are of use. This isn't consistent with any definition of love.

It's like stopping loving your wife because she was in an accident and became a vegetable.

[Peter]

One of your worst ever?

You used to be good

[Peter]

Another bloke.

Something which most people would see as both logical and emotionally healthy.

[Monty91]

That includes losing form, or simply just being ****.

[Guns 'n' Roses]

[Peter]

Why move the goalposts?

[Monty91]

Guns and Roses cited my general attitude to being a football supporter, not just my attitude to players who move on, and I responded.

[Luis Anaconda]

even by awimb's standards

[Peter]

So just to clear it ip, should we continue to love the players who leave, regardless of where they go, what thy say, what they do?

And if so, why?

[Peter]

Dont you want to become a better person?

[Bergkamp's Brain]

:noah: I know

[Monty91]

indicates your love for them was only ever superficial.

But certainly, the more dubious behaviour is hating a player still at the club.

[Peter]

I suppose it depends on whether you accept that a man can love an institutuion.

I always thought that i loved the players because they played for the club. Now it seems that is jut silly.

I may need a new hobby.

[Alexism - Atheoist]

Enough said.

[Monty91]

Whilst you may be pleased for them going onto better things, they can no longer provide you with the peaks of ecstasy that we all go to watch football in the hope of experiencing.

You may claim it would be logical to hate a woman who leaves you for another man, but I don't see it as a precise parallel. Like I say, I see it more like a parent-child relationship.

[Peter]

Although i did say that most people would think that. clearly it isnt actually logical but it is certainly not difficult to understand.

It is you who keeps mentioning hate. And the wife parallel was yours, not mine.

I suppose the difference with the parent child thing is that your love for your child has nothing to do with whether they live with you or not. I understand that love as unconditional and purely for its own sake. I could be wrong there.

The love for a lumbering great piss-head of a centre back is based largely on the fact ththe rips people to pieces on ehalf of your club every week. It stems from your love for the club, which is apparently silly.

Take away your love for the institution and none of this makes sense, none of it means anything. I would urge you to accept the fact, in the way one might accept someone's attachment to a religion or a church.

Not everything has to be an intellectual exercise.

[Bergkamp's Brain]

Would you accept that she has gone on to bigger and better things? What if she took the cat?

[Ashberto]

If ur gay for ex players that ur lookout but no insult etc

AW might feel pride in the quality of Cesc and Robin, but what did you do to develop them? You might need to rethink this paternalist metaphor imo.

[Ashberto]

:cooper:

[Monty91]

But this attachment to the institution has no value if you then treat its representatives poisonously and callously, at a whim.

[Bergkamp's Brain]

[Monty91]

who looks like Eric Morecambe. He does however work for the world's biggest law firm and earns more in a month than I do in a year :-(

[Ashberto]

and you can still afford sixty quid steaks so you can't be doing that badly.

[Bergkamp's Brain]

If I ditched a girl that went on to marry a rich guy who was fat and looked like a middle aged, syrup wearing, comic straight guy, I'd feel vindicated that I dumped her.

But you didn't answer the original question.

[Steve Williams - gay for Mark Knopfler]

No emotion, no f**k all.

1 cheat, 1 rapist and 1 wee c**t.

[Bergkamp's Brain]

[Monty91]

You just starve for the rest of the month. Easy. :-(

I doubt you saw much change out of £60 per head at St John's.

[Ashberto]

Probably under £50 for three courses.