So, after a summer in which Liverpool thought they were signing Diomande, then PSG, Real Madrid are the one’s pulling the trigger, which will be an ‘all-in’ fee of around £100million when the bonuses are factored in (€120million). As I mentioned yesterday, that means Madrid now have:

  1. Mbappe
  2. Vinicius Junior
  3. Rodrygo
  4. Endrick
  5. Diomande
  6. Brahim Dias
  7. Franco Mastantuano
  8. Gonzalo Garcia

They’ll let the latter two go out on loan/sale, but you’re still talking six players for three positions. Now, you can understand those numbers, because it’s two players for each position, but when you look at the top of the above list, they don’t seem like names that are going to be fully up for bench time, do they? You could do Mbappe up top, have Endrick as the understudy, then Diomande wide right, Vinicius Junior wide left, then give Rodrygo those understudy minutes. But would he be happy with that?

Of course I’m still riffing off the Ornbomba from Saturday, hoping that this arrival instigates a bidding process for Vini Junior, but I still think we’re a long way off that yet. But maybe the Diomande news starts to chivvy along some of the other moves this summer. PSG are having a laugh if they think they’re getting €170million for Barcola; that’d be a British record fee, for a guy who is second fiddle in the PSG team and won’t sign a new deal, so I think that saga will be dragging on too.# It’s not getting solved this week, although it does sound as though Liverpool are the hottest contenders for that one to get done. If they move, it probably puts Barcola off our radar, and whilst the plan to try and get Vini Junior out of Madrid doesn’t come off, we’re suddenly looking at the options coming off the table and we’re gambling on dislodging a guy who a lot of people think will just sign a new deal.

I hope you know what you’re doing, Arsenal, because the stories about him wanting to sign a new deal are already starting to pop up. If they gather pace, all this weekend’s noise would basically have been a fun bit of chatter for the weekend, and that’s it.

Our attention needs to therefore turn to alternatives, once again, and I suspect we’ll find ourselves back to square one at that point. Perhaps the Bruno G stuff hots up, and that can be a bit of a distraction, but it does feel interesting that we got this ‘Arsenal are exploring a Vini Jr’ deal from David and James, who are very respected, and then very quickly it could turn to people wondering whether or not both were played a bit.

I think Arsenal probably were looking at this. They probably would like to explore a deal. They probably have done the finances and started to reach out to a few intermediaries. But I also think, given how restless the fanbase is starting to get, it kind of suits the club for everyone to spend the weekend being excited and talking about the ambition they are showing this summer. It’s an adrenaline shot for the fanbase, so who better to deliver that adrenaline shot than two respected journalists? Normally, David doesn’t drop messages like he did at such an early stage in the transfer process. So to me, it feels a little strange, almost pre-planned from the club to let this news get out. But the problem with that, is that if we now start getting news about him about to sign a new deal, or it all goes quiet for a week and then he signs on to stay at Real Madrid, then people are going to be doubly angry.

It suits Vini Junior to have this news too. His agents and ‘people’ confirming that they’d maybe have a talk to Arsenal if needed sends a message to Real Madrid that he wants what he wants. They don’t want to lose him for nothing, but he doesn’t want them to just assume he’s going to accept any deal, so having Arsenal sniffing around is good for all parties. Arsenal get a fanbase who are starting to get restless back onside; Vini Junior shows a little leg in order to force Real Madrid to get what they want; Madrid do a deal for Diomande and then have him sign a new deal, which keeps their fans happy too. Everyone wins in the end. Except the Arsenal fans, who got a taste of something special, only to have it taken away.

Heck, what do I know? I’m just a simple blogger who drops whatever thoughts I get every morning down on virtual paper. But if it plays out as I have suggested here, Arsenal won’t be winning any kudos points from the fanbase for ‘exploring’ stuff. We need to start hearing noises about a left winger. And soon. It’s been over a week since the World Cup. That’s plenty of time for rumours to start coming through, and given Berta is meant to be a plate-spinner, I was hoping that we’d see a few more names linked than just this one.

The Arsenal squad are in Spain at the moment as we prepare for Girona on Saturday. My hope is that we can start to see some training pics, hear from Arteta, etc, because I’m getting a little bored of the speculation and the repetitive nature of it. Let’s see what happens today though. Eddie Howe has spoken over the weekend about Bruno and how he doesn’t know the future of their captain, so perhaps that means that Arsenal and Newcastle can finally get around the transfer table and get to talking.

Back tomorrow.