Under normal circumstances, a big club signing a 21-year-old with all of one senior appearance under his belt would hardly get noticed.
Maybe the club just wanted an extra body to fill out the squad, maybe they wanted to give their new Brazilian star somebody to talk to, or maybe they did it as a 'favour' to some shady agent.
But when the club is Arsenal, everybody sits up and takes notice. Therefore, great excitement greeted the plucking of Amaury Bischoff from the total obscurity of Werder Bremen reserves on a free.
He breaks the Arsene Wenger mould by not hailing from West Africa. Instead, like his new manager, comes from Alsace. He has a German name, he was born in France and he plays for Portugal Under-21s. Other than that, ED knows nothing.
Yet, given Wenger's track record for polishing turds so hard they crystallise into diamonds, within 24 months Bischoff will probably be a first-team regular, huffily demanding a five-fold wage increase or a move to AC Milan.
Gooners are already abuzz about the youngster's potential (NB: He's older than Cesc Fabregas), refusing to let the fact that nobody has ever heard of him, much less seen him play, dampen their enthusiasm.
Various sweaty-handed message boards users described him as a direct replacement for both Alex Hleb and Mathieu Flamini, two players that Early Doors has actually watched in action, and who are as different as chalk and a bag of spanners.
So, bearing in mind the only 'video' of Bischoff anywhere on the internet is actually a still shot, artfully zoomed in and out of to give the impression of movement, ED decided to do some proper digging.
By doing an internet search for Bischoff in conjunction with other footballers and seeing what came out on top.
It searched for 'Amaury Bischoff is the new...' followed by a variety of recent Arsenal heroes, and the results proved great news for fans of ineffective five-a-side players.
Alex Hleb 9,880
Gilberto Silva 1,400
Mathieu Flamini 792
Robert Pires 423
Freddie Ljungberg 376
Perry Groves 301
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Aston Villa's dealings with Liverpool over Gareth Barry have proved a resounding triumph for the little guy.
Admittedly, they are a little guy with loads of fans, a whacking great stadium, a European Cup and an American tycoon owner, but humour Early Doors.
In today's top-heavy Premier League, Villa are a selling club. They are supposed to roll over and let the big clubs sign all their best players to maintain the natural order.
Sure, they'll fuss a little bit when their star players get a 'dream' move somewhere slightly more lucrative, but they know their place.
Basically, they are meant to be Spurs.
Yet rather than fussing about enforced sales and contracts not being worth the paper they are printed on, Villa have stood up and said: "Actually, we'll decide whether we want to sell our players."
When Liverpool weighed in with a derisory opening offer, Villa told them to get stuffed. To meet their valuation or forget it.
When Barry criticised the club in the press, they fined him, stripped him of the captaincy and temporarily banned him from the premises, knowing full well that footballers don't actually go on strike.
When the saga dragged on, they set a deadline for the deal to be done. Liverpool missed it by just 15 minutes yesterday afternoon, but by then it was too late because Villa had already issued a statement saying Barry would stay.
All the while, Villa have been honest, transparent and totally unwilling to get shoved around. Liverpool tried to play them for saps and got what they deserved.
While Barry might be angry, he still gets to play for the sixth best team in the country instead of the fourth best, and he still gets paid millions of pounds a year. He'll survive.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Cristiano works for five to six hours a day and we haven't had that many days off. The trip to LA was fantastic. We were able to work far from the pressure. " Despite abundant photographic evidence to the contrary, Cristiano Ronaldo's fitness trainer Antonio Gaspar insists his recent visit to Los Angeles was about hard work and staying out of the limelight:
SIGN OF THE DAY: 'Welcome to our workplace' - Erected at Manchester City's training ground by Mark Hughes. It is meant to remind the players to knuckle down, but it sounds more like a load of touchy-feely PC bull. ED prefers the Galatasaray-style 'Welcome to hell' written in blood above the entrance to its own office.
FOREIGN VIEW: Is that the sound of Claudio Ranieri setting himself up for another dead man walking routine? The Tinkerman has told Corriere dello Sport it is "impossible" for his Juventus team not to win anything this season.
TALKING POINT: So, it seems you don't like Early Doors's talking points, then. Well what question would you ask?
COMING UP: European football comes to Barnsley. Thanks to Bon Jovi, Eastlands is out of action, meaning Manchester City take over Oakwell for their UEFA Cup first qualifying round second leg against Faroe Islands champions EB/Streymur. It gets no bigger than this.