Morning all and before I get in to the usual stuff, if you received a barrage of old blogs from me yesterday into your inbox/social media feed, many apologies. The WordPress app on my phone had a bit of a meltdown – probably because we haven’t signed anyone – and suddenly started reposting every blog I’ve ever written.

I’m hoping it’s fixed now but it looks like it’s chilled it’s beans so that (famous last words!) should be that.

And for Saliba and Ceballos that should also be that in terms of speculation, because in waded our man David Ornstein yesterday evening to confirm that the deals were done and all that was waiting was official confirmation from the club.

Jolly good. Significant deals completed and now the hope is that Tierney can get done sooner rather than later too.

The Ceballos deal is an interesting one and I don’t think I’ve spent too much time talking about it. Perhaps that’s because I probably didn’t think it would happen because everything else has dragged on so long, but that it works for all parties, suggests that this was fairly routine. Madrid get to give game time to a player they can either then reintegrate if he has a great season, or sell on for more cash, where Arsenal get a promising player who fills a central midfield hole left by Ramsey’s departure.

For the player it’s more game time and a chance to prove himself. So everyone wins. Providing he doesn’t turn out to be a Denis Suarez type player and if that happens, well, that doesn’t help anybody.

It also means we should have some coppers left over to stick on to the supposed Zaha pot, which feels like it’s going to need a crowdfunding approach at this rate. Noises yesterday suggestion £55million plus Jenkinson, plus Nelson on loan, wasn’t good enough for Palace and at this stage I really hope Arsenal are looking at other players. Zaha would be a good addition but he’s a £65million player tops and if Palace really are holding out for £80million then there comes a time where you just need to draw back your chair from the table, stand up and shake the other parties hand, wishing them well in their future endeavours.

Nabil Fekir – much more polished and with more of a pedigree – has just left Lyon for £25million odd, so quite why Palace think they can get £80million for a guy with less output is a surprise to me.

So for me we should have one little sniff more and then move on. Perhaps we go as high as £60million but even then I think we’d be offering a little too much of other players are involved in the deal. I like Zaha. I don’t like him that much and from reading my timeline it feels like most Arsenal fans feel the same too.

Everyone’s an amateur accountant, eh??

But let’s go back to the done deals – or practically done – and the Saliba deal will provide a mini boost but not for long, because he’ll head back to St Etienne for a season and so we’ll have to wait for his arrival for another year almost. The Ceballos deal might prove to be quite a shrewd move though. I can’t profess to be an expert but he looks like a player who can travel with the ball, is a decent passer and can also support defensively. Although he’s clearly there to fill the Ramsey hole I don’t think we’ll get the same player with the same attacking instinct or volume of goals, but perhaps Emery is looking for a different type of player, as opposed to a cookie-cutter copy of our departed Welshman.

I just hope he’s fit enough from the start because with Torreira at the Copa America and late back and Guendouzi at the Under-21s, we’re a little light in midfield. Annoyingly Ceballos was also there and played in the game against Germany in the final on 30th June, so he’s probably even less likely to be back and fit, although hopefully we just need them both available because I suspect one of those three at least will play alongside Xhaka.

Attentions now turn to Real Madrid tonight who we play at midnight UK time. Suffice to say I won’t be watching that as I have work in the morning but hopefully those out there can put on a show and we at least get some good performances to give us hope ahead of that first game against Newcastle in a few weeks time.

And on that note I’m outta here. If you fancy listening to myself and Dave on a re-run of last night’s LoveSport Radio Arsenal fans show you can do so here.

Catch you tomorrow folks!