.... aaaaand: CUT!

So the transfer window closes again. I fully expect the first rumours of exciting Arsenal transfers in the summer to pop up in newspapers and on their websites tomorrow morning.

But Arséne Wenger has his buying-internationals-under-the-radar-mojo back in the European transfer market! Arsenal's new left back Nacho Monreal arrives for quite a fee, if rumour is to be believed around €10m or more than £8m.

Monreal has nine caps for Spain, and has been impressive in La Liga. At 26, we can expect him to be first choice for a while. Not only may out-of-form André Santos be heading out this summer, Kieran Gibbs may also have reason to feel that his position is threatened.

Throughout Transfer Deadline Day, the Arsenal's Silly Season rumour list has been updated and changed as news have come in. Some of the 150+ "transfer targets" have ended up at other clubs. The vast majority are staying just where they are. One former target (not linked to Arsenal since March last year) ended up in a car park.

Again, the January window and the months before have taught us that transfer rumours are equivalent to the droppings of cattle. It's fantastic to see that Arsenal's only signing wasn't mentioned by any serious news sources - or, indeed, anyone else - before Transfer Deadline Day itself.

Still, fair is fair, and I know of course that some of it is printed in good faith. A lot of professional journalists open up from time to time, admitting that they know they aren't right all the time. A rumour not ending up with a squad number and a Wenger handshake may still have had a core of truth in it.

Jeremy Wilson of the Daily Telegraph sums the Arsenal transfer window up here, as he sees it: Monreal was to be signed in the summer, but Gibbs' injury made Arsenal move today. Luke Shaw of Southampton was preferred, but wouldn't come.

Wilson is of the opinion that Arsenal have failed to sign a striker and a defensive midfielder. The candidates were Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (chose to stay in Germany) and David Villa (made to stay in Spain) up front, while Wenger decided that it wasn't necessary to strengthen the midfield with either of the prime candidates Victor Wanayama or Mohamed Diamé.

Whether or not the Telegraph paints a precise picture, we may never know.

Most Gooners wil be happy with the signing of another left back, but a lot are still disappointed at the perceived net loss of players and quality in the window. However, I have a strange feeling that many of the supporters who are now bemoaning that loanees Marouane Chamakh and Johan Djourou aren't replaced are the very same who complained that 'deadwood' haven't been shipped out of the club fast enough.

You can't have it both ways. Not even in the January window.

This blog will now be hibernating for a short time. A spanking new rumour list for the summer window of 2013 will be up in due course.

Dying for Diamé?

Both before and after Arsenal's brilliant 5-1 win over West Ham, transfer rumours have surrounded midfielder Mohamed Diamé. Today, no less than 10 - ten - different items in the media link him with Arsenal. And that's just in the media I check myself (more or less) on a daily basis. You can see for yourself here.

But why all the hassle about a player West Ham got for free from Wigan at the beginning of the season? Clutching at straws, are we?!

After months of foreplay and three weeks and counting in the proper transfer window, still nothing has happened at Arsenal. It's all well and good that manager Arsène Wenger confirms that there is hard work being done to beef up the first team squad with two new players. It doesn't mean that anything's actually happening.

That's why the media aren't chasing one story anymore. Diamé is the pick of the rumours this week, but it has the added attraction of his club playing at the Emirates this week. Which means Wenger was asked about him by the press and felt obliged to answer.

But there are others: on this single day, Arsenal have been linked with 13 players! Diamé is but one. Three of the 13 haven't been linked before in this transfer window: Swansea and Wales captain Ashley Williams, Verona midfielder Jorginho and Barcelona midfield talent Isaac Cuenca.

Williams is supposedly an £8m target for both Arsenal and Liverpool. I should think there are bigger chances of seeing contract talks underway at Swansea than seeing any transfer being done within the week. And hand on my heart, Jorginho is one I've never heard about. Then again, some of Wenger's memorable signings have sprung from places like Serie B.

Cuenca was actually linked with Arsenal about a year ago, in what looked like a yarn about Barcelona selling the cream of their youth teams to the Premier League in order to sign Christian Bale from Tottenham. Like that ever happened.

That's the kind of crisp precision we need from the media during a transfer window, eh?

All the targets that weren't

Today's news that Jan Vertonghen's drawn out move from Ajax to Tottenham is finally sorted, has prompted me to sum up a few of the moves not involving Arsenal already this summer.

The Belgian defender has been linked to Arsenal for some time (76 times this Silly Season, 16 times last winter, 7 times last summer, 9 times the summer before that, to be precise) but despite this there has been no known contact with Ajax to try and arrange a transfer. Again, the likeliest scenario is that Arsenal's name has been bandied about to speed up negotiations with other clubs. Arsenal never comment officially on transfer rumours, unlike i.e. Tottenham's previous manager.

A week after the transfer window officially opened, a number of other players from the rumour lists have found new employers. Famously, Eden Hazard chose Chelsea after having been linked with Arsenal for at least as long as Vertonghen. Mohamed Diame has left Wigan for West Ham, Riccardo Montolivo from Fiorentina to AC Milan, the Crewe comet Nick Powell chose Manchester United (here I believe Arsenal were at least interested) and Gylfi Sigurdsson will be playing in the same team as Vertonghen next season.

And thankfully, evergreen transfer rumour Salomon Kalou has joined Lille in France, where he is joined by Marvin Martin coming in from Sochaux. The French international has been intermittently linked with Arsenal the last year or so. (All French internationals are, of course.)

But while all these players most certainly have been scouted several times by Arsenal's vast network, only Powell seems to have been close to a transfer target as such.

While hundreds of players are watched, often multiple times, by the club every year, only a select few are subject to real interest and an eventual transfer bid. The scouts' job is to spot talented players who can play a role in the future. An Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain or an Aaron Ramsey signed at the right time will blossom into a full international level footballer.

But the same time, when needs must, the scouts will know that a Per Mertesacker or Mikel Arteta will be available on deadline day.

Any report from any scout can quickly evolve into a full blown transfer rumour in the media. And when a club has many scouts, there tend to be many rumours. That's why more than 120 players have been linked with Arsenal this Silly Season alone!

These mechanisms are at work especially when there isn't too much else news around. Not that Arsenal reporting correspondents are struggling on that front these days...