Still nothing on the ol’ signings front, but given we’re at 13th July and today is our first pre season friendly game (proper one, the one at London Colney with Watford doesn’t really count) I’m not going to get bent out of shape. The reality is we’re just awaiting the formalities and then all will be revealed officially. And at this stage in the summer, if we get to this time next week and we’ve secured most / all of our transfer business, it will be welcome from my – and yours I’m sure – perspectives.

Remember the summer we signed Mesut Ozil? If I recall at this stage of the season we’d brought in Yaya Sanogo and that was it. We had to wait until 29th August before getting our second one in, which was in the shape of free transfer Flamini who had been training with us for most of the summer. Or there was the summer in which the only real big incoming was Petr Cech in 2015. That was done on 29th June and then that was it all summer. Or there was the summer more recently in which we picked up the utter ‘bargain’ that was Willian on a free transfer, before splurging on deadline day for Gabriel and Thomas Partey.

So we have form in doing business later in the window and now that we’re potentially going to get to mid July with all players signed, sealed and delivered, is the kind of planning and organisation that fills me with so much joy.

I also think this might be the first summer – maybe ever – in which there will be a few of us finally not saying “could do with one more”, or “just one or two players short”. To me it really doesn’t feel like it if we get these two incoming players announced. We have cover in every position and whilst we can all debate about that ‘big’ signing in centre forward (something we talked about last night on the Same Old Arsenal pod) coming in, I don’t think that is a massively pressing concern for us to be competitive this season. We have Gabriel Jesus, we have Eddie Nketiah and heck, we have Flo Balogun. I’m still not really havin’ that Kai Havertz is an option for us and I haven’t even mentioned the fact that Trossard did a great job when he filled in last season, so in terms of quality options we have them.

And the central striker role for us isn’t one in which we need a machine like a Haaland, for example, because we’re all expecting yet more improvements from the young Arsenal attackers in our team. Eddie might get better, Saka and Martinelli will surely get better and even Smith Rowe is a player with whom I think we could all expect to improve. The goals come from throughout this team and that spreads the risk when there is injury that happens, or rotation that is needed, but it also means we are dangerous from more than one place next season.

Exciting times.

But again I keep thinking back to the days of yore in which I’d be on my Arsenal WhatsApp groups saying “could have done with one more, we’re just a couple of players short”. Those days feel like no more at this moment in time and I’m all for it. We have multiple players who can play in multiple positions, we have excellent players and we have raised the bar of the base level of player in this team. I feel like Arteta is at the stage in which he probably has 17 or 18 players at least that he’s going to use more frequently and rotate this coming season and when you are factoring in a minimum of six additional midweek games in the Champions League (where we’ll not be playing European minnows and so can just sub out the whole team), it augurs well for us doing multi-competition balancing this season.

And how much juggling of players we do will be evident from today against Nurnberg. I suspect given it is the first proper pre season game that Arteta will probably use a smattering of kids, but when we get out to the US he’s going to need to start feeding in those experienced first team players and if we truly do have 18 players he wants to use a lot this coming season, we can expect to see more minutes for them and less minutes for some of the younger players when out in the States.

I think I’m going to put a pause in the ramblings for today though, as there’s not loads going on as we await the transfers to drop, but will be back tomorrow with my usual waffle so I’ll catch you wonderful people then.

Have a good one.