Morning all.

Bit of transfer gossip:

The Express report Sami Khedira will lower his wage demands in order to secure a move to Arsenal. Real Madrid manager insists the player is going nowhere until the summer as they still hope to persuade him to stay.

Antonio Rudiger, a 21-year-old German defender who played atΒ Borussia Dortmund during his younger days but has since moved to StuttgartΒ andΒ notched up over 50 games for the senior team, has declared his love for Arsenal.

I have been following Arsenal since the days of [Thierry] Henry and [Dennis] Bergkamp, I watch videos of Arsenal all the time on YouTube and I often wear the current Alexis SΓ‘nchez shirt. My heart beats for Arsenal.

Young, German, tall at 6′ 3″ – all sounds promising doesn’t it but has anyone seen him play much? Has Arsene Wenger or his scouts I wonder because if they have and he’s good, we need him.

Another defender who has recently been linked with us is Virgil Van Dijk and he’s been quizzed about his future plans. Talking to Sky Sports he said:

Arsenal are an amazing club, a big club with a greatΒ history…..

He also admitted that it’s his ambition to play in the Premier League.

Again, is Arsene Wenger or his scouts watching this guy perform for Celtic, if not, why not? He looks big, strong and stands tall at 6′ 4″ but is he the man to come in and tighten up our central defence.

Are either of them players who are ready to put their heads where others wouldn’t dream of because that’s the kind of defender we need. We need a dominant figure at the back, an organiser,a leader. A Sol Campbell, Martin Keown, a Tony Adams!!

We aren’t strong enough, we drop like flies when the first tackle is made, roll on the floor like babies letting every opposition player know we are there for the taking. We didn’t used to be like that, in fact we were the team laying down the gauntlet from the off when we had players like Vieira, Keown, Adams etc etc – we were the team making it clear that we weren’t about to be bullied off the pitch or be rolled over and fade away.

Who now do we have on the pitch who possesses a bit of ‘attitude’? No-one!

Not only do we need that kind of player in defence, we need one, perhaps two in the centre of our midfield and until we get that, we’ll always be rolled over with ease.

One player who used to like to put the boot in, albeit Flamini style and too often ended up in a booking or sending off was Emmanuel Frimpong. I’ve not seen his rants on Twitter for a while but there’s no doubt he’s back and he’s not got too many good things to say:

Said it and will say it again we need a F***king centre-back with Laurent a bloody DMF and a bloody striker.

And before you start going down on me it’s bloody true all our players are so similar, Jack, Ramsey Arteta, Chambo, Sanchez, Ozil, all too similar.

FFS Sanchez has had a good season but no disrespect, would have been better using that to buy a centre back and a DMF bloody sick of it man.

While I disagree about Alexis, we need him but of course I agree totally regarding his other views and he’s not alone with his ‘sick of it’ feeling either. It’s tiresome as each summer and January comes and goes and still we are left wanting in defence and midfield.

I know nothing can be done about signing players now and January is a long way away but I sure hope Wenger has something planned and something big because otherwise, his top four trophy won’t be his come May.

In the meantime, he has to get more from the players he has but how he’s going to manage to do that I don’t know but unless the gaps are plugged, the players raise their game, everyone starts to gel and our football starts to click, nothing will improve…

Sunderland away tomorrow, a side who was embarrassingly thumped 8-0 by Southampton last weekend.

I bet Gus Poyet laid into them good and proper after that and they’ll be out to make amends..

Lord help us if we aren’t up for this game…..

That’s my moan over for the day…..