God willing (in the words of Jose Reyes) the mist that has engulfed our summer of transfer dealings will finally clear by midnight. The deadline is upon us and not a minute too soon.

And as we hit the 11th hour, it appears we are back to where we were a year ago, with Julio Baptista on the brink of joining us, according to numerous sources. That said, the Guardian reckon it could be a season long swap and the Sun suddenly come over all conservative by saying Baptista has not even decided if he will come to North London. A couple of those pieces seem agreed that if the Baptista swap falls through, Reyes will go to Athletico.

Then there is Tevez, who the Telegraph reckon has eluded us. But back at the Times they reckon we could nab both Tevez and Mascherano.

Personally, I’d like to see the swap happen and hope it is for a season initially. Even if the beast is rubbish, then we have lost Jose Reyes, which was going to happen anyway. But on the plus side, if anybody knows how to turn a Madrid mis-fit into an Arsenal legend and how to turn a good Arsenal player into a useless piece of meat in Spain, then it’s our man Arsene. So let’s trust him on this.

And then there is Ashley Cole… more on that tomorrow depending on what happens.

ps, the Goodplayas are back (see top right). This redesigned blog is finally beginning to feel like home.

Poor Dermot Gallagher. He misjudges the seriousness of the Ben Thatcher incident and gets booted off the Premiership referees list. Like him, we knew straight away that it was a nasty collision. But we only realised the very deliberate intent after watching it on TV super slow-motion replay.

Gallagher is essentially the scapegoat for FIFA’s absurd refusal to sanction a) a fifth official with a TV monitor and b) to allow a referee’s decision to be altered post-match. Yes, referees make some poor mistakes. But we are guilty of asking one man to perform as well as 16 differently angled TV cameras. And then we are demoting him when he can not. It’s madness.

I’ll look at the specifics of the game and do playa ratings later but for now I wanted to talk about the whole walking-in issue. I’m probably doing it the wrong way round, but sod it. (Update Monday morning: It’s probably too late to do a report and ratings now. And I need to rush to work.)

Like many of us, I seem to have spent most of the first week of the season screaming either “just f***ing shoot”, “go out wide for once in your bloody life”. It’s been frustrating viewing and very quickly the comfortable conclusion has been drawn that we are guilty of trying to walk the ball into the net.

And it’s a fair criticism on the whole - but a little misguided too. It suggests we have suddenly changed our game, taken on a whole new approach if you like. We haven’t. We’re just a little off form. The difference between us and other sides is that where as Chelsea off form will consist of Lampard firing five yards wide, our virtually unique style of play makes our failings so much more visible.

Unlike other sides, there are hardly any percentage balls and very few thoughts of trying something a hundred times on the basis it will eventually come off. Each move is individually crafted, requiring immaculate execution for it to work. If the slightest thing goes wrong, the chance is basically gone - you only need to see Henry’s reaction when things go awry.

And it is infuriating. But, and this is the major but, it is also proven to be the best system. Just look at our scoring rates over the last few years. Look at how when it works well, we are more electric than even Chelsea can manage. Look at it’s greatest proponent, the man who always looks for a better placed team-mate, the one who lays into the Alan Shearer theory of a striker is a striker and he will always shoot. Yep, it’s Thierry Henry, who in the only season in the last four when he was not named player of the year still notched just the 25 goals from 31 appearances.

He and Arsenal have comprehensively proved that if you are good enough (as we are), always looking for that better placed team-mate is what will reap rewards.

So yes, it’s infuriating. And yes, when we’re not playing that well it would probably serve us well to get a few more balls into the box (look where this season’s goals have come from) and to shoot a bit more in the hope one might deflect Lampard style. But remember, what we are doing at the moment is nothing new, it’s what we have been doing for years and it works. It’s just that when it doesn’t come off, the visible effect is so much more obvious.

It’s dragged on so long I can hardly bring myself to write about it but yesterday saw a glimmer of hope that a conclusion to the Cole saga could be near. Were we to get £10 million plus Gallas then you would have to be fairly happy.

Yes, he is three and a bit years older than Cole and yes, he only has a year left on his contract. But there is no real argument to say Cole is a particularly better player. In fact, it can be argued Gallas’ ability to play centrally gives him added value. Of course, the fact Cole is English should automaticallly push his value up by about £10 million. I’m not sure why, but apparently it should.

Anyway, it seems the principle of Gallas leaving is not one that Chelsea are ruling out, which is good news.

It’s Porto, CSKA Moscow and Hamburg in the Champions League and to be honest my first thought was to think which ones Bergkamp could travel to. Habit I guess. If you’re interested, Hamburg would have been a doddle by ferry.

Finally, Anelka has gone to Bolton. Words fail me.

That’s it for today. Team news for City will emerge later.

To some it might seem churlish to criticise a performance where we won, had the better of the chances and ensured smooth passage to the hallowed land of the Champions League proper.

But the reality is that last night offered some cause for worry. In defence we still look very inexperienced. It’s true that experience can only be gained by playing but the ideal situation is to have one or at most two in the back line who are learning their trade. When you have three, confusion can arise, players can get drawn out of position and end up making mistakes like the one by Kolo Toure that gifted Zagreb their opener.

In midfield, the partnership of Cesc and Flamini looked weak. Flamini is a willing runner with a great attitude and he makes a far better jack of all trades than Gilles Grimandi was. But as a first reserve central in central midfield, he does not offer the guaranteed quality so important in that position. Yes, Diaby might have come in if fit, but remember that he too is an unproven quantity.

On the wings the combination of Ljungberg and Hleb lacks pace without the speed that a player like Reyes contributed when we went 4-5-1 in Europe last year. Here at least we should be more than covered, with Rosicky, Walcott and hopefully Reyes around to contribute. Up front too we can look short without Henry around. Van Persie played well and is deservedly a fans’ favourite. But Adebayor looked worryingly clunky. Particular significant is that his confidence is down.

Of course, these are early days in our new stadium and a win is a win. But Gallas and one other experienced playa would do very nicely before the transfer deadline.

I haven’t got much time this morning so we’ll go straight onto the playa ratings. And I didn’t manage to make it round to Highbury after all, but to the right are a few shots of Emirates at night.

I took this photo from the back of the new East Stand on Saturday. Not much more to say - it’s just kind of surreal.

So it’s Zagreb tonight and not doing anything stupid is the name of the game. Resting Henry seems right - though I’d like to see him get a run out late on - and keeping Walcott benched also seems sensible too. Other than that, injuries and want aways leave Arsene with little room to experiment - unless you want to see Cygan come in, in which case you are just plain wrong.

It’s another sell-out at the Emirates, which is good to see. That said, it took until yesterday for the last tickets to go. I wonder if once the novelty factor wears off those seats at the back of the upper tier and in the corners prove a little difficult to shift. I sat just to the right of one of the screens against Villa and while the view was good, my brother certainly seemed to be raving more about his seat 12 rows behind Arsene. The point here is that I paid more (£42) than he did for his.

Still a sell-out will stop Fergie from carping for a while. And for the record, the crowd will be significantly more than the 51,000 they got in for their qualifier last season.

Interesting to see Arsene’s comments yesterday. That he should come out so publicly and talk about Gallas is exceptional and a clear sign of the extraordinary posturing going on.

I’m off to the game tonight and this time I’ll be in the singing section to Arsene’s left. Should be good. Time willing, I may pop round and try and peer through the gates of Highbury beforehand. Is that morbid?