Arteta's a Gooner!

GET IN!!!! Big fan of this bloke.

Should be a quality signing, all in all a good night's work

Also, we signed five players in the past two days, three will be starters. And the total cost for all five is less than Andy Carrol.

arsenal.com has crashed since the arteta announcement

What a deadline Day bit of business! (Wenger, please consider my heart next time you choose to leave things this late). Not bad as he can fill in for the marquee signing we need and judging from Wilshere's tweet, the players will like this too.

Big up all the behind the scenes transfer wombles, well earned lie in for you all tomorrow. What a rollercoaster day.

Wow, so you ***** up your season, then you decide to ***** up ours? Thankyou. I think it is safe to say this will make every Evertonian depressed today, was a real fan favourite and to replace him with no-one is a *****ing outrage.

You got that bad and uglier lookalike of Tevez didnt you? :)

Scant consolation but at least you haven't had relentless crowing and tapping up from lowlifes like xavi, pique and that curly haired metalhead looking grunt taking the p155 out of your club and never missing an opportunity to grind you down.

Haha, Arsenal.com has crashed again! Simply cannot handle signings of this magnitude! Oh well, this has got me amped for the season again! 8-2, what 8-2???

moyes made a very prompt decision to release arteta when he knows the player wanted to leave. it took him probably less than an hour to give his consent. why couldnt wenger do the same with fab & nasri?

Joe_@** lets put that behind us now...

alwaysgunner you have every right to be p155 off at them. I for one have not forgiven what has happened and it will take a hell of a lot more to convince me. I will wait and see if there is now a positive change in tactics but we have taken a big step in the right direction IMO.

A real threat from set-pieces also.

Obviously pleased. Another marque signing would have been absolutely brilliant. Now we have a stronger squad, it's down to the coaching staff to sort the friggin' defence out and generally how we play without the ball. Get that bit right, make us more difficult to beat, and we'll fight for the top 4 again and maybe win a cup.

Not happy at Bendtner leaving. We never got to see him play in his favoured central position, always stuck on some right wing when he's clearly not a winger by a long way. I'd be annoyed if he starts banging in the goals for SUnderland although we would get a good fee for him next year. Chamack needs to come out of his funk and look dangerous again.

Now that we've added good, experienced professionals to the squad, just makes me think that had we done this 4-5 years ago, we might have won something and Cesc may have stayed. The way I see it now though is that Gervinho has replaced Nasri and Jack will replace Cesc. Ramsey will be a great player in my opinion. And if Miyaichi can be the read deal as his spell in Holland promises, then we may yet have another exciting team on our hands. One thing we know is that Wenger loves exciting, technical players playing good football. Hopefully he's realised we need more of an all round game.

top player i was shouting for us to get him if we did sell modders he will make a huge difference to your team calm on the ball top passing and a total beast fom dead ball situations a vey good piece of work by arsene not sure about mertesacker i dont think hes as good as been said by the media but time will tell i look forwad to the derbies now as you have a proper team again

Thanks Dannism and we are glad it pains you to say so!

Funny to see Wenger shopping in the clear- out sale like everyone else! So..Benayoun? Well, he has shown glimpses but this is now his third move in a short space of time, which means he is rapidly turning into a journeyman footballer. Has talent, and an injury record to match. If Liverpool ******** get much out of him, what makes Wenger think he can? Arteta? He'll be a good signing IF he can keep injury free. Mertesacker? Why not Cahill? Young, strong, not prohibitively expensive and English. ENGLISH! Ahh...say no more then! On the whole, however, Wenger's actions in this window have basically shown that he is prepared to relax his crazy scheme and become more pragmatic. Time will tell if it's not already too late, but at least he has given himself a glimmer of a hope.

How is Kaka settling in at White *****e Lane tony?

Playing the English card....Where does Oxlade Chamberlain come from? Gibbs, Walcott, Wilshere.......A Very British Ramsey, Jenkinson and Frimpong wanted by the U21's. The English card isn't gonna cut it anymore im afraid Grandad.

True about the runners and also our defence looks more like our defence of the old now. We are much better set up now for a "scrap" than we where before and there is now much much more leader ship in the squad. only worry I have now is with Benthner (worlds best striker) gone on a year loan we will be thin on the ground upfront when RvP gets his annual injury.

TRH - If Redknapp, the perennial overspender, thinks Cahill was too expensive, then why makes you think the price was right. Plus not only is Mertesacker cheaper, but he's better and more experienced. With regards to the "English" snipe, we've currently got Jenkinson, Walcott, Wilshere, Gibbs, Oxlade-Chamberlain & Frimpong in the wings for the england set up .... who have Spurs got now they've cleared out all their s***? Jermaine Defoe? and a psychedelic penguin? Yeah, future of English football right there.

jaelle - You're Brazillian right? Let's hear your genuine opinions on Santos .... come on, we're all big boys and girls, we can handle it :)

Apart from the signings, Arsenal did something this summer which is probably just as important: cleared out a LOT of players & freed up the wage bill. We either sold, released or loaned out about 20 players and freed up approx £8m. In coming months the club's going to be busy trying to tie down RVP, Theo & Verma to new contracts and will need the money.

fifthcolumn, you are spot-on. It's more relief than anything. AW definitely had better targets but it wasn't only his failings but the Board's that resulted in us failing to get his preferred targets. Everyone at the club's management/ownership level is to blame for the scattergun incompetence of this summer's transfer activity (or lack of). I mean, you had our head scout Dick Law spending a ridiculous amount of time in Costa Rica for a young inexperienced forward (Campbell) whose work permit could very well have been denied- and was in fact denied. So he's out on loan for a season, we can't even use him. This is not the squad of our dreams-it just gives us a fighting chance.

I still maintain that you'd have been underwhelmed by these signings if they had occurred earlier in the window, and whilst they are good players, neither of them is anything other than a short term attempt at filling some spaces in the squad. Most gooners I've spoken to, and quite a few on Vital Arsenal have been asking why Wenger took so long to do his business, and out of that list of players I mentioned, how many of them moved club to a sugar-daddy owned club? None of them. perhaps Goetze would have been stepping out in that splendid sky blue and black away kit against Manure if Arsenal had pursued him in July instead of waiting until 10pm on deadline day?

Short term signings was exactly what we needed though we'll have a MF of Jack, Ramsey and Frimpong that will rule Arsenals future. So Wenger has been guilty of misplaced trust in players that have let him down there are worse crimes, that drubbing was the final wake up call to him and if it needed to happen to make him realise then better late than never.

Rocky, Arshavin has captained his national team for years & he's never shown much leadership. As for Santos...here's our last memory of him in our national team (go to minute 4:29 or thereabouts, 3rd German goal) - this was on August 10 of this year in Stuttgart in a friendly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opsW8tC1nCM . And here's the reaction toward Arsenal signing him on an English language Brazil national team blog: http://brazil.worldcupblog.org/world-cup-2010/andre-santos-moves-to-arsenal.html . We have much better LBs than Santos- for the 1st time in eons, he hasn't been called up for our upcoming friendly v. Ghana to be held at Fulham's stadium on Monday-Marcelos has FINALLY been recalled and we're all very relieved. At best Santos should be our 3rd choice LB. At Flamengo, Corintians (I saw him play mostly on those teams, only a few Fener games) and Atletico Mineiro he won domestic trophies and helped Mineiro get promoted to Serie A. He's a very nice guy, good character, team player, eager to please, hard worker, puts in the effort, keeps his head down. Lord knows we need players with those qualities. He scores more goals than Clichy and is a better crosser. But like Clichy he's prone to lapses in concentration, is not a very good passer and is pretty limited overall. Average. I wish you could've read the reaction of Brazilian pundits on my TL when news first broke-they just expect Arsenal to sign better quality. I expect he'll be ok at home games, frustrating in away games. Naturally I sincerely hope he'll prove me wrong but I like other Brazilian gooners are not optimistic.

Just because you have had your reality skewed by being able to spend billions of pounds on massive wages and transfers fees has little to no effect on how we feel about our players other than we have to wait until the last minute because a) if we do it early one of the sugar daddy clubs jump in and get our man (has happened countless times) ... and b) we have to wait for you lot to finish f***ing up the transfer market before we choose who to buy. Lemme ask you this ... would you have been happy with Park, Santos, Mertesacker, Benayoun and Arteta coming to your club in one single day before your playboy arrived? Of course you would ... because let's face it, you're just a midtable club who struck it lucky. Without your Sheik and your council house you would be nowhere. I don't begrudge City fans their luck, because if anyone has earned it it's you lot, but you're not seeing straight anymore, your world is not real. We have to deal with reality, and our reality is that we've signed some excellent professionals, and leaders and that is exactly what we need right now.

fifthcolumn, we definitely missed out on Jagielka and Mata. But Goetze was never really an option - Dortmund was never going to sell to anyone nor does the player want to leave. And if selling/releasing/loaning out 20 players doesn't help relieve the wage bill then fine, whatever. *rolls eyes* Arsenal decision-makers are much maligned because they've earned it.

Still don't understand why so many people are criticising things they know nothing about... I keep seeing the word 'incompetent' thrown at the management and people saying that 'if we had done X in July we'd be fine now'. We all saw that a shedload of deals were done at the last minute - by all clubs, not just Arsenal - and that many deals were dependant on other players moving first. So can we stop with the unfounded insults and aggression?

As for the signings, Arteta will probably get 2 years with us and Yossi just a season, while Ramsey and Wilshere settle and grow into the team - so fair enough, short-term players for us (mostly to shut people up, I think, rather than Wenger seeing a need). Park's worth taking a punt on for 3m... The left-back I know nowt about, but I'm sure he'll do a job - again, while Gibbs and others are given the chance to bed-in. Per I'm not sure about; he just seems far too slow - another Senderos (bless 'im)...

Lol damiano and you know more about those things than the rest of us? fact is that Monaco was relegated last season = Park awaileble erlier. Merts in the last year of his contract so ditto awaileble erlier. Arteta Everton broke should not have been to much of an effort to price him away in June once it was known that Cesc was leaving. There we have three players that could have been in the team last Sunday and added much needed exsperience to our team. Buying them erlier would problably have added a few million on the price...or not. But it's not like we are skint is it? All 5 signings are good IMO and will add much needed exsperience to the team.

Armory, my point was exactly the opposite of what you're saying; none of us know. It's like me telling everyone here that you're crap at your job - how the hell would I know?

Amos, is that a dig at me?? Don't see the need mate, I'm saying, he's obviously a short-term stand in while other players grow. Jesus...

"Still don't understand why so many people are criticising things they know nothing about... I keep seeing the word 'incompetent' thrown at the management and people saying that 'if we had done X in July we'd be fine now'." Damiano IF we had done "X" in June we would for sure be better off. We lacked creativity against Newcastle and Udinese and same against Liverpool. Thats where Arteta comes in. As for our defence and attack RvP banned for the first game against the italians. Manure game? ffs gimme a break those 3 players would have made a big difference exspecially Mert and Arteta. Most of the ire here has been aimed at the management for not acting sooner and getting the players in as it was known what our needs where and as I pointed out the 3 players could have been added erlier, that is assuming they had been identafied as targets....if not then they are no more than panic buys because our 1 ans 2 level targets could not be got.

nik none of these buys are stellar names and I doupt that Man*****ty or chelsky would have been wetting them selfs at the prospect of Arteta or Merts being awaileble. Assuming that those teams would go after every player we want is a bit paranoid.

Just a quick note to say thank Dennis we dodged the bullet that is Scott Dann, I cannot believe he was anything more than a scent thrower. Having watched him 'interviewed' last night he is such a simpleton. Like a clothed meerkat in the headlights of a safari jeep.

Then why did they not gazzump those players on the night? And gervinho? PAHHH no. In Mata's case they went for him because his is a young and super class player thats where they gazzump us not on signings like Arteta and Merts.

After the gangster bought chelski he was renowned for it armory, ponceing our targets on the regular, why invest in a scouting network when you can employ a couple of people to keep tabs on Arsenal then come steaming in and slam the blood roubles on the table? The fact mansour city have now taken 4 players off us now speaks volumes of their intentions, they want to buy their way to the footballing excellence we have achieved, Vieira should be coaching at Arsenal but has chosen to take the petro dollar and run with it, he tapped up na$ti there's just too many things going on for it not to ne a concerted effort at destabilising Arsenal one of the competition, it's just what you do without thinking twice in the ugly souldead world of big business.

Why didn't chavski gazzump us on the night for Arteta armory? possibly because they had already gazzumped our prime target this summer in Mata?

There was no reported interest in Mata before Arsenal were in the frame... then suddenly Chelsea bought him. It's harder to gazump the move on the night because it's so last minute; we're led to believe that Arteta spoke to Moyes at 22:00 to request a transfer, which leaves no time for anyone else.

No reported interest? Whould chelsky have been shouting from the roof tops whom they where after? I can recall as far back as when Bergkamp suddenly signed....totally out of the blue and noone knew.

I don't really think the Arteta scenario was necessarily even about gazzumping despite my earlier arguments about the possibility of it, Last night was a swoop, had we gone in earlier without the element of surprise and tight deadline I don't think the outcome would've been the same, Moyes would have had time to talk to him to convince him otherwise. We showed a cool head and preyed on a talented players desire for the top rung of European competition, in the cold light of day when there are weeks to consider things, like the upheaval of rehousing, reschooling kids (dunno if he has any) there are lots of things that can sway someone into remaining in their comfort zone, there was none of that last night and we played on that. Anyhow although I don't really feel now is the time to start knocking us the day after spending over 50 million quid lol. If you'd have told me after the result on sunday that we'd be sitting here after having spent 50 million quid on a new LB who is Brazilian a new CB who is 6' 6 with 75 International caps a new striker that can actually run! (yes I'm looking at you Chamakh and Bendy) and is lethal at free kicks and two MF players both who have years of prem experience - if you'd told me all that I'd have said you were a mentalist.

That's it Armory, no-one knew. If they had, maybe the mighty DB would've played in another club's colours...! The first I heard of Mata was that Arsenal were chasing him; then that they'd discussed personal terms; then suddenly Chelsea bought him. Makes me think they weren't aware he was available until it went public that Arsenal wanted him, and they waded in with more money to nick him. Maybe just perception, but that's how it seems to me.

Goetze 40 million. We are not in need of one 40 million quid kid. What we were in need of we got, a CB a LB 2 MFs and a striker.

damiano No club sells players like Mata on the last day. so we had to go fore him when we did and as soon as an agent hears about any clubs interest in his client he makes it known to everyone and his dog that his player might be awaileble. Arteta is not going to have chelsky and shytty outbidding us as he is not in the same category. As for Moyes being able to talk Arteta around no i don't think so. he is a mature player at 29 and this was his last chance for the CL.

i have concern that mertesacker may struggle with our high line defensive tactic. this has been the reason why wenger prefers to have more athletic-type cb like campbell, galas, toure, vermealen, kos etc after the adam & keown era. all less mobile cb in the past did not performed for us i.e. stepanov, cygan, senderos. hard to tell of course since the later trio did not play well anywhere else...

your all a bunch of morons, the way you give it on ssn last night.

Also loving the thousands of posts of pain on Vital footofthetable. Relegation fodder you lot.

According to reliable sources, we made massive, massive bids for both Hazard and Goetze. Lille would have accepted the Hazard bid, but they didn't have time to get a replacement so the deal didn't happen. Same report says we'll be back in January, doesn't matter if Hazard is cup-tied. As for Goatse, the player and his family decided he was too young to move yet.

Strongly recommend this article by Bobby McMahon on what PL clubs would've paid for a player like Mertesacker if he were English - http://www.soccerreportextra.com/domestic/english-premier-league/what-am-i-bid-for/

Niko, love your comments.

Haha Fabregas, Nasri out, Beneyoun and Artetea in good buisness Le Scum!

Haha do you really think your in a poaition to talk about relagtion after looking like a league 2 standard club at man u? didnt think so, Modric, parker or arteta, beneyoun ill let you work it out

lol thats funny cause id take, and the majority of intelligent people only van persie and sagna scezny haha! often admire a keeper who lets in 8 in one game, shocking to see another arsenal fan think that the team is gods gift hilarious, i think you are whats caleed a 'waste of space'

Only expect a Spud to gloat at Arsenal's position when his team is still below us.. haha..

I think even the most ardent Wengerite would hesitate before using the adjective 'calmly' when describing our transfer activity this summer Philto but yep see you in a week.

A good bit of business. I think the club at least fixed things in the transfer market before it was too late. I've been critical of their ineptitude earlier, as with a lot of fans out here, but they've moved well to sign some experience. The squad looks more balanced now.

Well Well Well, as a villa fan i would just like to congratulate u gooners on wengers panic buying of an injury prone player who is clearly past his best of a few seasons ago, santos aswell santos who? apart from mertersacker who is good the players you have let go its unreal,liverpool spurs man city utd and chelski are a cut above u lot these days see u soon in the europa league on itv 4 ;)

LOL Delta force, i admit we have no money and dont claim we are currently a big clun ie top 4, but the remarks are towards truth i know are the gunners are massive but to see u sign these players bemuzes me :z im not being bitchey but wenger i feel shud step down and ur board are like ours being tight fisted, i feel u need rebuilding with an ENGLISH spine in ur team wenger just dont see it he prefers young foreign talant with the occasional english kid sorry gunners are better than that!

Great article about our summer signings i just read. Really think Arteta will do well for us, he;s been great at Everton and just needs to be on a bigger stage to do bigger things! http://www.whoscored.com/Blog/zj0oryrcneip_s-39apaag/Show/Arsenal-Signings-to-Lead-to-Tactical-Change

Not on a Wednesday, no.