It’s all feeling a bit quiet this morning. Well, I say quiet, but that is in the context of The Arsenal and what’s happened in the last year or so. If it’s not quick-fire football matches, or managers being given the boot, or changes in back room exec level, or contracts, or signings, or COVID-19, then it’s usually something else that is random happening at the club.

Never a dull moment though. Except maybe today. So if you find yourself a little bored and want something to do, you can head over to toponlinecasinouk.co.uk and have a play if you like. Tell them I sent you. People have been hanging on tenterhooks with what is happening with regards to Aubameyang’s contract situation and I saw that on Sunday night he posted a little hourglass emoji to suggest that it might only be a matter of time. But then again given that Raul was the one leading the conversations, perhaps I can understand why there hasn’t been an announcement. Huss Fahmy probably picked up the phone on Saturday evening after Raul had been confirmed as leaving and was greeted by Auba’s agent and a “who? Nah mate, never heard of ya, is this a wind up? Where’s Raul so we can iron out these final details?”, so perhaps they have to start all over again?

I’m kidding of course and I suspect something will get sorted at some stage this week. This is a move which Arsenal pretty much have to do and they won’t want it dragging on because there is other areas of the pitch they need to strengthen. Like defence, because let’s face it, we don’t quite have enough cover there. The injury to Mustafi looks to have forced Arteta’s hand but there needs to be a heck of work done to move on some centre halves this summer because otherwise we really will have a surplus of playing staff in that position. Can’t move on Chambers and Mustafi as they’re injured. Can’t shift on Luiz as you’ve only just tied him down to a new deal, the same of which can be said about Mari given we’ve just made that a permanent arrangement. Saliba has just come in so that leaves just Holding and Sokratis and I suspect if Arsenal really do move for Gabriel Magalhaes, then both of those get moved on. There have also been noises in the papers about Chambers and with Fulham linked, you’d wonder if we’ll try to shift him on even though he’s injured. Someone like Fulham, who have already had him in their team the season before last when they were relegated, may still be keen to take a punt given they had him as their player of the season when they went down in 2019. So I could understand that move.

Even if we sold Chambers, Holding and Sokratis though, we’d still have five centre halves for what might just be two positions, which is a little weird if you ask me. It would make more sense if we were moving on Mustafi right now but given his injury it’s all a little odd that we’re looking to go after this Brazilian kid. In some sense I would understand it if we were looking at a similar deal to the Saliba one by keeping him at Lille for another year before getting him back next summer when Luiz and Mustafi’s contracts are up, but perhaps Arsenal just want to get him in now so that they can get him embedded in to the team.

Whatever the thinking is, there will need to be more of the clever number crunching done because if Lille want £27million, then Arsenal are going to find it difficult to get those numbers working unless we’re doing what we did for the Pepe deal. We’ve already heard noises from the press that it has been rumoured that the Pepe deal was scrutinised by the club and given that everyone accepts how we over paid for the player, it does make you wonder whether Lille know we got them out of a whole and are very amiable to getting some more of our cash for their coffers. At this rate we’ll be paying them enough down payments on players that it’ll effectively feel like we’ve got a mortgage with them!

Regardless of what happens though, it does sound like there are rumblings of activity at London Colney and that’s positive to hear because the team needs changing up a bit. I would feel a little better though if I knew we were on the verge of a deal for a partner for Xhaka in that midfield of ours. We’ve heard plenty about Torreira wanting out but with Guendouzi clearly on the market there is no way that the club could sanction an exit for the Uruguayan. We simply don’t have enough senior first team players available. So until we get some kind of confirmation over whether Ceballos is getting another year, or that Partey is in the door, then I can’t see many movements until there are exits.

It’s all rather finely balanced at the moment and it does feel as though we kind of need teams to make a move for some of our players before we properly start toppling the transfer dominoes. So we’re in a holding pattern at the moment. With our domestic season due to kick off in little under two weeks. Eek.

Right, that’s me done for the day. Catch you guys on the flip side.