ARSENAL TRANSFERS THIS SUMMER: THE FIRST 20 (WITH 3 PLAYERS LEAVING)

For reasons that no one has ever be adequately able to explain, the transfer window always “creaks open” and always “slams shut,” and although the range of players who are nominated as moving is invariably very large, the number of transfers tends to stay much the same year on year.

Of course Sky Sports, with not much else to do usually has journalists standing in the autumn rain hoping to spot someone come or go, but actually it’s mostly a bit of spoof.

After all Arsenal have one player bought last summer who has spent the whole season in recovery, but who will be ready to play, we presume, and they are the top scoring team, and the best defending team in the league.  The average age is young (25) and they are top of the league.   So why break the team up by bringing in lots of new boys.

Indeed, imagine if at work you had an accuracy level of two or three percent in whatever it is that you do.  Would you keep your job?  Or perhaps if you are the person who cooks the family meals at home, would matters stay calm and peaceful if only eight or ten evening meals were actually edible!  What would your partner say – or come to that what would you care to say to yourself?

But somehow these quasi-journalists do keep their jobs and the stories run and run each year.  So it is time to ask, can this year beat the 130 players tipped to join Arsenal last summer?  I’m not sure, but we are up to 20, so only 111 more transfers left to be invented by someone with a bit of imagination before last season’s record is broken.

And here’s the funny thing: some of the people who write what is 97% or 98% absolute twaddle actually get paid for doing it!!!

So here is the story so far…  And as you will see at the end, only three players are so far tipped to leave.