Happy Thursday to you and yours. Yesterday it was so hot during the day, I made the mistake of emailing The Management and telling her that we were going to BBQ in the evening. It was all going so well until I sat down to eat my food, by which time lightning began to flash across the Uxbridge skyline and that heavy rain began to bounce off of the table as we were chowing down on our chicken kebabs.

Still, I can’t complain when it’s as lovely and warm as it is at the moment, in the same way that I can’t really complain when it looks like Arsenal are making a move for Deportivo La Coruña centre forward Lucas Perez. It is a body who can play football, after all.

It’s just…well…far be it for me to be all “this porridge is too hot” or anything, but I kind of expected something a little…y’know…more exciting than a forward who scored 17 goals in all competitions in 35 games. I had a very sketchy look at his playing career and at 27 he’s never really been massively prolific, having moved around a bit, so this all feels a little underwhelming. 

It’s still only rumour at the moment though, so perhaps we should temper any feelings until we get to ARSENAL TRANSFER SAGA STAGE 5: ORNSTEIN VERIFICATION PROCESS. Then we can start speculating.

The fee is irrelevant to be honest with you. Some might argue that £16million for a striker in today’s market is like spending £5million last summer, but quite often it gives an indication of what to expect. So too, does the other clubs that have been linked to the player, which seem to be Everton and Leicester from what I see. 

So all-in-all, a pretty underwhelming transfer rumour, but if the player comes in you know we’ll all back him and hope that he offers something different to Giroud. Sadly like a lot of Arsenal fans, I know very little about his style of play, having not watched Deportivo La Coruña for about seven years. I had a look on Transfer Markt to see what players he’s similar too and was treated to a list which included Charlie Austin and Diafra Sahko, so it’s hardly something to go mental about if that’s the level we’re looking at.

I do wonder if the Danny Welbeck good news has changed Arsène’s thinking though, you know, because I think he was planning a whole season without him. But rumours of him returning to fitness in December and Arsène being the man he is, I wonder if this type of player like Perez, is a “well if I can ‘make do’ until December, Welbeck will be back and I’ll have more options”. That sounds like a very Arsène Wenger thing to do and whilst I don’t think it’s necessarily the right approach for where we’re at right now, at least I can finally see some kind of thought pattern to the manager’s decision making, because up until this point his actions and words have been beyond bizarre. 

If this move happens, it will hardly appease the majority of fans, but at least we’ll know we have bodies in, and right now I feel like that’s the best we can hope for. We just need to look in to sorting our central defensive problems out first though. That doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere either and the rumour mill kicking back in to fear in relation to players like Manolas, it looks like we’re back to square one. It’s a good job we’re not at the end of the transfer window, eh???!!!???

So all of this is to say that it’s all still a bit uncertain at the moment, which does nothing for an Arsenal fans sanity, so I’ve taken to reading sports books instead of the clicks and hits websites. Have a look and pick yourself something decent, then come back to the Internet on 1st September, because that prospect is certainly appealing to me right now!