With real football closing in on us and just an faux interlull away now, the nonsense that is the transfer window is hard to pay attention to.

I long for actual football, stuff that means something (in the realms of sport, at least) and a sign that something in this upcoming new season will be different than the 10 that have just passed, but with the news that Per Mertesacker will be out for an unspecified number of Arsenal months, I’m not optimistic.

In terms of deals that are actually done, Woj seems to have finally sorted his loan move to Roma (with a €16m buy option) and Kelechi Nwakali could finally be arriving at Arsenal in the next week.

Don’t go getting excited, however, Ivan has been telling us once again how we can’t compete with the biggest clubs in the world even though the whole point of spending 10 years living on spaghetti hoops was so that we could compete with the biggest clubs in the world.

Sigh.

Perhaps Jeff Reine-Adelaide, who seems set to be a first team player next season, will be this summer’s LANS. Or Joel Campbell. Or even Yaya Sanogo.

While Jeff is playing with the big boys, his mates will be plying their trade in the brand new Premier League 2, Division 1. Replacing the u21 Premier League, this new u23 format will see Arsenal compete against Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool and seven others home and away, three of which must be played at the Emirates.

It will be a good chance for many of the youngsters to test themselves, but Gedion Zelalem is unlikely to be amongst them. With Wenger saying the American still has some developing to do, he looks set for another loan next season.

In gossip, and you know there’s gossip because it’s sunny, none of the main stories really moved on much on Wednesday. Mahrez, Icardi and Lacazette are all still more likely to stay where they are than move to Arsenal and even if former Arsenal man, Oghuzhan Ozyakup, is now worth £20m after Arsenal sold him for £500k, they probably won’t buy him either (nor should they, where would they put him?).

Oh, and we might have helped find David Ospina a new club.

If only we could use those powers to get a striker…