Morning folks and welcome to Monday. I was hanging quite a bit yesterday, so couldn’t face a computer screen, but I did eventually get around to looking at my phone and saw that David Ornstein had confirmed that Saliba had all but signed up on a four year deal to stay at the club. It’s good for all parties; the club keep a player who made a massive difference in the way in which we build out from the back. The player gets a big fat wage increase. The fans like me who were worried that this was going to become a summer ‘saga’ and drag on for the rest of the window. But with this news – albeit not confirmed yet – coming through, it means we can worry about other stuff like how we improve the squad with new signings, rather than whether are going to lose our brightest and best because of contractual reasonings.

Apparently the same can also be said for Reiss Nelson, who is also set to sign a new four year deal with the club, which I’m sure he’s happy about because it’s his boyhood club and there’s no doubt he’s one of us. I’m still not sure whether he’s going to get anywhere near making it as a regular at the club, but if he can contribute like he did last season every once in a while, then it has to be a good thing.

But back to Saliba, and I’m feeling rather chipper about it, I have to say. He was brilliant for us last season and to have him signed up for the foreseeable future is another good sign that the club is going in the right direction. It’s a shame that is is only a four year deal, because in two years time we’re back to worrying about whether we’ll need to sell up rather than lose him on a free, but that’s a problem for tomorrow and not today.

Today’s problems are now about getting plays bought and getting them sold. I haven’t heard much about the outgoings, but the latest incoming rumour is Timothy Castagne from Leicester, apparently. And I gotta tell ya, that one hardly fills me with giddy excitement. I don’t watch a lot of Leicester, but when I have seen him i’ve seen a guy who is very beatable, who didn’t impress me much, who has just played in one of the leakiest defences you’re going to see. For me personally it would be a hard ‘no’ but what these rumours do show is where the club are looking at the moment. We’ve had the Fresnada links, these links, plus the guy from Fenerbahce that I wrote about last week. It is clear we are looking at suring up at the back as well as the midfield rumours. But what about in attack? That seems to have gone rather quiet. Are the club happy with what they have? Do they think we’ve got enough? If so, I think they’ll need to find a solution for a Saka rotation option; he played a lot last season and we can’t get by in both Champions League and domestically without rotating him. Perhaps this is going to be one of those left-of-field signings that we don’t know is happening until it hits us? I hope so.  I do love one of those a summer. Real “wowsers, where did that come from?” stuff. I was in Portugal when we signed Fabio Vieira las summer and I’m heading there in two weeks. Maybe Arsenal could give me a little Portuguese surprise?

Other than that there isn’t really a lot going around at the moment. So I might call it quits early today I think. If you fancy having a listen then Amanda has Kevin Campbell on the show tonight which you can listen in on here. Other than that I shall take my leave and see you all tomorrow.

Have a good’un.