Happy Friday folks. Hope you’re enjoying yours, whatever ye may be doing. I’m starting to get towards the end of my holiday in the Algarve and thankfully they’ll be no quarantining for me and The Management when I get back, but at least the next couple of days can continue to be fun and I can enjoy, before getting back to the cold of Blighty.

You need to drink in those nice moments in life, a bit like how Alexis Sanchez wishes he drunk in more of his time at Arsenal, revealing yesterday in an Instagram post that he regretted moving to United and wanted his agent to rip up his contract after one training session in Manchester. Wellety, wellety, wellety…look who gets added to the list of players who regret leaving The Arsenal. Of course I’m biased – as I know you are – but our club has been a club in which doing things the right way, ‘the Arsenal way’, has been part of our history and there are few players that ever leave and don’t talk about how fantastic the staff and club are in general

Of course we don’t know how true that’ll be in the future, what with all of the departures and changes at the club, but I like to think that Mikel in control will help to keep some of that consistency of culture at the club. After all, he has been at the club for a number of years, was a good captain and acted like a proper statesman towards the end of his playing time. So hopefully the Arsenal that Alexis regrets leaving is still there at the moment and will be for some time.

In other news, I renewed my partial season ticket yesterday, which was simple enough. I have to say I do like the idea of the bubbles in place and having the opportunity to sit next to people who normally only get to see in the pub before or after is a nice experience. I did toy with the idea of just deferring until next season, but part of me wants to be there when it opens and there are just 15,000 people inside such a big stadium. It’ll feel weird but I kind of want to see it; like some kind of social experiment or something. What will the sound be like? How can that few people generate an atmosphere? What will the pre game feeling be like? How will the players play? There are so many questions that will arise when the ballot is decided so I’ll be fascinated to see how it all unfolds.

A bit like this transfer window too, it’ll be fascinating to see how Arsenal shape up at the beginning of October, because we know we need to sell but there still doesn’t appear to be too many rumours. The Torreira stuff hasn’t gone away but the noises of an €8million loan fee and then €16million signing at the end are a disgrace in my opinion. We paid around £26million for his services and now, two years later, we’re getting closer to £22million? That’s laughable. Why is it that this COVID discount applies to Arsenal but not anyone else it seems. Villa have just signed Matty Cash from Nottingham Forest for £14million, rising to £18million with bonuses. Are you telling me an unproven Championship right back is only worth a few million less than a Uruguayan international?

It’s total bollocks and I really hope those figures are wrong because this time next year after him having a stormer of a season for Fiorentina, we’re all going to wish we were getting better dollar for him than €16million.

I know we have to sell and we’ve had trouble, but we can’t be that desperate to be selling one of our better assets for such a low value.

It’s the same with PSG’s supposed interest in Bellerin. £20million? Are they having a laugh? This is a club who’ll throw money at anything and we’re now having them play the poverty card? I’m not having it. I hope Arsenal tell them politely that they’ll need to chuck another £10million on that at least.

This is the problem though. So many clubs know we are skint and they’re just taking the piss. That’s why I am praying that the club stands firm. If other teams come in for our players then they pay the going rate and when you look at the Ramsdale’s, the Cash’s and the other signings of this world, you hope that Arsenal stand firm on who they are selling to and when they sell. If it means we look to sell towards the end of the window then so be it. We can’t have clubs knowing that we can be taken for a ride. I get that some people say you run the risk of getting an even lower fee, but it looks like that’s happening now anyway and besides, as desperate as we are to sell there will be other clubs who are desperate to buy the closer we get to the window shutting. So we may find that some clubs are willing to pay the asking price later in the window. It’s the Fernando Torres/Andy Carroll principle. Why not see if we can do some of that with some of our outgoings.

That’s all from me today. Probably ranted enough for one day, so you have a good one, and I’ll catch you in the morrow.