The first staging post of the Premier League summer is upon us. Today, the league published the list of those players that will be in and out of contract next season. Though most of the decisions won't come as much of a surprise, given the intense coverage of anything even remotely connected to the transfer market, the list still has the capacity to raise a rueful smile or a sympathetic nod as it becomes clear which youths won't be making it after all and which long-serving veterans will be winding down their careers with different clubs.
The list isn't final and complete. It comes with the caveat that "players signified as a 'free transfer' or released by a club on the expiry of their contract on June 30, 2015, could remain there next season." But it's nevertheless indicative. Footballing contracts end on June 30, and the information is correct as of May 28, so while there's still a few weeks left -- and while there were rumors of a pay-as-you-play offer a short while ago -- it looks as though the unthinkable has happened. Make sure you're sitting down.
Arsenal have released Abou Diaby.
Yes, that lurch you just felt was the world twitching on its axis. Yes, those horses are eating one another. Yes, that bird has just reversed into a plate glass window, because even when they're flying backwards, birds gonna bird.
Some footballers are unlucky with injuries; Diaby, over his nine-and-a-half season Arsenal career, has made each of his look like lottery winners. Since Sunderland's Dan Smith went through his ankle in May — "an assassin's tackle," said Arsene Wenger — Diaby's become a kind of real-life Operation. In March the Daily Mail calculated that he had missed 222 weeks over his career with 42 separate injuries across his entire body, ranging from concussions down through abdominal strains and on into nearly every moving part of his legs.
In between lurching from groin strain to pelvic wrench and from ankle sprain to cruciate tear, Diaby managed to play 180 games for the north Londoners, which, stacked up against all those injuries, sounds like a lot. Even more remarkably, Diaby almost always looked good. You always thought that with a few games and the chance to work out a bit of rust he might finally get to show us why Wenger keeps putting faith in him to ... oh, oh dear, he's sneezed really hard and has now thrown out his back.
Forty-two injuries means 42 comebacks, of course, and if Diaby picking up an injury was inevitable so too was his return being hailed as "like a new signing." (Even Diaby himself saw the funny side of that refrain, as can be seen in that Mail link above.) But this is important: Diaby isn't just the player that kept getting injured; he's also the player that kept coming back. His persistent absence has always been twinned with his impending return, and so, while he hasn't really become the footballer he was supposed to, he has instead become a kind of avatar for the idealistic heart of the Wenger project and, from a wider perspective, for a noble refusal to bend to the rules of a cynical and calculating world.
He's been the King Arthur of Arsenal, the once and future prospect who will one day return and restore his midfield to glory. That nobody's ever really believed in his triumphant comeback isn't the point; what is is that the story is there, told and retold, giving a shape and a name and a face to hope.
Abou Diaby the player may be gone, or at least going, but Abou Diaby the concept will always be with us, as long as Wenger and his teachings are held dear in Islington. Whenever a young, delicate flower of the continent is scythed down by some 12-foot ogre in nail-studded boots, Diaby will be there screaming along with him. Whenever Arsenal's manager looks hard at a journalist and reminds him that while this summer's business might not look all that exciting, there is of course somebody to return from the treatment table, the wind will whisper Diaby's name. And whenever that young prospect makes his careful return in a reserves game, Diaby's spirit will smile down from the stands.
Of course, the only thing that could be more perfectly Arsenal than Diaby's career so far would be giving him another contract, so let's wait and see. And even if all the above leaves you cold, think of this: Many footballers have had longer careers than Abou Diaby. Very few, however, have taken advantage of that time by kicking John Terry square in the face.
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