Morning all, and today is the start of a new week, the start of a new International week, the start of the lead up to Croatia vs England and possibly another appearance for young Theo Walcott…

There’s not much else going in the wonderful world of Arsenal, except the stuff I talked about yesterday on Walcott, our chairman and Gallas…

So on to a question that been bugging me all yesterday. I’m confused about what happen in the transfer window. Yes, I have convinced myself our central midfield is strong enough, see here, but at the same time, I am not sure whether Arsene believes this… The boss has spoken about the lack of numbers in that department and pretty much made us all believe he was going to sign a defensive midfielder before the end of the transfer window.

He did not and the fans were unhappy.

But, we’ve got over it and with the likes of Denilson, Diaby, Song and maybe Bischofff, we think we may be okay. Well, we can’t do anything about it, so we’ve accepted it…

But recently, news has been revealed that we did have bids for players out there but they did not materialise. On the transfer deadline day, we apparently bid:

• £12m for Alonso, but Liverpool rejected
• £10.8m for Inler, Udinese accepted, but the player rejected
• £6m for M’Bia, but Rennes rejected the offer

Were these players our back up players in case we didn’t get our main target? Was our main target Alonso all along and our transfer plans were based on Liverpool’s and if we didn’t get Alonso, we were in for Inler then M’Bia… it’s all a little bit confusing. Apparently our bid for Inler was accepted one week before the transfer deadline.

With all this activity going on, it’s a surprise that no-one came in. I’d would expected a club like Arsenal to be able to “get their man” if they wanted. If Inler was the number one target, then it’s strange to try and not suceed. Arsenal are a big club, and if a player is not at a top four club anywhere in the world, we should be able to attract him. So was it down to money, was it down to anything else?

Going for a cup-tied Alonso on transfer deadline and then contacting Rennes does seem like panic buying to me. It does seem unusually disorganised and the ultimate result seems inexcusable. It’s my view, and I may be wrong, but when we have the whole summer to sign a defensive midfielder and we don’t end up doing so, it’s clear that the strategy we employed wasn’t quite right. I think Arsene thought he’d get his man, whoever that was, as he repeated said things like, “yes, I will make a signing before the Twente game” and “one more body will come in” and “the fans will be happy by the end of the summer”… So is there more to it than Arsene, is there a real financial constraint on the transfer cash and wage bill? All the big men at the club say no, they all say we can “sign thirty million pound player if Arsene wants”… so when I think about all of this, to be honest, I am just plain confused.

Just plain confused.

Update: I did forget a few other late bids…

• £7.5m bid for Santi Cazorla, as confirmed by Villareal
• An approach for Palacios, confirmed by Steve Bruce
• Supposedly we also tried to get Bullard in from Fulham at 23:51?

Unless of course, we’re in for Appiah who was our number one target all along? Arsene has high hopes for Diaby and I asked yesterday, will Arsene spend £50k a week on a player who he deems third or fourth choice? I doubt it.

Someone who’s not in the picture but maybe should be is young Francis Coquelin. He’s another player who’s been signed and, yes he is young, but is someone we can at least include in backup thoughts. He does look pretty good and I hope to see him on the 23rd Sept when we take on Sheffield United in the Carling Cup…

Okay, well, there we go, some thoughts of mine, some thoughts for you, it will be an interesting story when we find out the truth, Arsene will surely release a 10,000 page, 14 volume auto-biography when he’s retired… and then we’ll all know the truth…

Til tomorrow…
]]>