So the ol’ Emi Buendia rumours are hotting up and that man the AFCBell appears to once again be on the case, saying that a bid was submitted and subsequently rejected for the Argentine playmaker.

There’s a few ways to look at this news, if of course it is true, that is. Firstly, Arsenal are looking to make moves sooner rather than later which to my mind is a good thing. We’ve seen too many times over the years that the club has waited, waited, then waited some more, before pulling the trigger on something and we only have to look at the fact that we probably could – and should – have gone earlier with Partey signing last season given that we knew the release clause had to be met, as an example of when we haven’t exactly been the most proactive in our approach to planning. But the fact that they’re starting the bidding now is good and hopefully a decision on whether he joins or does not can at least be clear sooner rather than later.

The other consideration is the fact that Villa might have seen our interest and moved quickly and we are simply matching them stride for stride. If Villa went early and we decided to keep our powder dry, only for Norwich to accept that opening bid, then most Arsenal fans would be having a hissy fit for us losing out on a key target. So perhaps rather than this being proactive and early in our decision making we are simply acting on the reactions of others. That would be less palatable in a summer in which we need to get plenty of deals done in both directions.

Of course it could be just that; i.e. that Arsenal know they need to get moving quickly to do all the business they want to do and they are simply starting the ball rolling because they need to get a deal like this in the bag early so they can focus on a new right back, potentially another midfield partner for Partey if Xhaka is on his way, etc, etc.

The fact that a bid has gone in and that bid has supposedly already been rejected, however, doesn’t mean that we’ll get our man. Luis Suarez anyone? Wilf Zaha £40million bid people? Remember that one? I know for a fact from somebody who is trustworthy that Zaha was at the training ground, we all know that his brother even said he wants to join Arsenal and Palace admitted that a bid had been made. It felt to all the world that summer that the deal was going to happen and yet Arsenal’s valuation and Palace’s valuation were quite some way apart and the result was that we turned our attentions to Nicolas Pepe for £32million more than what we were prepared to pay for Zaha.

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that just because we’ve made that bid it doesn’t mean that we’re going back in for the Norwich player and, in fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if we didn’t hear anything more from Arsenal on this if they have their valuation and Norwich have just scoffed at it. One could argue that you never go in with your best offer and all parties involved in this situation know this; when I bought the house I’m living in at the moment the Management and I didn’t offer up all we could afford, we went a little bit lower and under the asking price because we knew there’d be a negotiation. We ended up getting under the value of the house and so we were happy, but so were the sellers because they managed to negotiate us up a bit too.

Maybe that’s where we’re at right now. Or maybe Arsenal have got their eyes on a few ‘houses’ and are simply seeing which one has the best pool. I don’t know where I’m going with this analogy either, so perhaps I better leave it there.

So what else is out there? How about the noises from Sergio Aguero’s father that he had at least held tentative discussions with the striker before he joined Barca. I’m sure there probably were and if we are looking at offloading Lacazette for money and then having a one year free transfer deal then maybe that could have made sense given the fewer games we have next season would mean minutes could be spread, but I’d be surprised if it got anywhere further than a polite conversation. Arsenal have lots of question marks over lots of their players this summer and if you have to bring in cash why wouldn’t you sell one player (Lacazette?) for money, use that money on another position (Buendia?), then bring in a one year free transfer. I know you could argue the Willian situation could happen all over again, but if you do just a one year deal then you protect yourself, plus Aguero and Willian aren’t even remotely in the same league.

The only other thing worth noting is that apparently Guendouzi’s deal isn’t as cut and dry as we thought, as apparently we want more than the £8.5million that Marseille want to pay. I think that’s fair enough and if Marseille came back with a cool £15million then we’d make a tidy profit, they’d get a talented but troubled footballer, then we can all get on with our respective lives. It’s a story by Le10 Sport and I don’t know how reliable they are, but apparently they still want to talk to us and that has to be a positive thing.

Right, no more transfer tittle tattle from me, because that’s enough of the grubby stuff for one day.

Catch you lovely humans tomorrow.