Naked mummies, other Egyptian malarkey, and oh, I don’t know what’s wrong with Arsenal

By Darshan Joshi, writing from Sydney

It is fair to say Arsenal are being unravelled.

The word ‘unravelled’ always brings me back to those Egyptian mummies. What if the hundreds of yards of linen used to wrap these Pharaohs of old acted as a way of preserving not just the bodies of these dead kings, but their lives? Imagine Akhenaten roaming the streets of New York, Tuthmosis swimming across the Thames, Tutankhamun climbing Mount Everest, announcing their plans to go after the woman of their pleasing. All it would take is one exceptionally curious archaeologist with cojones of steel to engage in a little unwrappin’, and bam!, our world is penetrated by a multitude of mummies with iPods whistling this kind of music in their ears, drinking out of Starbucks cups specially designed with hieroglyphics, sent down by Anubis and Ra and Horus et al, promising immortal life, plenty of sex, unflinching wealth and nice triangular towers.

Perhaps losing to Blackburn Rovers, then, was the best thing that could have happened to Arsenal. Now that they have been demummified, they look cadaverous. European football will feel the wrath of an uglier Bakary Sagna, a shorter Andrey Arshavin, and a skinnier Tomas Rosicky. A blinder Arsene Wenger. Doesn’t that frighten you? Arsenal are now a bunch of naked mummies. With emphasis on naked.

We might not be laughing at Arsenal anymore because their demise is plainly sad, but rule number one* of Nile-land is that you never feel sorry for mummies, especially exhibitionistic ones. They will suffocate you with their lingering toilet rolls. They will pluck your heart out and place it on a weighing scale. They will end you.

There is a lesson within this inane, insane babble - Ancient Egypt was scary.

And, solving this Arsenal crisis will be difficult. Something is wrong, but we don’t know what. It isn’t the personnel, because on papyrus, they have a strong squad. It’s not the manager, because he’s a genius with papyrus qualifications aplenty. But since they’re now naked, maybe, you know, ~~pornographic~~ sexy football and all that. It’s not illegal because there are no rules in modern football about public mummy nudity. Alternatively, another solution could be to empty the injury tables, and send players on in casts (it’s the closest you can get to modern day mummification). Both ways are sure to scare opposition eyes out of their eye-sockets, and it sure would be easier to beat a team of blind folk.

If all that doesn’t work, I guess Wenger could just go back to using tactics. Or something.