So the festivities are finally over, and at last the winter transfer window has opened and all Arsenal fans can live in hope that Arsene Wenger will be announcing some new top class arrivals over the next few weeks.
Anyone who looks at the current League table can see that we are in a dogfight to get into the Top Four and they can also see that the Gunners have conceded more goals (26) than anyone else in the top 7 places in the table so it obvious that our ageing back line needs some steel to help us stop conceding sloppy goals from defensive errors. The only other side that comes close is Liverpool (on 24 conceded) and Jurgen Klopp has already addressed that area by paying out an incredible 75m GBP on Virgil van Dijk. We must hope that Wenger has his own plan in place in that department.
We also have some players that have already expressed a desire to leave in January, notably Olivier Giroud and Mathieu Debuchy, and of course we have the never-ending farce of the Alexis Sanchez saga. Wenger was asked yesterday whether he will be doing any business in January and he gave us hope when he replied: “Tomorrow we try to bring in first and after that we will see.”
As for Alexis, Wenger sounded annoyed to be continually asked about this. “I have spoken many times about that and I am not ready to talk about it any more.” he said.
“I have given you my answer many times in a press conference and I don’t see why I should come back on it as we have talked about it 150 times.”
But from his previous reply I am thinking that the boss is seeing if he can get another quality replacement for Sanchez before allowing him to leave, and maybe the same with Giroud. I can’t see him letting both strikers go without an adequate replacement. Can you?