Just as the well begins to dry up, with little Arsenal speculation that hasn’t been said before, along comes a well known and respected traveller with a hose to replenish the cracked walls of the metaphorical transfer water containment facility.

Yesterday evening we had a couple of Ornbomb’s thrown into the Twittersphere and naturally it sparked intrigue, attention and further speculation of what is to come, I suspect (and hope) in the next couple of weeks.

It’s widely known by most people that David Ornstein is a man who is close to the powers that be at Arsenal. That he is fed information when the club are in a position to start talking up certain situations. That he is one of the last pieces before dominoes start to drop.

So perhaps there’s a little relief all over the Arsenalverse that we’ve seen some messages from him early yesterday evening. A trademark 8pm (ish) UK time, which is prime territory for people to be checking their social feeds after a spot of din-dins. The relief is that if Arsenal are feeding him info they must be close to movement.

His words brought confirmation on Lacazette interest, that Thomas Lemar bids had been rejected for £35million (although other people are suggesting he does fancy the move, so let’s see how that unfolds), but most obviously spun for the hope of fans, that the club are still hopeful Alexis signs a new deal. Hmm…that one in still not convinced. It sounds almost like Ivan could be standing behind the Ornacle with his hands firmly clasped around his cheeks, moving his lips up and down as he speaks, on the BBC reporters behalf. ‘Hopeful’ means nothing. They were hopeful with Cesc, Arsène was ‘hopeful’ with Nasri, and we all know how those two situations pan out.

Personally though, as I’ve already previously stated, I’ve made peace with him leaving and so I’m just hoping the club does its business before he moved on. The positive to take from Ornstein’s messages are that they are very reluctant to sell. At this point in time I’d probably accept a slightly lower price for Alexis to move abroad, rather than lose him to a domestic rival, and I doubt I’m alone in that thinking.

But it’s good he’s being fed these lines now. We’ve previously had Orno dropping “not interested” bombs on us at this time of year and it normally gets a bit depressing. But there seems to be a bit more positivity about the club’s actions. Good.

Of course it could just mean that the club has accepted that if you can’t beat them, you have to join them, in the sense of constantly feeding journos speculation to keep the fans excited and on side at the prospect of signing players even if we’re not actually that close or that interested. 

One things for sure though, the excitement will quickly turn to angst again if we’re hear this time next week and nothing has happened. The window would be wide open, we’d be on the verge of Arsenal’s ‘we don’t do much business on tour’ approach, and the Premier League count down would be six weeks away. 

It’s time for Arsenal to do their stuff.