If you’re going to follow the smoke, then there’s no smokier trail than the one surrounding French starlet, Claude-Maurice of Lorient.

The internet is ablaze that we’ve agreed terms with him and are very close with Lorient on fee, thought to be around £18m.

This is the sort of signing I’d hoped we’d make. The player is direct, he can move with the ball at pace, he loves a long shot and he’s more fit for purpose than anything we currently boast out wide.

He’s exactly the sort of player Monaco and Dortmund normally snap up and sell for £50m a couple of years later. If this is a sign of things to come this summer, I’m into it. Arsenal has to find the white space in the transfer market.

There are two routes that ‘could’ be where we’re trying to play.

Revamp / Reenergise

This method of picking up broken players from around Europe is exactly what Unai Emery did at Sevilla. The manager is under pressure, when you are drowning, you fall back on what you know. He’d flip players like two up, two downs in Hastings. The risk here is a bit like buying yellow sticker sushi, you’re either buying an ABSOLUTE bargain (Think Kanu or Overmars) or you are about to find out why bad fish is never to be fucked with (Balotelli or Joey Barton). Players like Malcolm, Carrasco, Arnautovic, and Denis Suarez are all the types of players that ‘could’ be monumental… or just total shite. Inter won the CL doing this, Spurs found top 4 with ‘arry. Problem is, it can lead to disaster, just look at Pompey and Stoke (lolololol).

Dortmund+

This is the longterm game. It comes with a little less risk because the outlay is low, if you buy right the players, they go up in value, and we’d be the biggest platform in the world operating this way. The sell to the players is you’ll come to play at a spectacular club, in the greatest city in the world, in an outrageous league. The sell to the fans is unreal kids blowing up The Emirates on the regular. The idea would be that when these players get good enough in 3 years, they’d create a steady stream of MEGA income that’d allow us to move to a more Bayern Munich model, and it’d also find us back in the Champions League. I thought it was very interesting to hear that Dortmund signed Sancho with the idea of selling him after a home-based Euros next summer. That’s planning.

The dream would be to move to where Dortmund were this season, or where Monaco were when Jardim was there first time around. The difference is that when we reach a certain phase in this sort of strategy, we could stop selling our elite talent, but continue the model because we’d have more money for better youth and we’d have a case study to prove out that the idea works.

I’m hoping we’re Dortmund+; all rumours seem to point that way.

The Carassco rumours are dying down, people keep citing our low starting budget, and I feel like it’s our job to remind people that a starting budget isn’t the final budget. If we sell a bunch of first-team players, that will add to the pot… and that literally has to happen, whatever the cost to Arsenal.

Mesut Ozil staying or going doesn’t impact our transfer plan.

The only thing that might be problematic is that every club in Europe knows exactly which players we are DESPERATE to move on. They’d mostly be mental to try and buy Mustafi right now, because they’ll know the deal is there to be had at the end of the window when we’ll literally take a moldy peach and 1982 copy of the Beano in exchange for his services. If you’re the player, that might even settle into your bargaining.

‘I can go back to training, act a c*nt, drive down my fee and up my wages in the process’

The question is whether Stan K is signing of cheques in the meantime. Or will he be rigid about making sure the cashflow is constantly in the black? For me, as a person who has no finanical incentive to keep cashflow positive, I’d say this would be a regressive approach that could severely disrupt our preseason and ruin the start of the campaign.

We should go all out to bring in the players we need so there is ZERO disruption for Emery’s team, and we can judge him solely on what happened on the pitch… I don’t want to have to read people excusing another shite season because we signed back Santos and Park Chu Young the last day of the window.

Ryan Fraser hilariously told the press he wasn’t worth the £30m and Bournemouth are insisting he’ll be with them next year. I won’t be taking an absence from work over this failure (please fail).

The Meunier stories are still chugging along, but a few things are coming out of Paris that suggest it’s a pipedream. Firstly, the player wants to stay. Secondly, ARSENAL DON’T NEED A RIGHT BACK OF HIS EXPERIENCE and are instead more focused on the left back and left-sided centre back position. Also, I’d be absolutley shocked if Raul would be sitting in a room seriously mulling that sort of investment in a position we are stocked in from a starting 11 perspective. Go where the holes are my friends, go where the holes are.

There are also extremely amusing rumours that Milan want LT at all costs… they are willing to give us Kessie in exchange. Pretty sure this one ain’t happening people, especially for £35m quid.

There’s also a great story in the press that Celtic are after Jenks… apparently started from one of those HILARIOUS fake twitter rumours. Still, the press run with these things and so goes the circle of clicks in journalism.

That’s me done friends, see you in the comments x

Oh, and HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO MY FATHER, big love, #EmeryOut