Morning all and welcome to another weekend. And it’s one of many this season in which our Saturday’s are sadly not taken up by The Arsenal. It’s not fun really and doesn’t feel right but I guess it is what it is. For the positive yin of having plenty to talk about yesterday following victory on Thursday night, to the negative yang of having nothing majorly to get excited about football-wise, we find ourselves having to watch other games and hope that rivals drop points. I don’t suspect the that will be the Tiny Totts this weekend but if United can have more misery then that would be great, although I suspect unlikely, because Newcastle aren’t exactly in great shakes right now.

Anyway, enough of the jabbering about other teams; let’s focus on all things Arsenal and the big noises coming out of the media yesterday were from over the pond as Miguel Almiron is apparently on his way to Europe and supposedly we’re the ones who have scouted him the most during the MLS season. Maybe he is, or maybe Sven is one of the few people in Europe who hasn’t realised that the Americans have horrible chocolate and beer and has just headed over there a few times to stock up on Hershey’s?

I can’t really profess to know anything about the MLS or the player himself but at £11million and at 24 years old it isn’t a massive gamble in today’s market. How mad is that eh? When dropping £11million is just a small-scale investment? Crazy times. It’s like the equivalent of a 90s £1.5million transfer. I guess life truly has moved on in the footballing world but if this guy is as good as some people are saying then it could prove to be a shrewd move.

It would make sense too because by the sounds of it he can play as a wide man or centrally and looks like a bit of a crafty dribbler with the ball at his feet, if you believe what WhoScored tell you. If you think that we’ve talked about lacking that type of player in the squad other than Iwobi, plus the fact that Rambo and Welbeck are probably leaving, then a signing like this would make sense in January.

And if the club do go in for Banega then the gradual ‘phasing out’ process that I mentioned last week on the blog will surely start to begin from January afterwards. That timeline would probably work well too because it basically means you’re saying to a playing that they have a free hit for five months to get adjusted to the league in prep for the following season. If that’s what transpires then, dare I say it, it would almost feel as if Arsenal are organised and have a plan.

Unai Emery will be heavily involved in that process but to him its what is happening now that is his main focus and that is Fulham tomorrow, where he’s said that all of his players will be ready and has played down ideas of them being fatigued. It’s nice to hear a manager saying that and perhaps we’ve been conditioned to believe that players underperform because of that, but the proof of the pudding will be what performance we get on Sunday. The thing is, because we’ve looked poor on a number of occasions in the first half this season under Emery, if that happens tomorrow then we won’t really know whether the travelling has anything to do with it or not, because it’s what we’ve seen when the team has had a full rest too. These types of games after away trips in Europe are always a bit of a grind though and you only have to look how all teams that play away in Europe perform to see that. But the difference is that sides like City, United, Liverpool or Chelski, have tended historically to grind out those types of results. Games where it hasn’t been pretty but it has resulted in three points. If that happens tomorrow then again it will just feel like what we’ve been doing all season but ultimately I guess it won’t matter.

With eight wins on the bounce it’s just about keeping up that momentum and if we can do that tomorrow then happy days.

For the moment though it’s a Saturday of chores and probably watching movies for me. Hope you have a good one and I’ll be back tomorrow with some thoughts on the game.

Adios amigos.