The sloth edges ever closer to his tree, the perfect spot for his resting place…

That’s what it feels like with this Calafiori deal, eh? Last night another couple of journalists dropping the “here we go!” soundbites, in an eagerness to be the ‘first past the post’ in declaring a transfer confirmed. At this stage however, I’m not sure how much kudos it actually garners, because most of us Arsenal fans know it’s basically done and we’re just waiting for the pics and interview to come through on the official site. I wonder if Jorginho will be there for him to be his translator as well, if he doesn’t speak English? Perhaps he does; so many mainland European schools do a better job than in this country, where we speak a language so easily recognisable and used so much across the world, that it becomes a bit of a de facto second language to use for so many non-native English people. But regardless of that, having a fellow Italian international – even if it’s just for this season (Jorginho’s contract expires at the end of the season in June next year) – will, I think, help our young Italian to acclimatise himself. Tomiyasu too will probably speak some, given that he is treading a similar path to our Japanese international (and whom I touched on maybe a slight concern or two I had in the blog a couple of days ago).

His arrival will inevitably spearhead chatter about who could potentially exit, with a couple of candidates supposedly Zinchenko or Kiwior, but it feels to me as though Kiwior might be the one more likely to be moved on. As of this morning, Fabrizio Romano is talking about how there hasn’t been any contact from other clubs for Kiwior, but that is probably natural. Arsenal will want Calafiori in the building before they entertain any deal, but I expect there are some noises happening in the shadows about finding him a home. It’s a shame really because I’ve always thought he was a good player; never really given much chance to play in his natural centre back role, other than a few Europa League games, then he was ostensibly turned in to a left back when we had Zinchenko, Timber and Tomiyasu all unavailable and I thought he coped quite well. Against 75% of the teams in the Premier League he probably does a good job in at left back, but it was that game against Bayern at the Emirates which probably didn’t help his long term future and given he still has a pretty good reputation in Italy, you’d expect he just wants to get some game time and be playing a bit more.

The noises – if you believe Romano – are that Arsenal only want a permanent or loan with obligation deal, which makes sense, but it’ll be interesting to see what clubs think of when coming to Arsenal with a proposal. We signed him for £20million, I wouldn’t say his value has tanked at all, plus he still has three years left on his existing deal. Arsenal do, in this instance, hold a pretty decent hand, I’d say. We all know TransferMarkt isn’t the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to transfer valuations, but sometimes it feels like they’re pretty close on their estimations and they put his value at €30million. To me that feels pretty reasonable, if I’m honest, because he’s shown versatility by developing his left back game, he’s still a young player, he hasn’t been injured much at all, so if we were to get what is just over £25million for the player, then I think Arsenal would probably take that, to be honest. It doesn’t really matter how that is split, so if a club wants to do a £10million loan fee and £15million next summer, I suspect Arsenal would probably be fine with that. If the noises of the likes of Eddie and Reiss end up coming true, then there will be up front cash banked for PSR and if you’re looking for a decent sized loan fee for Kiwior then it probably won’t be a problem. There’s the Smith Rowe stuff but Charles Watts’ comments on his channel (re-purposed in text on Twitter here) shows that Arsenal are in what you’d probably say is the perfect position regarding any deal there. If a club comes in and blows us away with a good offerm then fine, but I’ve heard a couple of people say that the club aren’t overly enamoured by the number eight market right now, so if there’s nobody out there they fancy and they’re happy to have ESR as a rotation option, why should they sell for anything other than a really chunky fee?

The only other stuff I’ve seen knocking around this morning revolves around pictures of the players in the gym doing weights. And blow me, it shows you how much more physically impressive they are than the average man. I have some weights at home and I can get through a fair amount of 15kg and 20kg dumbbells when I do my bench pressing at home, but Ben White has 40kg on each arm and I think it was Jurrien Timber I saw pushing up 60kg dumbbells!. If you ever want to make yourself feel physically inferior, go watch a video of Premier League footballers working out, that’ll certainly bring you down to earth!

Right, that’s me done for the day I think, so I’ll take my leave and then give you your day to do whatever it is you do best.

Catch you tomorrow peeps.