It shows how little notice I have taken in the transfer window that I thought it had closed last night. It does’nt. 11pm tonight.

In the past, I have gone as far as booking transfer deadline day off work. This year have been a complete non-event with no top team yet to make a serious signing.

Some fans will blame the artist formally known as FFP, but the reality is Premier League clubs have spent too much in recent years, overpaid for a lot of average players, given them huge wages, and last summer saw record spending. Every club has had to tighten its belt this January.

Moving forward, I would not be too surprised if this year becomes the new blue print – clubs spending 100% of their budgets in the summer to give themselves the best chance of competing over the course of the season.

Some fans will moan about the PSR restrictions. They use “net spend” tables to show they are being unfairly treated and the rules are broken. But when clubs like Everton were spending 94.5% (2020-21) of their turnover on wages, it is clear that big transfer fees are only part of the problem. Fans really do need to educate themselves before moaning.

The big Arsenal news is that Lino Sousa has joined Aston Villa.

This has led to the usual accusations of Mikel Arteta that he is not giving youth a chance.

Sousa, like Folarin Balogun, was refusing to sign a new contract with the club. So why should we give him game time if his deal is running out at the end of this season? I do get that some will argue that had he played more minutes, he would have signed, but he has barely turned 19.

As a teenager, if you do not want to sign a 4 or 5 year deal with The Arsenal, then the door is open for you to leave. We have still yet to sell a youngster that has proved us wrong (the Serge Gnabry position is very unique).

Ultimately, if Arteta felt Sousa was good enough, he would have got game time. We are not a charity and we have to get out of this “give youth a chance” whilst also demanding that we sign superstars to compete for the league.

Giving Sousa or Ethan Nwaneri 5 minutes here or there will do nothing for their development. They are best off playing 90 minutes in the PL2, and then going out on loan to show they are ready.

Look at the journey of Conor Bradley who scored last night for Liverpool.

Bradley is a year older than Sousa. Last season, at the age of 19, he went out on loan to Bolton Wanderers were he proved that he was ready. This season he has broken into Liverpool’s first team squad and has now played 9 games.

Sousa would have taken a similar journey for Arsenal had he decided to sign the contract offered to him. He would have been loaned out next season (when he was 19), and then 2025/26 would have been the year we looked to integrate him into the first team. He would have been just 20, like Bradley.

Instead, he opted to join Aston Villa who will loan him out to Plymouth Argyle.

I have no issue with him deciding to play for a mid-table Premier League club in the hope it might fast track his career by a year. If he has the desire to play first team PL football and is happy to take that step down, then so be it. In 6-months, following his loan deal, he might be ready to start regular for Villa. But that does not mean he would have been ready to start for Arsenal.

No fee has yet been mentioned, although a deal starting at £4m rising to £12m has been mentioned (not sure if this is just a Twitter rumour).

We need to keep doing this with our youngsters if we decide they will not make it at The arsenal. These £4-5million a youth team player soon adds up.

Another to depart is Bradley Ibrahim to Hertha Berlin. Not a player I know much about but like Sousa his contract was coming to an end at the end of this season.

What is interesting about both Ibrahim and Sousa is neither are Hale End academy products. Both joined the club in 2022 from QPR and WBA respectively, signing their first 2 year professional contracts with us. They decided not to extend those deals.

Maybe this is a message to the club – you poach another teams 16/17-year-olds, they will be less loyal and not feel like they need to sign that new longer-term contract at 19/20.

Last nights results did not go for us with both title rivals winning. Tottenham also won to jump above Villa in the race for 4th.

I have said it before and I will say it again, finishing 3rd behind Liverpool and Manchester City should not be seen as a failure.

Both clubs have been building their current squads for nearly a decade. We are 3-4 years into the build. And they both outspend us on wages by £80m a year – that is the equivalent of 7 new £200k a week players. You can perhaps then understand why Arteta is talking about his squad perhaps not being as deep as those above us.

The only way we close that wage gap (and in turn the gap on the pitch) is to consistently finish top 4 and continue to invest what we earn sensibly.

Enjoy deadline day.

Keenos

Nottingham Forest (0) 1 Arsenal (0) 2

Premier League

City Ground, West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 5FJ

Tuesday, 30th January 2024. Kick-off time: 7.30pm

(4-3-3) David Raya; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Oleksandr Zinchenko; Martin Ødegaard (c), Declan Rice, Emile Smith-Rowe; Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale, Eddie Nketiah, Jakob Kiwior, Cédric Soares, Leandro Trossard, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Reiss Nelson, Kai Havertz, Reuell Walters.

Scorers: Gabriel Jesus (64 mins), Bukayo Saka (71 mins)

Yellow Cards: Gabriel Jesus

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 75%

Referee: Simon Hooper

Assistant Referees: Adrian Holmes, Simon Long

Fourth Official: Graham Scott

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Jarred Gillett; AVAR Richard West

Attendance: 29,387

Tonight’s match is vitally important, because if we take all three points at the City Ground, then we are second in the Premiership table, just two points behind leaders Liverpool. Our defender Gabriel will return having been assessed by the medical team, as will Declan Rice of course, but sadly Thomas Partey remains sidelined with injury. It is also good to see Emile Smith-Rowe making a welcome return to the first team, along with young Reuell Walters, who is on the substitute’s bench this evening.

We started proceedings here at the City Ground tonight, and almost immediately we started stroking the ball around with absolute confidence. We were dominating the game in the early stages, and although we were not giving any spaces away for the home side to capitalise on, there was still a wee bit of a sting in their tails tonight, it appears. Martin Ødegaard tried to play a reverse pass with Emile Smith-Rowe looking to grab it, but he could not get there in time and the ball simply dribbled out of play for a Forest goal kick. Our pressurised game was so strong that the home side just simply could not break out of their half, and after a superb strike from our captain which was blocked by a defender, Emile Smith-Rowe cut into the penalty area from the left-hand side, but his cross was flicked over the bar by Gabriel Jesus. The match appeared to be played entirely in the Forest half, and despite our best efforts in trying to score, a lot of our efforts were blocked by the Forest defenders constantly. However, Chris Wood did get to the edge of our penalty area, but good covering from Oleksandr Zinchenko saw off the threat, minor though it was. After some good build-up play, Emile Smith-Rowe turned and took a quick shot, but it flew harmlessly over Matt Turner’s crossbar. Time and time again, our penetrating passes through the Forest defence found our players, but with no end product, sadly. Ten minutes or so before the break, Gabriel Jesus had a great chance to score from just inside the Forest penalty area, but there were so many Forest defenders in the way of his shot, it was never going to find its way through to the goal. Danilo picked the ball up in midfield and advanced and took a shot just outside the penalty area which went harmlessly over David Raya’s goal, but it was a lesson for us not to be too complacent, otherwise we could get punished. Bukayo Saka was unlucky not to score when a loose ball found its way to him just outside the six-yard box, but it bobbled away just past Matt Turner’s goal. Despite yet more pressure in the three minutes of injury time, we were still unable to get the ball into the Forest net. So utterly frustrating.

Hopefully, Mikel Arteta’s words of encouragement at half time will have helped somewhat, as we started the second half here at the City Ground with much anticipation and expectation. We started in a quick and speedy manner, with crisp passing and purposeful running both on and off the ball. Although the Forest players were starting to make a decent fist of things this half, we were able to grab the ball off them successfully in order to continue our attacks on their goal. After we broke up a decent Forest counter-attack, a superb Bukayo Saka shot was pushed away by Matt Turner, and suddenly the match became an end-to-end affair that was breathtaking for the crowd (and the neutrals) to watch. After some superb build-up play, a Gabriel Jesus shot from close range hit the inside of the post and bounced out into play, and still we kept on coming. The match was stopped by the referee when Bukayo Saka went down to the floor after a clash with Nico Williams, and a couple of minutes later, the same Forest player crossed the ball into our penalty area, only for the imposing figure of Ben White to clear it brilliantly. Suddenly, out of nowhere, from a throw-in out on the left wing, Gabriel Jesus ran with the ball deep into the Forest penalty area, and whacked the ball through Matt Turner’s legs and into the back of the net to open the scoring. At last! The goal gave us the impetus to score yet more, and Bukayo Saka received the ball out on the left, and his snap shot cannoned off a defender for a corner which went nowhere, unfortunately. Kai Havertz replaced Emile Smith-Rowe with twenty minutes of the game remaining, and a couple of minutes later, we grabbed our second goal of the evening when our captain passed the ball to Gabriel Jesus, who in turn quickly slotted it to Bukayo Saka, whose right-footed shot from the right hand side of the penalty area ended up in the centre of the goal. Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli was replaced by Eddie Nketiah and Leandro Trossard after seventy-seven minutes, and shortly after entering the fray, Leandro Trossard hit a beautiful shot from twenty yards that just flew over the bar. Still, we came hunting looking for more goals, with a Bukayo Saka left-footed shot from outside the penalty area which went high and wide to the left of the goal. With two minutes of the game remaining, Forest grabbed a goal through Taiwo Awoniyi after a mix-up in our penalty area, which after a VAR check was awarded to them. During the five minutes injury time, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Martin Ødegaard were replaced by Jakob Kiwior and Jorginho; our hearts were in our mouths when VAR checked for a possible Forest penalty which in the end was denied (thankfully), and after Eddie Nketiah was flattened just outside the Forest penalty area, we were awarded a free kick that was cleared by their defence, and despite one or two hair-raising moments, we ran out winners by the odd goal in three.

Well, with seventy-five per cent possession and nineteen shots on goal (three on target), our overall domination was there for all to see. Overall, it was a good night’s work; we showed a lot of patience and clever build-up play, and although the first half was incredibly frustrating for everyone, it was felt that it was surely a matter of time before we scored, although it has to be said that the home side did not give up, and caused us some serious problems at times. All of our forwards played well tonight, as did David Raya too. Ben White was superb at the back, and our captain was inspirational as always, of course. All eyes on the Liverpool game on Sunday afternoon, then! Well done, chaps.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Liverpool at the Emirates on Sunday, 4th February at 4.30pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon