Plenty of news out of France at the minute suggesting that we’ve agreed on terms with William Saliba about a move away from St.Etienne. This from Lequipe.

‘The Gunners will now enter into negotiations with the Greens to try to complete the operation. The idea of ​​the different parties is to make a transfer, followed by a loan to ASSE for the coming season. The Forez club could thus finance its mercato, in addition to keeping its player an additional year.’

The reason this signing should excite you is two-fold.

The idea that we’re about to drop sexy money on an 18-year old that we’re not going to have in the squad next season is absolutely massive. It suggests we likely have more than £40m in the kitty, Stan K is buying into the future plan, and that the club is fairly confident of raising more funds from player sales this summer. If this move happens, it’d show we’re future planning at a far more ambitious clip than ever before.

The second part of this move that excites me is that it doubles down the hope that we’re moving towards a smarter model for rebuilding Arsenal. It means that the Dortmund+ vision is where we’re likely heading. That’s exactly how we win moving forward.

I’ve read some folk moaning that this approach is neglecting the short term, but here’s the rub, Arsenal has given a full throttle go at short-termism and it failed. We signed Auba, Lacazette, Sokratis, Leno, Xhaka, Lichtsteiner, Mustafi, Perez, Welbeck and Kola… at great expense and we didn’t make the top 4.

Short-termism comes at a cost, we bought in players on CL money and now we can’t move them on. We tied players down like Ozil and they’re not motivated.

The last thing we should be doing is giving the short-term game another go next season. It’s not sustainable, it’s dry to watch, and the Premier League is too competitive for that approach to be a smart one when you don’t have buckets of money to throw at the problem.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that Arsenal did stabilize last season. Sure, Emery finished worse than he started, but when all was said and done, we only had ourselves to blame for not finishing 3rd. That’s a good set of footings to build from. If we ship out the bad eggs, replace with capable young players with high ceilings, and rebuild the departments surrounding the manager with people that share Arsenal values, blended with a true winners mentality, we could be on course for improvement next season.

I’m being very hopeful here… the main angle I want to get at is that Edu is going to come armed with ideas, energy and a fresh footballing philosophy. Hiring in like Sevilla this summer would have been a disaster for the next manager. Next season should be a speedy assessment of infrastructure weaknesses, with an action plan for a rebuild. The recruitment seems to be off to a good start, let’s just hope Raul keeps things focused on elite youth so the transition to the next person is smooth and cost-effective.

The manager leaving shouldn’t break the club… hopefully that’s what’s being put in place.

Remember, 5 years ago Spurs and Liverpool were behind us on the pitch, as brands, and financially. Now look at them! We could have some of that, but the building has to start now. Saliba, Claude, Schubert and bringing back the kids is where we should be heading… very exciting if true.

We’re being linked to Kimpembe. He’s on Neymar’s shit list. He’s a good player, he’s young, could be an interesting move as PSG look to offload talent.

Even more exciting? David Ospina is nearly gone… feels like he’s been here so long, he should be landing a testimonial? Right? He’s like that one guest at the end of a house party, ‘shots, shots, shots’, no David, you just pissed all over the toilet seat again and you’re wearing my wife’s bra on your head. Time to go matey.’

One man I’d like to do shots with at a house party with is Steve Bould. He’d be doing them from fish bowls telling a crowd of people he’s not down with gender pronoun bollocks, ‘you are what you are, and while I’m here, gluten-free, fucking bollocks is what that is.’ I’d never tell Steve I drink oat milk. Not worth the aggro.

Anyway, he’s swapped roles with Freddie. I think the move is very simple, Steve Bould wants to coach and there’s probably not a lot of opportunity to do that under Emery. I like that he’s been kept in the club, he’s a great personality to have about the camp and he’s a legend. I’m also very excited about Freddie, I’ve heard interesting things about how he is, clearly hugely ambitious, has had a good stint with the kids, so it all looks very positive. Unai apparently has a thing about making sure anyone he hires outside his group of buddies can’t have any hair. It’s weird, but what can you do?

Can someone get me the odds on caretaker manager Freddie?

On that sexy note, I’ll see you in the comments x