Toys exit prams as midfielder appears not to have arrived

The new Goodplaya site is here.

HOW very Arsenal to announce contract extensions for Mark Randall and Kieran Gibbs yesterday.

I’ve said previously how after losing Diarra, Flamini and Gilberto, we’ve left ourselves not just exposed to injuries, but short of midfielders in the first place.

It does frustrate me because I really don’t see why we couldn’t have held onto Gilberto and then only sold him yesterday if replacements were tied up.

But let’s not just throw our toys out of the pram on this. Buying a midfielder is not a case of opening an Argos catalogue, seeing which one you fancy, checking they have it at your local branch and picking it up.

It’s a damn site more complicated than that and I’ve no reason to think the boss didn’t try very hard to bring at least one in and possibly more.

But these things happen. And let’s be honest with ourselves here: what would our reaction be if he had signed someone but they had turned out to not be as good as Denilson or Diaby? Would we praise him for at least signing someone?

I think not. We’d slam him for bringing such rubbish into Arsenal football club.

Football success, ultimately, is not about who you sign. It is about what you do on the pitch.

And that is what I will judge Arsene on this season. I happen to think he has made things tougher than they need be, but if we are successful then when I look back it won’t bother me one bit that we didn’t sign any of those replacements.

Of course, if a terrible run in December coincides with Ramsey and Denilson in the team because Cesc and Diaby are injured, I won’t be hugely sympathetic.

But we kind of have a choice: either spend the next four months harping on endlessly about midfielders or we get behind what is ultimately a massively talented squad that looks light in one particular area (and perhaps in central defence but that’s for another day…)