Morning people, hope you’re all feeling well this Friday morn?

It’s my last day in the sunny Algarve and tomorrow I’ll head home. It sounds like my hopes of a bunch of new signings won’t quite come to fruition, even if we did secure Fabio Vieira from Porto. But I was hoping we’d get another deal done this week given that it appeared that The Arsenal were moving quickly to secure targets. But it all sounds like similar names to those that we’ve heard all week. Gabriel Jesus, Raphinha, Martinez and then possibly Tielemans, although that sounds like if it happens it’ll be in a month or so. But I did wonder if we’d have some kind of confirmation on Gabriel Jesus by now. I think he’s still on holiday so that might slow things down a bit but I suspect the noises from national and local Manchester media about his agents being in London might mean that something happens sooner rather than later.

Even if a deal has already been ‘thrashed out’ and they’re in the stages of final bits of paperwork, Arsenal won’t announce anything until they’ve got the player along to London Colney for the medical, then posing for pictures in an Arsenal shirt, etc. As a club we tend to get absolutely everything done before announcing anything concrete, so I suspect it’ll be at least another week before that one is confirmed and on the official site.

Whether the club moves for somebody else who maybe isn’t on holiday remains to be seen. Ornstein is dropping hints at the moment talking about Martinez as a ‘firm’ interest and a low ball Raphinha bid, so you’d guess that we’re getting towards closing stages of those deals one way or another if he’s putting out messages. He doesn’t really say anything until he’s checked, triple checked and checked again before saying anything publicly, so my gut feel is that these deals will trundle along for another week too.

And so where we’re at right now is the waiting game. The rumours are centred around players we already know about, so there’s nothing new arriving in our inboxes or searches, but the deals are  too far away for people to be getting too excited about something that looks like a dead cert. We’re in transfer no mans land; a transfer purgatory in which nothing is happening but we’re waiting to see if ‘something’ will happen soon. It’s kind of the boring bit. Everyone loves a fresh new rumour, everyone loves a deal being done, but this bit now where all you get is “discussions are  underway” is a bit…well…meh…isn’t it?

But this is where we are at. There’s not really a lot else out there and I’m   not minded  to go searching if I’m completely honest. So I think I’ll just go and play some golf today, then catch you all over the weekend – flight dependent – with any more thoughts as things start to break.

Or not – as the case may be.

Have a good one, I’ll catch you soon.