In a cheeky press-conference after the game with a sly smile that Arsenal fans have seen many times, Wenger said: "We might have a good surprise for you". Following Bales departure everything kicked into gear and rumours started about Mesut Ozil. Deadline day promised to be a good one.
Before anything else we signed a goalkeeper on loan from Palermo who spent last season at Fiorentina. Emiliano Viviano is 27 and a keeper I know very little about but from what I saw he kept something like 11 clean sheets in 32 games. That's a fine season and if he provides some good competition for our current keeper then great.
Then our attention turned to the signing of Mesut Ozil. Various media outlets suggested it was done at around 6pm but like many until I saw official confirmation I didn't want to jump to any conclusions. We waited and waited and waited, Sky prolonged it and then with around half an hour left it was official much to the excitement of Arsenal fans everywhere, no less outside the Emirates.
As the Sky reporter was eager to point out this has destroyed our record transfer fee beforehand by £27.5m almost tripling our fee for Arshavin. But there is no doubt that he is worth every penny of it, a player who is easily within the top 10 midfielders in the world and a player who was described by Jose Mourinho as the best CAM in the world. He is a player who's close control, technical ability and reading of the game is second to none and also the player with the most assists across Europes top 5 leagues for the last 3 years.
He is a totally unselfish player and is more than happy to set up others. I can see him doing great things behind our striker.
Now it's not all sunshine and rainbows. We didn't get another striker and there are questions that need to be asked about how we conducted our business and Ozil isn't going to suddenly make us title contenders. But this is more a statement of intent from Arsenal that we are coming back and we are willing to spend the top money to get the top players. Sky reported last night that it was a combination of Wenger, Gazidis and (yes, believe it or not) Kronke. Kronke and Gazidis really wanted to get this one in and I really hope that is true and it shows backing from the businessmen and hopefully is a sign of windows to come.
What makes this signing even more prevalent for me an Arsenal is that we bought him with money that we earned. We weren't given it by a rich owner, we made it as a club and as a business.
But for now all I am excited about is seeing Mesut Özil in an Arsenal shirt. COYG!
