Claudius wrote:

what's not true, Capi?

Nobody waits a few weeks to save on wages or transfer fees.

Put it this way; if that was actually a strategy, why would we sign Xhaka and look to sign Vardy before the window even opened?

Arsenal do many silly things, but that's nonsense.

Problem is Arsenal fans are so pissed off and fed up with the club and how it operates, they'll believe lots of nonsense like that just because it's said by some dickhead on Twitter or an even bigger dickhead passing himself off as a journalist.

David Ornstein ‏@bbcsport_david

Arsenal CB Gabriel out 6/8wks - ankle sprain. Not quite as bad as he 1st feared but #AFC stepping up pursuit of Valencia's Shkodran Mustafi

get it done this week

Yep, no more dithering.

It's a possibility a deal is in place already, may be, subject to Valencia signing a suitable replacement.

Ornstein gets his information from the club, doesn't he? The club won't feed the 'stepping up' of our interest if talks weren't advanced.

I wish we already had that top defender but if we get him and the hold up on the deal so far has been a replacement player then it's fine. I would rather Wenger identify a quality player and get him than panic.

Gazza M wrote:

David Ornstein ‏@bbcsport_david

Arsenal CB Gabriel out 6/8wks - ankle sprain. Not quite as bad as he 1st feared but #AFC stepping up pursuit of Valencia's Shkodran Mustafi

get it done this week

6-8 weeks? Wenger is quite likely to go with his squad options if it's only 2 months. He has 5 or more players who can fill in during that period

He said that he was looking for a CB before Gabriel got injured, but because he is injured for 6-8 weeks, Wenger is likely to go with his squad options?

Is Gab actually out for 6-8 weeks or is Wenger just saying that in order to avoid clubs rinsing us on player valuations?

Claudius wrote:
Gazza M wrote:

get it done this week

6-8 weeks? Wenger is quite likely to go with his squad options if it's only 2 months. He has 5 or more players who can fill in during that period

Honestly, Gabriel's injury is a non-factor. Wenger was more than happy to start the season with Mertesacker, Koscielny and Chambers two years ago - which Chambers cover for Debuchy as well. Compared to that season, we're positively overflowing with defenders.

If Wenger likes the look of Mustafi and can negotiate a reasonable fee, he'll sign him. The state of the squad is a secondary factor since internal solutions can be found no matter how thread bare the squad is.

I've never understood the phrase 'stepping up their interest' really. What does that even mean? You want to buy a player, contact the club and agent and have a chin wag to find out if a deal can be struck. By all accounts we have done that already before, so how do you go from that to 'step up your interest'? If you are negotiating, then you are pretty interested I'd say.

It's a pretty straight forward concept to go from preliminary negotiations/enquiry to tabling a firm offer. Unless you're just being pedantic about the phrase itself.

Nah, the process really. I mean, Wenger said about 3 weeks ago he expects to sign a CB, and we had obviously already identified Mustafi at that point and made contact. We want to buy, they want to sell and don't count on him for next season, so, what is taking so long? How much time can it reasonably take to reach an agreement? We saw, for instance, in the infamous trolley dash week how we were actually able to get things done quickly. I may be all wrong here, but to it seems that we are more often than not extremely cumbersome when it comes to closing deals.

Like it has been reported, Valencia first want to sign a suitable replacement before concluding the deal.

It's the same for every club. The difference for us is that quite often at the end of it all we end up empty handed, while others will mostly end up with their man.

Rex wrote:

Nah, the process really. I mean, Wenger said about 3 weeks ago he expects to sign a CB, and we had obviously already identified Mustafi at that point and made contact. We want to buy, they want to sell and don't count on him for next season, so, what is taking so long? How much time can it reasonably take to reach an agreement? We saw, for instance, in the infamous trolley dash week how we were actually able to get things done quickly. I may be all wrong here, but to it seems that we are more often than not extremely cumbersome when it comes to closing deals.

The honest answer is no one really knows, no matter how much they claim. Particularly in relation to timelines. For all we know, the club could have been in contact with Valencia over the transfer since January! If you're going to base the timeline from the date the news was leaked to the public, you'll probably have a warped view of things.

Fundamentally though, we know that the club will prioritise a favourable fee over timely acquisition of the player itself - or in some cases - risk losing the player altogether. That attitude it always going to lead to protracted transfer sagas. Comparing it to the window where we signed Mertesacker, Arteta, Yossi Benayoun and Andre Santos isn't really fair since the profile of those players were not particularly significant. In fact Arteta still had to take a wage cut to join us. And then you have the clubs themselves, some clubs are a pain to deal and some aren't. I suspect Valencia, now cash rich with the sale of Gomes to Barcelona, are not in any particular rush to sell a player until they have a replacement. They certainly don't need the money.

We did however sign Ozil quite quickly once he was made available but in that instance both clubs wanted the transfer to go through quickly and player himself was reasonably open to playing for Wenger based on groundwork that was laid previously.

I dont know.. if Chelsea are in for him we have no chance , simply because they tend to wrap things up pretty quickly once they want a player.

Is there any semi reliable source suggesting Chelsea are interested?

Most of the tweets last week indicated they were interested along with us

all of the news this week suggests they're not though