With Gabriel’s late injury in the win against City plus Mertesacker’s long term problem added to Koscielny’s extended holiday, there is no doubt that Arsenal are short of experience and number at centreback.

But does it mean that Arsene Wenger has to go into panic buy mode?

Clearly the answer is no.

There is no doubt that having Chambers, Holding and Bielik as the main centre backs in the medium term is not possible. They clearly lack experience in the position and have not played enough together.

But there are short term solutions inside the club to solve that problem, at least against Liverpool and until Koscielny is back on the pitch. I can name three players who can be emergency centre backs: Monreal with Gibbs starting at left-back, Debuchy who could play a few games before being sold at the end of the transfer window and even Coquelin who we are led to believe has trained in the position.

Meanwhile, it is quite obvious that the long term targets who have been monitored for a while like Mustafi must be a top priority now. It is time to accelerate the negotiations and put the right amount of money on the table to sign the German defender.

But the idea of an expensive short term panic buy, who will then be discarded in the next six months does not make sense. There is no need to overpay for a player, who would just come in to do a job with less quality that the Arsenal requires, just to put a body on the table.

So hopefully Arsene Wenger will move quickly on the market and acquire a player that has been on the wanted list for a while and is available at any reasonable price, if they still exist.