Why one bizarre draw and an unexpected signing doesn’t affect the view that Arsenal are moving in the right direction

Of course it would have felt much better to win, just as it would have felt much better not to lose a player to referee action, but we all knew before the season started that this is the sort of thing that could happen.

And with the chaos and incompetence of PGMO for once laid bare (when a monopoly supplier runs out of money and people you know the level of incompetence has to be in the stratosphere) it immediately becomes clear that anything can happen in the aftermath, and it did. Arsenal got a red card.

Last season, while clubs like Chelsea and Tottenham were picking up four reds in the season, Arsenal had half that number. This season Arsenal are in the “elite” of red cards have have one, along with Newcastle and Everton. And with the now insolvent PGMO involved one can only shrug and say it happens.

But we can also look back in history. Last season began with two wins and a draw (that at home to Fulham). The season before started with three wins but came unstuck in January (two defeats and a draw in a row) and in April with seven games including three defeats and three draws. The points total is always the same from games no matter when they happen.

And having a draw in the third game doesn’t really signify that much if we recall the opening run of four successive wins in August which was followed by a home draw with Portsmouth, a defeat in the Champions League to Inter and a goalless draw with Manchester United.

That little run led to demands for Arsene Wenger to be sacked. Fortunately he wasn’t and Arsenal went on to win the league undefeated. Which maybe tells us not to worry too much about one draw and a strange referee.

Perhaps much more worrying is the fact that the media is calling the signing of Raheem Sterling “a masterstroke.” But then the news that “Arsenal will pay ‘significantly less’ than 50 per cent of Raheem Sterling’s salary for the duration of his season-long loan” from the financially inept“, is also welcome although we should note that this is “according to reports,” which normally means it is tripe.

Especially when it appears just above an aedvert that opens with the somewhat astoundingly obvious statement that The Average IQ in the UK is 100.”

I am not sure that includes newspaper sub-editors (who, in case you don’t know, check articles for accuracy). What the signing does mean is that Saka might be allowed a rest on occasion from playing left wing in every game. Saka played 46 games last season, 36 of these in the league, and no player can keep that up year after year.

Elsewhere the Mirror is also telling us that Raheem Sterling was offered £650,000-a-week to play in Saudi and turned it down. There is, it seems, no end to the lunacy, although it is interesting that the New York Times website which has a higher accuracy level than most says that Arsenal will pay “significantly less than 50 per cent of his salary for the duration of his loan.” Chelsea are apparently saying nothing which is probably wise given the level of their financial cock ups.

And Edu made an interesting statement after the signing of Sterling:

“It’s the last day, the last minutes, so (it’s been) a long day, a long transfer window but in the end I think we as a club have to be proud once again. The way we are working together, the way we did all the deals.”

And given the way Arsenal has progressed through recent seasons (8th, 8th, 5th, 2nd, 2nd) I have a certain confidence in what Edu and the team are doing. One rather bizarre draw doesn’t affect that.