And a hearty slap on the back goes to Theo Walcott, who has turned seventeen with more fanfare than is strictly necessary. He has much to look forward to, not least driving lessons, boozing (but not for a year) and earning oodles of cash (now).

Now, it’s been almost two months since he joined Arsenal, and he’s still not had anything other than a spot of benchwarming to do. Fair play to those (well, it was GMR on the comments page, and more than once I might add) who predicted he wouldn’t be seen in an Arsenal jersey (so to speak) before the day he inked his contract with us.

The logic went that it wasn’t worth the risk in case he set the world on fire and someone came in for him before he’d officially signed professional with us. Personally, I subscribe to the theory that it was merely a matter of Wenger easing him into the Arsenal setup gently.

Either way, I shall doff my 1987 Arsenal flat hat to you GMR if we see the young lad come on as a sub on Saturday.

We can assume he was frogmarched into Wenger’s office shortly after dawn this morning and given a new Parker pen or something, though no word has been forthcoming from the official mouthpiece as yet.

And now he’s off the breadline, picking up, we are told, a neat £2,000 per week. That’s especially neat for a seventeen-year-old.

And finally, I can exclusively reveal that Thierry Henry will blah blah blah yawn yawn yawn.

You read it here first.