Many Gooners will be hoping that Arsene would have been camping outside since 4pm yesterday afternoon, sleeping bag, hot water bottle and a collection of sandwiches at the ready. Preparing himself in advance to get an advantage over his peers ahead of the transfer window bursting open on June 1st.

We are all excited about the prospect of new signings, new characters and hopefully new strengths that the team may not yet quite have. Change can and should be positive but I am also a little concerned that too much change can have a negative effect.

In recent years Arsene has been very lucky with his player purchases, more often than not they have slotted into the squad with relative ease.

Thinking back to the purchase of Bacary Sagna, he was bought to replace Emmanuel Eboue and he came into the team and hit the ground running, he finished the season as the best right back in the Premier League and was awarded for it with a place in the PFA player of the year.

Thomas Vermaelen probably had an even bigger impact into the team, scoring goals, throwing himself into tackles and using his very cultured left foot to build up the play from the back.

Nasri at 21 showed his quality early on and Arshavin made a big impact half way through the season but these were usually individual changes to the team, other Arsene signings were often younger or started as back up players.

Would we witness the same continuity or fluidity if three or four new faces came into the team? You could well say that not all the new signings would have to start the season and they could start from the bench until they adapt but then what exactly would change?

New players need to play football matches for their team before they can feel at home at a new club. It is easy to suggest that buying from the Premier League means that said players do not have to adapt to the league and country which is true but what is often ignored is the fact that they have to adapt to playing for Arsenal.

How many teams in the league play like Arsenal? How many teams have as much as the ball as we do? How many teams play such a defensive high line as Arsenal?

Often names such as Brede Hangeland have been pulled out from the media with no thought as to what system he currently plays in and what he would be going into. It is very easy to say that Arsenal are crap at set pieces so let us buy a mixture of Peter Crouch and Mr Universe and Bob’s your uncle.

The trouble is we probably have opponents running at us or trying to pass through us more times than we have set pieces being thrown into our penalty area. Finding a combination of ball playing, quick recovery defender and dominant powerful player in the air is a very difficult task and one that can settle into the team from the start will be even more tricky.

But getting back to the point, if we bought a new defender, midfield and attacker then it will disrupt each area of the pitch as new partnerships and understanding needs to be formed. Hopefully it will improve each area but we have to hope that each player can do a Vermaelen and make the difference from the outset.

I enjoyed the Champions League final, ok I actually enjoyed watching Manchester United look like Bolton. As much as I despise the Catalans behaviour off the pitch and in fact on it when they are rolling around the floor playing peek-a-boo, I cannot help but massively admire their quality on the pitch.

And even though we have our own style, own system that is not the same as Barcelona, we could still learn a thing or two about what they have done to achieve success.

I could talk about their work rate to win the ball back or their ball retention but what I hope we do a little more of is our off the ball movement. Their front three in Messi, Pedro and Villa are all good enough to keep the ball moving, to keep possession in congested areas but I love the way they will play triangles and then one of the front players will dart across the defender to allow the likes of Xavi, Iniesta and company to play that through pass.

In the Arsenal team we do not have enough players ready and willing to make those runs. Theo Walcott has scored many of his goals by making those runs. Samir Nasri in the first half of the season scored plenty of goals by making off the ball runs but he would still prefer to go to the ball and almost completely stopped making those runs that were successful when he returned back from his mid season injury.

If we are to sign either an attacking wide player or a central striker then I hope it is a hard working, quick player who makes runs and scores goals. Without any substance or evidence I have a gut feeling that Gervinho will end up playing at Arsenal. I could be totally wrong but he has experience of winning a league title, he makes assists and scores goals. If it is not Gervinho who is supposed to be announcing the club of his choice soon then I hope it is a similar type of player who can play both wide forward and central striker. That type of player would in fact be my priority over everything else if the decision was mine, but that is just me.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could well be one of the first names heading into Arsenal, if his father’s quotes are anything to go by.

Mark Chamberlain said:

“We want Alex to get to Arsenal as soon as possible and continue his development. Alex is still developing but there is no better place to develop than Arsenal and the Premier League”

Well he is correct there, Arsenal is the best place for developing talented players and it will be interested to see if an agreement can be reached and if so how much.

I was impressed with what I saw of him against Manchester United and I am sure he will become a very good player in the next few years. I am sure many fans will be speaking about the need to improve the here and now rather than the future. I do not see why both cannot be achieved at the same time.

Back tomorrow.