Yesterday, I had initially written out and prepared a post about how the end of Arsenal's transfer window this summer very much mirrored our performances on the pitch last season.

We showed great promise, flair, excitement only to falter when it really mattered- dwarfed by the bigger teams and yet again falling behind. Arsenal not buying a striker would have been like going to Tesco, having not eaten for days, with £100  in your pocket and subsequently leaving with ten Miley Cyrus Albums. Negligence of the highest order.

I, along with I'm sure a plethora of Arsenal fans felt real deep rooted anger when David Ornstein tweeted that no players would be coming in on deadline day. It wasn't disappointment that I felt. It went beyond that, I really felt let down, and confused. Like when my mum was late picking me up at the school gate. I felt as if I had been failed.

No Falcao

Falcao, a player that we all desperately craved, was going to UTD, a team that already has 3 strikers better than ours. The tears within me were beginning to surface. My bottom lip was starting to flicker.

I woke up on Saturday morning with a tingling sensation in my stomach - the type which suggests a feeling of nerves coupled with a wholly overwhelming, consuming excitement.

I picked up the TV remote, selected the TV guide, scrolled across to later on Saturday night, and subsequently gleamed at the beautiful sight of Match of The Day hitting our screens at 10.35Pm. I'm pretty sure that feeling is up there with the typical great feelings in life.

You know...wedding day, birth of a kid - that kind of stuff.

Lessons after one weekend

Utd are still cr*p

They can play 451, 442, 352, 847, they will continue to be awful because they lack an array of players. What a mess Fergie has left behind and what a joy it is to see.

After the mauling of Manchester City in the Community Shield Arsenal fans will be more positive than ever about their Premier League chances. If you add an F.A. Cup trophy and a little-known player called Alexis Sanchez to the mixture, there are many reasons to look forward to the season.

We only have to look back a year ago to see the turmoil that can be created by losing an opening fixture convincingly. A loss to Crystal Palace could cause a similar agitation, but I don’t think anybody is seriously contemplating those same dark clouds.

 

In a no doubt more competitive league than ever, it would be a marvellous achievement if The Arsenal were to conquer. At the very least fans will be expecting a prolonged battle that will go to the wire and yet more silverware.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
― Seneca

Latest odds suggest that bookies believe Alexis Sanchez will score less than 12 goals in the Premier League season ahead.

But Sanchez’ big money move to the Emirates Stadium is his own opportunity to put years of preparation into practice and it’s taken a long time for him to get that chance.

The Squirrel

Born in Tocopilla, Chile, his upbringing made the prospect of leading the line for his country in a World Cup the least of his worries.

When I read that there is a case to be made for making Jack Wilshere our 'Defensive Midfielder' my initial reaction was, 'hmmm yeah that could plausibly work.' He has the passing range; he has that burst of acceleration that could help with the transition from defence to attack; he played very deep and very well against Barcelona. If we didn't buy another midfielder maybe it wouldn't be the worst idea.

But then I snapped out of it - I saw the light.

I searched into the depths of my brain and I looked back over the last few years to see how things panned out when we decided to opt for internal, creative solutions to solve flaws within our squad - we've done it enough times over the last few years. Some of these examples were quite challenging to fully remember as I'm fairly sure over the years I have tried my upmost to extinguish them from my memory. And yet, like an injury that after a few years you forget what its cause was, certain scars remain and those alone are enough to fuel your recollection.