Morning folks. It was a bank holiday yesterday in the UK and as a result I simply couldn’t be arsed to drag my sorry carcass out of bed to write a blog. But also there was a dearth of news that is available on Arsenal and so I just figured ‘meh’.

Then yesterday afternoon I was scrolling through my social feeds and found that the Ornacle himself had confirmed what others have been saying for a while, that we’re on the verge of signing Sokratis from Dortmund for £16million.

I dunno, perhaps it’s just me and my ridiculous expectations coupled with the arrival of a new manager and excitement that it’s all change on The Good Ship Arsenal, but this move hardly inspires me.

I can hardly say I’m an expert in German Football but what I am is somebody who likes to read and from what I’ve been perusing from people over the last week or two is that he’s a little like Mustafi. Given the German’s indifferent at best season at The Arsenal though it’s hardly the type of comparison that will set the average Arsenal fans hearts all a-flutter.

He’s 29, he’s had a poor season at Dortmund, they’re willing to offload him for – by the sounds of it – anything we’ll give them, plus it only adds to the worry that Sven isn’t really earning his coin yet. It feels like he’s sat in his office playing online poker, then when Ivan or Raul come in with a request he just hands them another profile of another Dortmund lad. Which is all well and good but it doesn’t strike to a master plan of development and the ability to spot talent. It just comes across as raiding your old club.

The Mavropanos signing was a random one and if that works out then of course we can say that he knows what he’s doing, but we need to see something more than a point and press in the direction of Westphalia.

I guess you could argue that we’re at least getting some business done early and if I’m going to critique my own thought process then it’s a little harsh to spend years talking about what a proper coach could do with some of these players and then be demanding of big name signings in all positions. So perhaps these obvious ‘stop gaps’ are there to just cover some areas where we look a little light and the real investment will come in time and coaching on the existing set of players. We’ll see.

The other positive of this early work is that it looks like we’ve got a team liberated enough to actually go out and get these deals done pre-World Cup and that is a-ok for me. Let’s give our new coach all of the time in the world to et these players playing in his system and his style of play and then see how we get on. I’m pretty sure that most of our first team squad have at least 25% more to give and for some you could double that percentage too, so getting them prepped for this season by having them in when the World Cup is on can only be a good thing.

We’ve also got to see what’s going to happen with the ‘keeper and central midfield positions. Hopefully the club are working on some exciting moves and just think, if we actually had all of our business done by mid July, how lovely it would feel not having to stick Sky Sports News on during deadline day because we’ve dithered and dithered all summer and then panicked like we did last summer. I’d say a big ‘yes pleases’ to that.

Righto, off in to the city for another one of them working days, so I’ll catch you all tomorrow. Or if you fancy listening in to some World Cup and Arsenal chatter then tune in tonight to LoveSport Radio and listen to myself and Dave on the evening show at 7pm.

Laters people.