Arsenal’s transfer window is being made out to be some kind of disaster.

An anti-Berta narrative is being driven online, mainly by ITK social media accounts. Their anger at Berta has nothing to do with the transfer window, and everything to do with them guessing every deal wrong.

These people do not have inside knowledge on the club. They make educated guesses on who we will sign, and if they promote themselves as transfer Gods if they get 2 out of their 10 predictions. And naive fans will follow them.

Arsenal’s inaction in the back end of the window has shown them all as frauds. Most of us knew they were anyway. And as a result they have taken the position that their “information was right, it is Berta who could not do the deals”.

Andrea Berta was part of the tea that assembled a league winning squad. Alongside Mikel Arteta he is integral to the club. Some dope from Nigeria desperate for Elon’s $10 a month to fix the roof on his mud hut should not derail what we are building.

This window was far from the disaster that it is being made out to be.

We have a 23 man senior squad. 20 outfield players and 3 keepers. Go me 23 is always the magic number.

Whilst we can register up to 25, that always feels too many and you end up with a couple of senior players on the fringes, barely playing.

Last season, 23 outfield players got Premier League minutes for Arsenal. Christian Norgaard played jut 102 minutes and Gabriel Jesus played just 421. Neither really contributed anything significant and found themselves picking up splinters sitting on the bench.

Max Dowman and Ethan Nwaneri both played less than 170 minutes last season. So we basically had a senior outfield squad of 19. one less than this years senior squad.

On top of the 20, we also have the likes of Dowman and Marli Salmon offering additional numbers. I have zero concerns about our squad size.

You might be surprised to hear that Arsenal spent nearly £200m this summer. The way some are reacting you would think this was 2015 and our only senior signing was Petr Cech.

We had 3 main issues to resolve this summer.

A top class new central midfielder to take the pod of Martin Zubimendi and Declan Rice. Incoming Bruno and the development of Myles Lewis Skelly means we got a 2 for one special and now have 4 top Premier League midfielders covers the two positions.

The signing of Ezri Konsa resolved a long term issue in Mikel Arteta’s squad – centre back numbers.

In the last couple of years, we had started the season with 3 central defenders. The 4th cover option was basically all our full back and defensive midfielders. No top class cover lead to William Saliba having to play through a back injury. Konsa means not only do we not to rush Saliba back, but we can also play the Frenchman just one game a week if needed.

I think we all have a right to be disappointed what happened on the left wing.

We took the risk and dropped our interest in Morgan Rogers to chase Vinicius Jr. It was a gamble worth taking and it did not pay off. Long term interest in Julian Alvarez did not materialise and it does feel we have left ourselves a little short.

But then we still have Eberechi Eze and Christos Tzolis as our left wing options. Had we sold Leandro Trossard last summer and signed Eze, then this summer sold Gabriel Martinelli, replacing him with Tzolis, we probably would not feel short changed.

I would rather we do what we have done. Stick with players Arteta likes rather then spend big on someone he does not rate and would not play. That would have just been money down the drain.

Once the Martinelli deal goes through, we would have generated in excess of £100m in transfer fees. Not an insignificant amount, especially as only two of those departing played meaningful minutes last season.

The likes of Reiss Nelson, Jesus, Norgaard, Karl Hein, Jakub Kiwior and Fabio Vieira were surplus to requirements. We have not only generated around £40m for them, we have also got their wages off the books. Jesus alone saves us £14m a year…

So we resolved two of the three major issues in the squad. The only unresolved has been a problem for a while and is a position where there is certainly a lack of talent in world football. The squad is stronger. We have lost no on significant. And we have won 3 out of 3 games, a trophy on the bag, 6 points from 6 and yet to concede a goal.

The way some are going on, you would think we’re Tottenham. Bottom of the table with 0 points. And that is ultimately where it matters.

“Winning” the transfer window means nothing. Last night on Sky Sports News, John O’Shea stated Tottenham have had the best transfer window of all Premier League clubs. I nearly spat out my faggots and mash (shout out to Giggly Pig). Has he not seen their opening two games and where they are on the table.

Transfers give fans little endorphin shots over the summer. For clubs like Tottenham, they celebrate new signings like other clubs celebrate winning major trophies. It is the new signings that give them hope before it all comes crashing down.

For The Arsenal. We are champions. We have made the little tweaks needed. Now we need to go and win it again.

Keenos

There are nights when Arsenal make football look effortless. This was not one of them.

And perhaps that made the 1-0 win at Villa Park all the more satisfying.

Bukayo Saka’s second-half goal was enough to give Arsenal all three points, making it two wins from two as the champions begin their title defence. It was hardly a vintage performance, but there was something encouraging about the way Arsenal managed the game when Villa made life uncomfortable.

This was a match that needed patience. Arsenal had to find a way through a Villa side that looked considerably more organised than the one beaten heavily by Brighton on the opening weekend. 

The first half was, frankly, a slog.

Villa started brightly and came closest to breaking the deadlock when Emiliano Buendía’s effort from distance clipped the crossbar. Arsenal struggled to establish the rhythm we saw against Coventry, with Villa making it difficult for the visitors to play through them.

There were also a couple of moments of frustration. Arsenal appealed for a penalty when Riccardo Calafiori went down under contact, but VAR ultimately decided there was no spot-kick. 

Mikel Arteta responded at half-time by introducing Eberechi Eze, and the change helped Arsenal find a little more fluency.

Then came the moment that decided everything.

Just before the hour, Arsenal worked the ball into the Villa area and Calafiori delivered the decisive low cross. Saka arrived at the back post and finished from close range.

It was not a spectacular goal. It didn’t need to be.

Saka has made a habit of turning tight games in Arsenal’s favour, and this was another example of why he remains such an important player for this team. 

What followed was perhaps more impressive than the goal itself.

Arsenal did not panic. They did not start throwing themselves forward looking for a second. Instead, they controlled the game, defended their advantage and gradually squeezed the life out of Villa’s hopes of an equaliser.

Villa finished without registering a shot on target, while Arsenal’s defence once again looked extremely difficult to break down. That makes two clean sheets from two league games. 

There is something very appealing about that.

Last season Arsenal proved they could win the league. The challenge now is doing it again, while opponents are even more determined to knock them off the top.

Not every victory will be pretty.

Not every match will produce flowing football and four goals.

Sometimes you need Saka to produce one decisive moment, a defence that refuses to crack and a midfield capable of managing the final stages.

For Arsenal, the headline is simple – Six points. Two clean sheets. Two wins.

And perhaps most importantly, another reminder that champions do not always have to play brilliantly to win football matches.

Sometimes they just have to find a way.

Arsenal did exactly that at Villa Park.

DJ

There are some departures that feel like football transfers, and there are others that feel like someone has quietly removed a piece of your life.

Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli leaving Arsenal belongs somewhere in the latter category.

Because before they were numbers on a team sheet, before the goals and assists and the inevitable debates about form, they were part of the fabric of a particular Arsenal. The Arsenal that was learning how to believe in itself again. The Arsenal that went from hopeful to genuinely dangerous. The Arsenal that made us look at the table and, for once, wonder whether maybe this could actually be our year.

And there was something wonderfully Brazilian about having the two Gabriels at the heart of it.

Jesus arrived carrying the weight of expectation, but also the unmistakable swagger of someone who knew exactly what he could do with a football. Martinelli arrived with something different: rawness, speed, chaos, a grin and the frightening sense that, if you gave him half a chance, he might simply run through the entire opposition.

One Gabriel brought experience.

The other brought possibility.

Together, they became part of the soundtrack of Arsenal’s return.

We will remember Jesus for those moments when the game seemed to slow down around him. The little touches. The movement. The audacity. That glorious ability to make something happen where there didn’t seem to be anything. We will remember the celebrations, the swagger, the goals that mattered, and the occasions when he seemed to remind everyone that football is supposed to be fun.

And Martinelli?

How do you explain Martinelli to someone who wasn’t there?

You don’t, really.

You show them the running.

You show them that impossible acceleration, the ball apparently attached to his feet while defenders panicked behind him. You show them the smile. You show them the boy who arrived at Arsenal and looked like he had been plugged directly into the electricity supply.

There were frustrations, of course. Football is not a scrapbook of perfect moments. There were injuries, inconsistency, missed chances and afternoons when neither player could quite find the version of themselves we knew was in there.

But perhaps that is why saying goodbye feels so strange.

Because footballers are rarely just the things they did.

They are the seasons in which they existed.

The places we were when they scored.

The friends we watched them with.

The songs.

The celebrations.

The ridiculous belief that somehow, eventually, everything would come together.

Jesus and Martinelli were part of Arsenal’s growing-up years. They belonged to that beautiful, slightly chaotic period when the club stopped looking backwards and started daring to look forwards.

And now they are leaving.

So thank you, Gabriels.

Thank you for the goals, the noise, the laughter and the frustration. Thank you for the moments that made us leap from our seats and the moments that made us stare at the television wondering how on earth that had just happened.

Thank you for being part of the journey.

Perhaps that is ultimately what supporting a football club asks of us: to remember that players come and go, while the memories stay.

One day, there will be another forward.

Another winger.

Another Brazilian who makes us fall in love with the possibility of what might happen next.

But there will only ever be one Jesus and one Martinelli.

Two Gabriels.

Two very different players.

One chapter of Arsenal’s story.

And when we look back at the years when this club began to feel like itself again, we will remember that they were there.

And, for a while, that was enough.

DJ