Morning Gooners, welcome to a brand new week which will hopefully be lovely for us Gooners and you never know, maybe there’ll be some kind of signing from nowhere. After all Edu was pictured on a Ryanair flight to Valencia this weekend post the game, so clearly he’s heading out to Spain to bag himself a shiny new signing, right?

Or maybe he’s just on holiday, as evidenced by a post on Instagram a few hours in to yesterday in which he was pictured in a pool with some kids – his kids, I believe – so perhaps he’s just getting some R&R before the transfer window closes. I’ve seen some people question why he’s doing it now and not after the window closes, but I doubt his work starts and stops when the transfer window slams shut in September and February. He most likely still works and will just be readying himself for the next round of deals I would have thought.

He’s an interesting one, is Edu, because whilst everyone is very happy at the moment with the way we are playing, the start to the season, etc, I still see some people wondering whether or not he’s doing a good job. I myself haven’t really thought about it until up to now; is he doing the business for us or is he getting an easier ride because of the performance of the club so far. I’m not really sure. There’s no doubt he has a big role to play in the incomings we’ve had and there’s no doubt that he deserves a little bit of credit for the business we’ve done from an incoming perspective. Gabriel Jesus himself has said that Edu was a big factor in his arrival and given how he played at the weekend we should be grateful to our Technical Director for that. But as long as we struggle to get players out of the door for decent money, there will always be a question mark over his full capability at the club I think. It doesn’t look good, for example, that Barcelona are looking to offload Auba to Chelsea for £20million just eight months after we gave him to them for free, does it? His interview about offloading players and paying them off as an ‘investment’ doesn’t really feel that clever when you think about that Auba situation and I do think there should be more scrutiny made about our ability to offload players. I’ve done the Bellerin stuff to death so I won’t go back over that now.

Maybe Edu is getting his holiday over and done with now because he knows the last week is where all of the action will happen? This period now is a bit of a weird one anyway because we’ve started the season, it isn’t quite the “sh*t we only have a couple of days left to get players in” period of the transfer window, so we’re in a kind of no mans land I reckon. Arsenal have already done the main part of our business, we’ve got the players in that we need and we are looking like as a squad we’re in good shape. Anything that crops up now will just be ‘cherry on the cake’ stuff and I suspect that cherry won’t be considered unless something falls on their lap in the last week of the window. Whether that’s Tielemans or not I’m doubtful about because I think we’ve decided to stick with Xhaka and Zinchenko for the time being. Both players were great at the weekend and with Xhaka hitting some pretty good form right now, a new player coming in would probably not be able to displace him as it is. So my feeling is that the Tielemans deal won’t get done and then it’ll be interesting to see what happens with the player. There was talk of him signing a new deal at Leicester but if I was in his shoes, why on earth would I do that. I’ve had one Leicester fan say to me on Twitter “because he loves the club and wants to make sure they get good money for him if he goes”. I’m sure he is very fond of Leicester, but having seen how they hold out for very big money and knowing that if he signs an extension they could price him out of a move next summer, I wonder why he would take that risk now?

If I was in his shoes I’d just sit tight and then see what options he has in January. There will be plenty of clubs – not just The Arsenal – who will be vying for his signature and if he doesn’t sign a new deal he’ll hold all the cards come January, so I’d be inclined to just carry on with Leicester, run down that contract, then see who is the most attractive option for him when this season is over.

But that’s just me. I’ve not got any intel on the player or any kind of connections in to the football world. If I did, I’d find out just how much the PGMOL is getting paid by the Scum to get away with murder, because yesterday on both of their goals they probably got away with some pretty shocking refereeing and VAR calls. The second goal they scored was probably the worst because apparently now you can pull somebodies hair in front of the referee without impunity. Or maybe that’s a ‘Tottenham rule’ they have made up for this collective of media and PGMOL darlings we’re seeing once again.

Anyway, I don’t want to talk about them and I certainly don’t want to come across as having any sympathy for Chelsea either; both of those clubs can get in the bi as far as I’m concerned. And with that final thought, I’ll take my leave for another day. You have yourselves a good one and I’ll catch you all tomorrow.