So here we are folks, on a countdown to that mythical ‘line in the sand that Mikel Arteta has supposedly drawn to everyone at The Arsenal, with regards to getting his players in, so he can have them all on tour and getting a full pre season into those new arrivals. We’ve all heard that when they board the plane on Friday there needs to be those new players in there. I wonder if Andrea Berta will be sending people in an Addison Lee if the players are on their way to Luton and a medical has only just been completed, eh???

Of course this supposed deadline is just a pin in pre season; deals won’t all get to be done before that date and Arsenal aren’t going to just slap extra money down just so that a shiny new signing can be unveiled whilst out in Asia. Now wouldn’t that be a crazy reveal, eh? Imagine if Eze is smuggled in to the cargo-hold, then whilst up 20,000 feet in the air, they pull him into his seat and he just bowls down the aircraft steps with fans screaming all around him. I’ll have me some of that, thank you very much.

I do think most of us are expecting movement now though. Over the weekend we got our Ornbomb’s about Gyokeres and the agreement in place, so I suspect the player will be doing a medical within the next day or two, which gives the club enough time to get the pictures snapped and then have him on the plane as the players make their way. The Madueke signing will come first though; we’ve all already heard that he’s completed his medical, which means pictures are probably taken today, then maybe an announcement tomorrow. We still need to work out where the heck we’re going to play him and who he is going to displace, but it’ll be ratified by the usual social media and then we can start to understand how Arteta might deploy him. For a little bit of bonus “what are we getting?” I’d recommend checking out James’ chat with a Chelsea podcaster on the Same Old Arsenal pod here.

I wouldn’t say that the pod has completely turned me 180 on Madueke, but there’s enough in there for an ageing Arsenal fan like me can start to get his head around in terms of what he might bring that is different to the current squad. I’d still probably take the Chelsea fan up on the fee though; I think football fans always over-inflate the value of the players they have and the guy on there said that £48.5million for Madueke was fair market value. When you hear that, I always think we’ve probably over paid for him – a bit like we did for Havertz to be honest. And that still doesn’t leave the best taste in the mouth, because we’ve once again bailed out a reprehensible club in Chelsea. But it’s done now. eventually I’ll move on.

And so will Reiss Nelson too, by the sounds of it, because there appears to be two or three clubs interested in his signature. And for a pretty decent fee too. You’ll note my comment about fans over-inflating their players’ values, but in this instance I thought we’d be lucky to get £10million for Reiss. He’s on a decent wage (I think the rumours were circa £100k), he’s had a load of injuries throughout his career, plus he’s not really in the Arsenal first team picture. But I guess when you get a player who is English, still young (he’s 25 and will be 26 in December), plus he was well liked at Fulham where he was on loan before his injury, there will be clubs interested in that and hoping that he can get over his injury challenges. Apparently Palace are having a sniff and I’m sure I also saw that Brentford were interested and as we all know, when there’s more than one club interested, you can always get a little more cash for what you are expecting. I doubt we’ll get too much of a bidding war, but if the negotiations are indeed with Palace, you could see where Arsenal might naturally take the conversation next.

Eze is apparently next on the list after the completion of negotiations for Gyokeres and whilst there’s no chance that deal gets done before the players depart for the pre season tour, I suspect if the do want Nelson in through the doors at Selhurst Park, these conversations will help to smooth the way. And if it’s £15million fee, that’s another good bit of cash generated by Hale End once more, added to the Smith Rowe and Nketiah money we got last summer. We can talk a little more about Nelson if those rumours become a little more concrete, but it does feel like now is the right time for a player like him to be find a permanent home where he can play more football.

And for Arsenal it will help to pay off for some of the outlay we’ve had this summer. I saw talk that there might need to be a significant outbound departure over the next 12 months to balance the books, but if Arsenal make a number of sales that are for around the £15 – £20million mark, then surely that would help to covera  lot of the costs from this summer? Nelson, Vieira, Zinchenko, Kiwior – all of those players could potentially fetch that £15million fee (more for Kiwior I’d hope) and if that happens we should be looking at a minimum of £60million there. And i haven’t even talked about the likes of Sambi Lokonga or if Tavares moves to Saudi. So let’s see how those exits go.

There’s also expected to be the movement of Christian Mosquera from Valencia, which sounds like a superb deal for Arsenal and maybe that too can get done this week, but I think i’d rather save my thoughts for another day on that one. Let’s see if he’s in through the door by Friday too.

Right – that’s it from me today. Maybe we have a shiny new signing to talk about come this time tomorrow.