Gallas, The Beast, Denilson, Ito and £7m

All in all I think a relatively good transfer window for Arsenal.

Gallas is a world class centre back and a decent stand in left back until Clichy returns. With the loss of Cole I honestly don't think our defence is in a worse off position as Clichy is probably better than Cole for his age and is up there with the best attacking left backs in the league. Plus he will improve.

I honestly think that with Gallas and Toure we now have the leagues best central defensive partnership. Both very quick and strong and experienced at the top level. Plus we have Lauren to come back and so our defence makes very good reading.

RB: Lauren & Eboue LB: Clichy & Hoyte CB: Gallas (left back cover in front of Hoyte as well), Toure, Senderos and Djourou

Just a quick mention for Pacal Cygan who despite never quite making it as a regular, always gave 100% and was a strangely likeable character. Good luck to you Pascal.

Baptista is a powerful central midfield / striker who has a lot to prove but seems more sensible than Reyes even at this stage, he and his family have been learning English and he already has a basic grasp of the language unlike Jose.

Ito and Denilson are a couple of 18 year olds, one of whom is a Japanese striker and the other interestingly is a defensive midfielder and captain of the Brazil U19's. We have paid up to £4m for him. In time, a replacement for Gilberto?

I think the squad is in pretty good shape. Maybe we could still do with a partner for Henry (I can see Rosicky playing a half striker role) but The Beast might well be employed as a striker yet we don't know. 50 goals in 2 seasons is a good enough return to suggest so.

We need our wide players such as Ljungberg, Hleb, Rosicky and possibly even Van Persie and Walcott to start scoring a few goals and gaining some confidence then we can start turning some positive performances into points. We dominated Manchester City and Villa and have only 1 point to show.

Maybe Baptista making some surging runs into the box and winning some headers will give us the opportunity to use the width of the new pitch more effectively? It will give us an option to go wide and cross and increase our efficiency when we do go through the middle as defenders will have to cover for 2 scenarios not just one.

All in all a cause for optimism I would say. 2 unhappy players out and 4 new faces with a point to prove and some experince in. You would be foolish to suggest the squad is not in better shape now.