When Arsenal boss Unai Emery publicly acknowledged last January that any business done in the mid-season window would have to be loan deals, there was surprise from the galleries that bordered on shock. The necessary days of parsimony due to their stadium build were long over and in the post-Wenger era a rebuild on the pitch now took precedence. Surely the wasting of a transfer window – in the event the Gunners temporarily brought in an unfit Denis Suarez in what proved to be a thoroughly underwhelming swoop– would be immensely costly in other ways given that the securement of a top four spot was so fundamentally important in May. Furthermore, and pertinently to the point at hand,...
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