Clichy, and seemed to be getting to grips with the defensive side of the game too. But even if it hadn’t all gone horribly downhill for Santos he still wasn’t good enough to push us on a level, and so after all that expenditure we had to go into the market again, essentially paying twice for the same position. When you add all his fees to the cost of the Monreal deal you see immediately how ‘expensive’ some of these ‘bargains’ end up being. The same could be said with Gervinho. Unsurprisingly there are now calls from the fans to sign just someone, ANYONE, but truthfully I’d prefer giving Gnabry a chance to buying yet another ‘almost’ player for £10 million that we have to replace in 2 seasons time.

I have a feeling that I’m not alone in feeling a bit numb from this transfer window. Any conversation about Arsenal’s transfer strategy provokes 2 questions: ‘What strategy?’ and… ‘What transfers?!’ However, rather than simply joining the twitter chorus of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ I thought I’d look at the challenges facing Arsene, Ivan and Dick in this transfer window. And in fairness, they don’t have a simple task.

Perhaps the key ‘problem’ we face is simply that arguably all of our squad is at an almost frustratingly ‘pretty much good enough’ level. Aside from a couple of guys still clearing out their lockers, there is no one I look at in this squad and think ‘you are simply not good enough to wear the Arsenal shirt’. This is, fundamentally, a strong squad, that will only be stronger for keeping all of its best players. It’s a while since we’ve not had the handicap of rearranging the focus of our team to compensate for big player exits.

And it is easy to forget that in any Wenger squad there will always be internal improvement. Thanks to the kind of player he targets, any squad Wenger puts together will, without exits, always be better than the same squad a year before. This season, for example, it is already clear that Koscielny and Ramsey are in a different league to the players they were 12 months ago. It remains to be seen what we’ll be saying about, for example, the Ox or Jenkinson by the end of the season. (It’s a slight tangent, but I think this is a massive reason we are always underestimated by the pundits. They’re so obsessed with measuring the quality of new signings that they can’t seem to get their heads around the fact players already there might significantly improve. Then they’re shocked that Flamini is suddenly owning the centre of midfield, or Van Persie is, despite all their naysaying, capable of leading the line).

Pointless incremental improvements

So good news! But when it comes to looking to bring players in, the quality of our squad actually poses a bit of a problem. We could break our transfer record 3 times this summer and still not really improve the quality of the starting 11 one bit. We might add a bit of squad depth, but it won’t get us any higher than 4th. It’s not enough to say ‘well, this or that player is at least better than what we have’. They need to be CONSIDERABLY better than what we have to make it worth going for. After all, when you factor in that they won’t be at their best in the first season whilst they’re getting to know the team and the way Arsenal play, they might not even be a better option at all!

And in fairness to the club, they do seem to be at least avoiding this mistake. If there has been one area of significant financial wastage lately it has been buying players who were only incrementally better than what we had but who didn’t really raise the bar. Small improvements, granted, but when a tiny improvement costs £5 or £10 million, plus wages, plus agents fees, it’s amazing how quickly it becomes not worth it! It’s easy to forget that Andre Santos, for example, was an upgrade on Armand Traore (and in some ways initially even seemed to be an upgrade on Gael Clichy). He was good on the ball, offered way more end product than Clichy, and seemed to be getting to grips with the defensive side of the game too. But even if it hadn’t all gone horribly downhill for Santos he still wasn’t good enough to push us on a level, and so after all that expenditure we had to go into the market again, essentially paying twice for the same position. When you add all his fees to the cost of the Monreal deal you see immediately how ‘expensive’ some of these ‘bargains’ end up being. The same could be said with Gervinho. Unsurprisingly there are now calls from the fans to sign just someone, ANYONE, but truthfully I’d prefer giving Gnabry a chance to buying yet another ‘almost’ player for £10 million that we have to replace in 2 seasons time.

So what do we need?

There are 2 types of player that would improve our squad. The first is the most obvious: world class talent – the kind of players who would push even our best players onto the bench; those special players who can win you a game by themselves. And I know this might be a little controversial, but I’m not even sure it matters which position they are in. I look at our squad and think every position is covered with very decent players. Add 2 world class players in pretty much any outfield position and I think we would transform our prospects. For example, everyone is obsessed with the idea of a striker, but I genuinely would not have a problem with our striking options if we brought in a Ribery-type winger to tear up one of the wings and a world class central midfielder in the Yaya Toure mould.

And there immediately we hit our great problem. I’ve just mentioned 2 names and we all know aren’t even remotely for sale. Wenger gets laughed at for saying there is ‘more money than talent’ out there, but he is absolutely right. These kinds of players are rare, and with every new superclub that bursts onto the scene they become a) more expensive and b) thinner on the ground. For example, a few years ago you can be absolutely sure that one of Falcao or Cavani would have ended up at Chelsea and we would have had a guaranteed shot at Rooney, but with Monaco and PSG suddenly on the rise the situation is different. And identifying genuinely world class talent isn’t as easy as it seems. A lot of people (me included) were getting very excited at the thought of signing Higuain, but there is a persuasive argument that he ALMOST falls into the ‘incremental improvement’ category I’ve identified above. Is he not just a slightly better Podolski – a powerful running, clinical finisher with questionable link up skills? I’m not saying the club has definitely made the right decision here, but I can at least understand why they didn’t pounce when Napoli showed interest. For £35 million you want to know you are seriously upgrading on what we’ve got.

Young Guns

The other type of player the club should be looking at is in a more familiar category – genuinely outstanding up and coming talent in the 20-22 age bracket. The squad is short of numbers, and a few seasons ago what we needed was solid, dependable, older pros who had done it all before, but actually we have those in abundance now. The area we should be looking is for some younger talents who can be squad players this season, and perhaps the next, before taking 1st team places off the older guys in the future. And this area has been Wenger’s meat and drink in the transfer market for most of his career. After all, we won the league in 1998 with a striker the same age as Chuba Akpom! But yet again, in the current market things have changed a great deal. The sky high prices of world class talent has led to big clubs targeting players younger and younger, and if anything the ‘early 20’s’ bracket is the most inflated section of the market of all. Whilst we bought Vieira for £3.5 m
illion, Isco and Illarramendi have just cost Real nearly £60 million between them! Likewise, if we wanted to prize Gundogan away from Dortmund we’d have to pay £25 million (and he’s probably not for sale anyway!) There’s almost no discount for their youth anymore! Of course there are players available in this market – Matthias Ginter is a cut price option we’ve been linked with – but it should be clear that even in this area that getting the right player is not at all easy.

So they’re doing everything right?

So far, so rational. You could argue the club is doing everything it can but being thwarted by circumstances beyond their control. Yes, it really is difficult to buy truly world class players, especially when you are not in the very top of the European elite, like Real, Barca and Bayern. And yes, these players are often the ones that move latest, that take the most legwork and that are the most complicated. They are also often the most likely to be wildly overpriced by a club unwilling to sell.

But here’s the thing – football isn’t rational. In fact, it’s totally frickin’ crazy! And if I have one huge complaint about Arsenal’s transfer work for the past 5 years or so is that the club has failed to accept the ‘irrationality’ of football. Take Suarez as an example: at £40 million Suarez probably vaguely represents ‘value for money’ (if such a thing exists in football), but at £50 million he is probably not a great deal, when you factor in his toxic image, the possibility (likelihood?) of further bans and his profligacy in front of goal. But there is more to a marquee signing than simply what they do on the pitch.

Firstly, consider the impact it would have on the squad – the lift that comes from having a world class talent come in. Confidence is a funny old thing in football. You only have to look at how good and then how bad players like Gervinho or Fabianski can be to see the impact it can have. Secondly, consider the impact it would have on the fans. I firmly believe that if the Emirates crowd was properly motivated and positive it could bring us another 6 points over the course of a season. Thirdly, consider the impact it would have on our rivals (Liverpool in particular) to see world class talent coming in whilst they are losing top players. Fourthly, consider the domino effect when other players we are interested can see that we are a club on the up and making ambitious steps. It might just tip the balance and make a young guy like Thiago consider us, rather than Bayern. When you start to add it up, that extra £10 million actually looks like money very well spent. In fact, if ALL it bought was a great atmosphere at the Emirates I’d pay it! It would be money better spent than another ‘almost’ player who fails to improve us. We know that the club uses all sorts of algorithms to determine the value of a player, but I wonder if they take into account such ‘irrational’ concerns.

It remains to be seen what happens by the end of this window. I have a sneaky feeling we may look back and realise the club did everything right – blinking last and snagging a couple of top class players in the final weeks. And if they do that, they will be vindicated. But right now there has to be concern that their ‘rational’, over-careful approach to transfers is going to fail, because at some point the rational thing to do is to accept, embrace and exploit football’s fundamental irrationality.

Follow Alastair on Twitter over @albrookshaw