THE ITALIAN JOB

The Fiver knows a good deal when it sees one. If we were, to pluck an image out of thin air, a highly capable 28-year-old midfielder who had never quite been fully appreciated in a decade’s service to his current club, then a five-year stint in one of football’s most imposing citadels might seem a fairly smart bit of work. Let’s call that midfielder “Aaron Ramsey”, let’s call the club about to lose him “Arsenal” and let’s call the European powerhouse about to spirit him away “Juventus”. Suddenly it all seems rather real.

Of course The Fiver’s rapier wit and ability to blunder a few paragraphs out midway through every afternoon have endeared us so much to our employers that we can’t entirely sympathise with Ramsey’s status in north London. But it is something of a conundrum that, while Arsenal draw breath for next season’s Battle For Fourth, a player they apparently have little future use for will be heading to the summit of Serie A and – presumably – a regular place in the latter stages of Big Cup, preparing to slot into the middle alongside Blaise Matuidi and Miralem Pjanic.

Ramsey will be asked to channel his inner John Charles, “Il Gigante Buono”, in Turin. They love a buccaneering Welshman there – those who can remember the 1950s and 60s, anyway – and if history is an accurate guide he should increase his league title tally from zero to something near Charles’s tally of three. It has been some time coming: Ramsey was struck by horror-knack soon after joining Arsenal; recovered only to find himself the target of brainless boo-boys; cast that all aside to score seemingly every time he kicked a ball in 2013-14; scored two FA Cup final winners in a period when the Emirates Cup was the only other trophy to which they gave the glad eye; kept on keeping on, yet still never quite found his rightful place, either in the team or supporters’ affections.

A rumbustious reincarnation of early $tevie Mbe? A canny operator with Lampard-esque timing? Perhaps an all-round string-puller extraordinaire of the Toni Kroos stripe? Nobody has ever quite worked out what Ramsey is, but then it would take a crack class of PhD students in undelivered promise to work out what Arsenal have been in the past few years either. Tough decisions – like giving Mesut Özil a bumper new deal and then realising your biggest creative threat comes from Sead Kolasinac – need making and Unai Emery already has one well-remunerated playmaker to keep happy, after all. Their planning might have been shoddy but Ramsey’s might have turned out to be rather astute. His present and future employers’ trajectories are already set for now, and he won’t change that; he should be remembered properly as a winner in future, though, and that might be the sweetest deal of all.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“In particular, for young men who find themselves deprived of viable routes to employment opportunities, gambling promises an alternative route to wealth, social capital and masculine affirmation, yet most end up ensnared in a cycle of indebtedness” – a major new study reveals the “dire consequences” of football’s relationship with gambling.

26 out of 44 Premier League and Championship clubs have a gambling company as their main shirt sponsor. Composite: Getty Images, Rex/Shutterstock

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FIVER LETTERS

“So Tottenham’s pre-season advertising of White Hart Lane being ‘the only place to watch [Big Cup] in London’ was a play on words, then” – Lori Messori.

“Shocked and saddened to see the omission of Southend’s own Roots Hall from the dismal away experiences list (Fiver letters passim). The combination of overwhelming pungent urine fragrance and a view-obstructing post covering any critical element of the action is clearly unbeatable. That said, with the way Ipswich play this season a few more view-obstructing posts would improve the watching experience” – Thomas Connolly.

“Try this, albeit from the main stand, at Selhurst Park” – Michael Everest.

Oh Michael! Photograph: Michael Everest

“Premier League footballers are always keen to boost their earnings from image rights. But I was still surprised to see that Balkan building block Xherdan Shaqiri has been the face of British sugar for decades” – Mark McFadden.

Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Mark McFadden.

BITS AND BOBS

PSG boss Thomas Tuchel is feeling a tad funky after his team were booted out of the French League Cup by Guingamp. “We played with too much self-confidence during the whole game,” he sighed. “We thought nothing could happen to us.”

The FA will ask West Ham to provide further details about the £250,000 sponsorship agreement between their women’s team and sports management agency USM.

Unai Emery admits Arsenal cannot afford to buy any players in this transfer window. “We can only loan players,” he tooted.

Only a day since leaving Luton, it feels like new Stoke boss Nathan Jones has been gone too long. “The amount of times I’ve cried from text messages from players,” he sobbed. “It makes me emotional because I was married to the club.”

Your man. Photograph: David Davies/PA

West Ham have no plans to sell Marko Arnautovic after receiving a £35m bid from an unnamed Chinese club, but the forward is apparently tempted.

And Ibai Gómez has made the surprising move to leave high-flying Alavés for a return to La Liga strugglers Athletic Bilbao. “I know many people will not understand this decision and will not share my thinking,” he cooed. “I thank Alavés for everything, I will always have the club in my heart, but today it’s time to return home.”

STILL WANT MORE?

Amy Lawrence on Aaron Ramsey.

The best young players in the Championship this season, as chosen by Martin Laurence.

The forgotten story of … Di Jones and the footballers who died of tetanus.

Di Jones. Photograph: No Credit

All the latest January deals in our transfer interactive.

A wild poker story.

A wild Vatican story.

Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!