With all of the furore with the Brihgton game, with it happening so soon after the transfer window shut last Friday, I realised I’d barley even had time to properly think a out the fact that Arsenal had signed Raheem Sterling from Chelsea on what we all know is a super deal for the club. So given that there isn’t any real football on for just under two weeks, given that the North London Derby at The Toilet Bowl is the next destination for The Arsenal and given that I REALLY don’t want to have to even think about that horrible game at all just yet, I thought I’d have a look at this deal and see what I think it could mean for the club. I’d sort of touched on it in the preview piece I wrote on Saturday, as well as a pre signing piece the Friday before, but I haven’t really gone in to any details. So might as well give my two penneth-worth today.

First and foremost, the deal in itself, which is a piece of genius from the club. But it’s also one of those where the structure makes it the genius deal more than anything else. If we were sat here today knowing that we’d signed Sterling on loan for a couple of million quid in a loan deal, plus paying all of his £300k-per-week wages, then I think most of us would be thinking Willian-style post-traumatic stress. We’ve been down this road before and whilst the numbers on the pitch are nowhere near as much of a drop off for Willian, the sense of deja vu would probably have been strong enough for us all to raise a few worried eyebrows.

But this is a different Arsenal, a more astute Arsenal, an Arsenal that knew that they would rather take no deal than a crap deal. My mate Paul (non-Arsenal fan who I’ve just been on holiday with) asked me on Friday morning  why anyone would leave their business until this late in the window and I couldn’t think of an instant example of when a club gets a proper bargain, because usually you overpay, because the selling club has no time to find a replacement. This is the answer to that question that Paul asked me, because Arsenal were able to profit from both Chelsea desperation, as well as Sterling’s desperation to stay in London and in the Premier League. We were an option of one and we got to call all of the shots.

Perfection.

Now, on to the player himself and I must admit, I wasn’t really that fussed about a 29-year-old player who had been training on his own and who had been frozen out of a pretty average-looking Chelsea team from last season. He turns 30 in December and because of the fact he’d been playing at the top since he was 17, it all feels a little Theo / Cesc / Rooney when they hit that stage in their careers when they were on the down. This happens with teenage prodigy’s, right? They may be 30 in age but they’ve been playing so long, that their bodies are more like 35-year-olds and I initially thought that he’d be a guy we’d be seeing who looks a little ropey.

So I decided to have a look at his numbers from last season. Plus how his pre season had gotten on. After all, he didn’t travel with England to the Euro’s, so how ready is he for this season?

Firstly, the numbers from last season and I’ll be honest, it does give me some comfort. He made 31 of 38 Premier League appearances, he scored eight goals, had four assists and played 1,978 minutes, including 22 90-minute appearances in the season. He played six times in the FA Cup, got a goal and three assists, as well as six times in the League Cup with a goal and an assist. So in the season he had 10 goals and eight assists and 2,751 minutes. His absence last season was 10 days from April until May in which he missed three games, as well as an illness that kept him out of the team for one match. This isn’t a guy who has a ton of injury problems.

We’ve just lost Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson, who between them played 2,063 minutes and got a combined seven goals and six assists – most of which were from Eddie to be fair to him. But when you factor in additional Champions League games and hopefully us going deeper in the domestic cups this year, it feels to me that providing Raheem stays fit, his 2,700+ minutes could easily swapped with last season’s Eddie and Reiss minutes. Then if you think – and hope – that Sterling can at least replicate his outputs for Arsenal, we should be looking at a much improve ratio compared to our two Hale End graduates.

I’m not trying to do them both down here, by the way, I’m just looking at the numbers and seeing a player with more experience, more goals, more assists and hopefully in a better Arsenal team that will improve on his numbers from last season. And when you start to look at it from that perspective, it starts to look like Arsenal have played a bit of a blinder. Of course this could all go out the window if Sterling suddenly picks up a big injury, but right now, as it stands, Arsenal have lifted the level of the team and that can only be a good thing.

Where he will play will be interesting too. I think we can all agree that Eddie wide left or right never really worked. He’s a central striker and that’s where he was best. That lack of versatility probably also didn’t help his number of minutes last season too. Reiss could play wide left or right, but he just wasn’t consistent enough. Sterling has proven his consistency over many years, but what he’s also done is proven his versatility too, even last season. Last season for Chelsea he played 22 times as a left winger, 11 as a right winger, a centre forward once and a support striker twice. He scored six times from the left, once from the right and in the centre he bagged three goals. This is a gut who can operate across the front three and that is what makes him such an attractive option for Arteta, I suspect.

So, whilst I wasn’t sure at first about this move, whilst I was hesitant when the deal didn’t look amazing, the more and more I read in to this, the more I am very impressed with what we have here. Let’s just hope he helps us to move the needle enough in the next nine months.

Catch you all tomorrow for some more musings.