I watched the tail-end of the pumping that Spain gave Austria last night, as I was coming back from a networking event in the City, and I have to say, Spain looks like they are purring now. It’s a shame their two fullbacks are absolute dickheads, but I guess there’s not a lot you can do about that. But they do look like they are going to go deep in this one. Probably to the final, unless France does them over. In a way, that’s probably the two best teams in this competition, meeting in the final, because the Argentinians, I think, aren’t as good as some would believe. The Portuguese skanked their way through against Croatia, with Ronaldo getting a soft pen, then there were a few offside calls, but I guess the one thing you can say with offside these days is that it is the one part of VAR that you can’t really argue with. Shame to see Ronaldo happy, but there you go.

From an Arsenal perspective, the Women announced the signing of Georgia Stanway, which is a pretty big coup, and, given there have been a few high-profile exits this season already from the ladies’ team, this will be a boost to the squad.

On the men’s side, all is still quiet on the western front, although I think the natives (Arsenal fans) are starting to get restless on social media. It doesn’t help when you hear that the young lad from Leicester – Monga – is now going to Man City. By all accounts, he looks like a wonderkid, but Arsenal weren’t willing to go the £10million+ for him to sign, which I think is fair enough. Yes, he’s a very good talent (so I hear), yes, he plays in a position we are all looking at as needing a pathway and evolution, but the reality is that he’s 16 and there’s no way he’s impacting this Arsenal team for the immediate future.

And that’s what we have to be looking at now. We need to make proverbial hay while the sun is shining. We are the champions, we have a bunch of teams around us who all have uncertainty and new managers, and there is a lot of change and transformation happening. Chelsea is having to reshape their team under Alonso. Iraloa needs to work out how to turn Liverpool back into a title-challenging side. City doesn’t have Pep, Bernardo Silva, and there are questions over Rodri. Villa looks like they might need to sell before they buy. Bournemouth have a new manager and another bunch of players who have exited. Then, at the bottom, you have The Scum, who have picked up some decent signings that will probably help to lift them above mid-table. We are in a ‘now’ moment, and so we probably need players for ‘now’. It’s why the Guimaraes signing makes sense, although I suspect it is incredibly unlikely. With Tonali and Gordon both gone, their fans will have the pitchforks out if they let the Brazilian go, so I suspect that one will be dead in the water. But going back to the original point, Monga from Leicester isn’t going to be a player whom we need to bring in to strengthen. He’s for when this particular project reaches its natural conclusion.

I did see the Telegraph linking us to Ezri Konsa from Villa, but I think that feels like a Berta “casting the net wide” jobby to me. He’s just turned 28, he’s a right-sided centre back that can also play right back, and he’s got a deal that runs until 2028. Villa might be tempted to cash in on him, but given how much they’re asking for Rogers, they’d also probably want the earth and the moon for him, too. Plus, there’s the English premium to take into account. Add to that the fact that he’s not overtaking William Saliba for that position. We have Mosquera as the deputy to Saliba, who can also do that, and besides, isn’t that just who Ben White is for us? He’s converted to a right back who can play centre half, whereas Konsa is the other way around, so this one doesn’t really feel like a deal that has any real value in it from an Arsenal perspective.

And yet…we know Arteta loves a defensive signing…so I guess we can’t really rule it out.

Other than that, there’s not a lot really going on, unless you count Marcel Desailly’s words about Saliba moving to Real Madrid. To be fair, he did say that it would happen ‘one day’, but with the way Madrid are right now, and having just got Mourinho on board, I couldn’t think of any club worse to join. When you also factor in the point Desailly made about Gabriel only being the player he is because of Saliba, I guess I probably shouldn’t have even brought this conversation up! But, when it’s all quiet, we’ve got to talk about something together, right?

Ok, that’ll do for me for today. We’re gonna do a bit of a ‘check in’ pod tomorrow morning on the Same Old Arsenal pod at 9.30 am UK time, so if you fancy coming along and saying ‘hello’ – pop in here.