The BBC reporter David Ornstein, who is highly regarded by most Arsenal fans for his scoops has sent out a flurry of tweets today giving various updates on the current transfer situation at the club.
A couple of the tweets covered the Arsenal defence.
Arsenal in talks with number of clubs over Shkodran Mustafi exit. 27yo (contract until 2021) wants to stay + prove himself. But #AFC want permanent or loan departure. Also hope to bolster central defence pre-deadline & retain interest in Celtic left-back Kieran Tierney #CelticFC
— David Ornstein (@bbcsport_david) July 30, 2019
Arsenal technical director Edu met with the Stade Rennes president + the representative of Laurent Koscielny in London yesterday. Talks between #AFC & suitors continue in a bid to resolve Koscielny’s future. The 33yo captain does not anticipate playing for the Gunners again #SRFC
— David Ornstein (@bbcsport_david) July 30, 2019
Breaking that down there are four conclusions that can be drawn from his tweets.
Arsenal is in discussions with Rennes over possible Laurent Koscienly departure.
Arsenal want to sell Shkodran Mustafi but he does not want to leave
Arsenal retain an interest in Kieran Tierney
Arsenal hope to bolster central defence pre-deadline
And that is it.
No massive revelations, nothing we did not already know and is basically confirmation that our defence is in a mess.
I suppose it is a case of perception.
A positive way of looking at it is to say that Koscienly and Mustafi are on their way out and Tierney and a central defender are set to sign.
A negative way to look at those tweets is Mustafi will refuse to leave, Koscienly will probably leave but no replacement on the cards and the Tierney saga just drags on.
But the truth is we are no further down the road of sorting out our defence today than we were yesterday or even a week or ago.
The club has had all summer to sort out the defence, they knew Mustafi was a liability, they knew how much Celtic wanted for Tierney, they knew Koscienly wanted to leave and they knew we needed a new central defender, possibly even two.
As I say, it all depends on perception but for me, Ornstein tweets just confirm to me the sorry state of our defence.