This time of the year is always a bit funny, I find, because people lose their minds over stuff that hasn’t even happened yet. But what is worse is when people lose their minds over what others are doing.

I get it to a point though. Until something concrete happens with your own team, you are just projecting what is happening based on what is real, so when other clubs confirm signings or are close to it and your team hasn’t done anything as yet, it can feel a little nervy.

“We are already behind Team X in terms of squad improvements. We need to be smarter than them and we need to buy better to play catch up, yet they are already ahead”

I have these thoughts too, by the way, but I quickly dismiss them and move on. What I don’t do is go on social media and get a bit ranty. But it’s natural to have the human reaction of concern when you see little concrete evidence of movement. Transfers are like a hit of adrenaline; they are a short, sharp, shot of a drug. And so are the rumours of those transfers. Think about what we were all doing a week or so ago when the noises of the Zubimendi ‘medical’ were emerging. Or when Fabrizio Romano said that Arsenal were ‘on the case’ or something similar like that with regards to Sesko. So when you see other fans getting their hit of adrenaline, you naturally feel envy and over the last 24-48 hours I’ve seen a few people talk about Cunha going to Man United, then last night the chatter online was about how Mbuemo was off from Brentford to Man United.

That’s probably a good move for both him and them. United are a massive club, despite the dumpster fire they have been this season, so for Mbuemo it’s obvious that this would appeal. There’s also talk of Thomas Frank going off to The Scum if/when Big Ange is relieved of his duties. Mbuemo also has one year left on his deal, but Brentford can trigger an additional one year option on that deal, which means that United shouldn’t be able to get him on the cheap. At 25 years old and having just bagged 20 goals and eight assists in a season, I think Brentford will certainly be holding out for a big amount of cash and so anything north of £50million must be in their minds as the kind of cash they should be demanding (TransferMarkt has him at €55million).

This has led a few people to question why we aren’t going in for him. He’s proven he can do the business in the Premier League, he is a guy who has shown he has an eye for goal this season and perhaps this was the season that he goes supernova in the Premier League and will continue to be a goal machine. He’s rapid, he works his socks off on the press and I think he would be a good player for Man United.

He’s not Bukayo Saka though.

In Saka we have one of the best elite attackers in world football. Mbuemo had 28 goals and assists last season, but Saka had 17 having not played about a third of the season. Mbuemo does his damage on the right hand side, there’s no way that he’s displacing Saka and so whilst Ornstein has said there was some interest from Arsenal in Mbuemo, there’s no chance we’re pulling the trigger on a big fee for a guy who plays right wing. We want versatility, Mbuemo has played central and on the left, but look at where he spends most of his time. He was never a viable option for us and whilst some might argue that signing him would allow us to rotate Saka, but also give him an opportunity to also play centrally and left wing, when you look at the fact we’re in for Sesko or Gyokeres, why would signing Mbuemo work? He’d probably really only get a sniff at left wing and last season he didn’t play there once. In fact, in his career, he’s played there six times. We’re all talking about either of the aforementioned striker options as being gambles, but they’ve played in the position we’re signing them for. Six appearances in eight years doth not a good sample size make. The last time he played there was in 2020/21 as well, by the way. So you can see why we’re linked with the likes of Williams (plays left wing) and Rodrygo (plays right wing but wants to play left wing).

There are other things happening too, like Wirtz to Liverpool, which I think has people a little concerned, but it’s easy to look at other people’s gardens and feel apprehensive because they’ve been to the garden centre before you have and bought all their potting plants. But just because Arsenal haven’t metaphorically jumped in the car and made their way to the colourful flower aisle just yet, doesn’t mean our garden won’t look the best come the end of the summer.

It’s going to be a long summer, it always is when it comes to the transfer window, but we just need to focus on ourselves and what the team needs to do. As long as Arsenal go out and address the clear areas of the pitch that we all know we need signings – back-up ‘keeper, back-up left back, number six, versatile wide-forward and centre forward, then we can worry about what is going on in our garden come mid-August.

At this stage and with the noises we’re all hearing about what Arsenal want to do and are already looking at, I think it’s positive and I have faith that the ‘big deals’ we will aim to get done sooner rather than later. Don’t worry about what others are doing – let’s just focus on ourselves.

Catch you all tomorrow.