Luiz Gustavo

Only time will tell whether we live to regret not signing this man but personally I think Wenger's decision to pass up on him is going to be the right one.

I think I'm right in saying the stories linking him to us were at their strongest around the time Flamini started training with us, at the time when Wenger insists he wasn't intending to sign The Flame. So if we take his word at face value, it seems reasonable to say we were interested in Gustavo, but decided against signing him and choosing to bring in Flamini as a direct alternative.

There are a number of reasons why I think this was the right thing to do. Firstly, the cost. Too many people on here only look at the transfer fee and go "oh, Gustavo would have cost us £20m." That's not how it works, and it's not how the club looks at it. You have to include his contract in the investment, and you can't really include any potential resale value as footballers are assets which lose their value as their contract runs down, and which would also potentially break a leg at any minute. Any fee you get for the player is simply a bonus. When you take this into consideration, you realise the difference in cost between Flamini and Gustavo was in the region of £30m, or half a Mesut Ozil if you want to look at it that way.

Then there are the "footballing reasons" Poor choice of words, but there are a number of them. Firstly, there's the development of Jack and Ramsey. I think most people will agree that Ramsey is in brilliant form, and has benefited hugely from a run in the team in his preferred position. He has matured brilliantly and considering he's only 22 and had a year out, it really excites me to think what he could be doing when he's 25-27. Jack Wilshere might not be playing as well as Ramsey currently, but I rate his potential as even higher. We've seen a number of times that it takes a player a year of playing below par to get back to their best, and Wilshere's only going to benefit from a serious run in the team. Signing Gustavo in a World Cup year (meaning he would demand to be playing) would definitely push one of these two out of the team, hindering the development of one of the two most promising young talents we've had at the club recently.

I think people are also quick to forget that we have Arteta, who was outstanding last year. I know you can't just judge a player on stats but weren't his unreal, something like the best pass completion rate in Europe? Of course he's not 100% fit all the time, but it's daft to think he isn't still a very important, mature, calming influence in our midfield.

Also, would Gustavo even fit into our style of play? I think it was Alan Davies who said that we don't really need a monster in the middle of the field, we need disciplined pressers and passers of the ball, which I think Flamini will do a better job of. And does anyone even know if Gustavo speaks any English? He's never even played in the Premiership, and yes he might have played for Bayern, but that's not much better than spending 5 years at Milan in my book, and being schooled by Wenger previously.

All in all, I think we might well come to be grateful to Wenger for not signing Luiz Gustavo. Even when you don't consider the huge difference in expenditure, there are reasons why it could be argued Flamini is a better fit for what we needed. If he's proved right, Arsene deserves a lot of credit, as almost every fan, myself included, as well as all the media and pundits, seemed baffled as to why we didn't go in for him.