Morning folks, we all good, on this wet and windy Tuesday?

We’ll get a Mikel Arteta press conference later on today ahead of the game against Girona and I suspect the team will be flying out during the day at some stage as we prepare for our final game of this annoying Champions League group stage. It’ll be interesting to see what Arteta does with his team and whether he talks about fatigue or volume of games in his press conference, because that might give us a hint as to whether he is planning on doing a little bit of rotation. Given the massive game we have on Sunday you’d hope that would be the case; we already have plenty of injury challenges (still) so I’m hoping for a decent level of rotation on the cards tomorrow evening. The likes of Jorginho, maybe Merino, Sterling and I’d even give Neto an outing this season, although I suspect the latter is unlikely. I also wonder whether Arteta will also look at a possible last game for Zinchenko before he departs overseas – if the rumours are correct.

That’s a deal that would suit all parties, I think, because he’s clearly falling down the pecking order and with 18 months left on his contract Arsenal aren’t giving him a new one. He’s playing in a position where we are over-stocked and with KT seemingly bound for Celtic in the summer, I suspect he’ll stick around for another six months and get token minutes as and when we need to bring on a third choice left back behind Calafiori or Lewis-Skelly. It means Zinchenko can be allowed to leave and if the rumours are true and we get a solid £17million for him I don’t think that’s bad news at all. Dortmund are supposedly interested, but so are Atletico Madrid and when you get two clubs of that pedigree interested and willing to do a deal of that amount then you probably have to take the cash and say “thanks for the memories”.

I always liked Zinchenko. He was a player who came in, rocked our world, enabled us to do something slightly different with the inverted full back approach but sadly for him he just couldn’t stay fit enough. And I think this is something that we should be very mindful of, because I think that were he a player who was more robust, I don’t think we’d be letting him go. Whenever a player is out for any length of time it takes them a while to get back up to their full fitness and sharpness and with Zinchenko I always felt that when he isn’t as sharp the mistakes in his game get amplified. And because he was never fit for longer than a couple of months, when he did come back and get game time, the mistakes would seem more glaring.

What also happened with him was the same as what we saw with Tierney. KT was a regular in Arteta’s side when he joined and I read stuff saying that Arteta loved him; his attitude, the vibes and effort he brought to the team and in training, the lot. But he could never stay fit and I think clearly Arteta got to a point where he thought “I just have to move on here”. Of course there was the tactical evolution that would have moved him on eventually, but I think Tierney would have held on to that left back starting spot a lot longer had he been able to stay fit. And I feel the same about Zinchenko. But at some stage Arteta realised “I have to move on here, because he just can’t stay fit” and that’s why we have this situation where he’s leaving the club just two-and-a-half years after signing for us. He’ll have played 81 times in two season’s and when you compare that to Declan Rice – who is a lot more robust – he has also played 81 times but has done it one whole season quicker than the Ukrainian.

For us it will mean more money in to the coffers and Arsenal will be able to bank that cash for FFP which will enable us to re-invest, although with just six days left in the transfer window, that investment in key areas is looking unlikely. We will apparently get this Sverre Nypan guy from Rosenberg – at 18 he’ll be one for the future – but I wonder if Arteta will tell him he’s straight in to the first team squad if/when that deal gets done? I’ve fallen in to the trap of watching a few YouTube compilations and that will invariably mean he’ll sign for City, but if we get him then you’d think he could certainly be looking to get some minutes in the team this season given that we’ve been so decimated with injuries throughout. The challenge will be where his future lies at The Arsenal, because he’s a number eight who looks like a late-arriving midfielder. That position at the moment we have the likes of Nwaneri coming through and people keep telling me Lewis-Skelly’s future position is as a midfielder. Listen, if this kid is as mustard as he looks then the cream always rises to the top, right? He’s also had plenty of football already for Rosenberg and this season alone has racked up just under 2,500 minutes and played 33 times for a Rosenberg side whose season runs from March until the end of November. So it’s Rosenberg’s ‘summer window’ and them getting in that cash allows them to re-invest in a team that finished fourth and will want to get back towards the top of the league. So it makes sense why these noises are happening now.

It doesn’t really answer our ‘now’ problem with regards to our attacking options and with the January window creeping ever closer, I don’t know about you, but my belief that we’ll get somebody in (not just a ‘body’, but somebody who will make a difference) for Monday’s deadline is slowly dissipating. Let’s just hope I’m wrong.

Catch you all tomorrow with a Girona match preview.