After being labelled negative by some Arsenal fans for posting my last few articles on how the transfer window was a debacle, how Arsenal have conned the supporters by “pretending” to sign players and explaining why Arsenal will won’t spend a penny this summer, I’ve decided to look around and try to find something “positive”.

And the only glimmer of hope I can find is with The Emirates Cup. I’ve stated before that the new Arsenal away kit launch and the Asia Tour would have been perfect opportunities to reveal an exciting new signing and give all of the Arsenal fans, and players, a massive lift before the start of the new season.

And today signals the last big showcase event to reveal a new signing.

So this might be a bit “out there”, but it could just be genius, which Arsene Wenger is after all.

With Arsenal fans disappointed and frustrated at the lack of big signings, Gonzalo Higuain represents one of those disappointments. But what if, Arsenal and Arsene came up with something spectacular?

Surely it is no co-incidence that Arsenal’s first opponents in The Emirates Cup are Italian side Napoli, the very club Gonzalo Higuain signed for after being “so close” to joining Arsenal.

But what if this was planned all along?

Can you imagine the massive explosion of excitement if this happened:

Picture the scene now… Arsenal and Napoli have their team sheets read out to the Arsenal faithful… Gonzalo Higuain’s name is called out on the Napoli team sheet to a chorus or boos all around the stadium. Then, as Napoli walk onto the pitch, their starting eleven comes out but Higuain isn’t there.

What’s going on everyone in the stadium asks?

Then, the Arsenal team come out one by one. The first ten players come onto the pitch but wait, where’s our eleventh man?

After a long pause, the stadium announcer shouts out “Gonzalo Higuain!” and in one of the most spectacular events in Arsenal’s history, Higuain comes onto the pitch in an Arsenal shirt!!

The crowd go absolutely crazy!

Arsene Wenger you old joker, he had us all fooled after all!

As you will probably have heard by now, Arsenal expert Amy Lawrence was on Radio 5 Live and commented on the current situation in the transfer market.

In a nutshell, she suggested that unlike other football clubs like PSG and Manchester City that have come into money recently Arsenal are still reluctant to spend. Sides like PSG weren’t afraid to “splash the cash” and even though we have a “war chest” at our disposal we just can’t come around to spending any of it.

So who is to blame for the lack of spending so far this summer?

As regular readers will already know, I truly believe we won’t spend a penny this summer.

We’ve seen our number one target Gonzalo Higuain slip through our fingers, Stevan Jovetic has moved to City and we haven’t followed up interest in Marouane Fellaini or Lars Bender. Amy Lawrence suggested the Higuain deal was done and dusted before Napoli came along, but the fact we missed out on him shows our lack of guile in the transfer market and because we’ve been penny pinching for so long we just don’t know how to close a deal when it comes to the most coveted players. We’re experts in signing “players with potential” from France but not a world class player from a big club.

But what was most damning from the Amy Lawrence interview was her insight into things behind the scenes. I am a big fan of Amy Lawrence and listen to her on The Guardian’s Football Weekly Podcast and tend to believe what she says when it comes to football, and Arsenal in particular. So what she said made sense to me.

What she suggested was that Arsene Wenger couldn’t change his way of being “careful with money” and was unwilling to spend, whereas Ivan Gazidis and the board wanted Arsene to improve the squad. She also said that if it comes to the end of the transfer window and we haven’t signed anyone, then there will be some tension. I suggest that amongst Arsenal fans that particular ship has already sailed.

So who is to blame?

There are sections of the Arsenal faithful who would take a bullet for Arsene Wenger but it seems he is the one who is reluctant to spend. Also, as Arseblog has already suggested, when Ivan Gazidis came out and declared we had loads of money to spend, he was actually trying to call out Arsene to spend some money.

Of course, these are all just theories at this point but the fact still remains we’ve missed out on big opportunities to give all of the Arsenal fans a big boost this summer. The perfect time to reveal a new and exciting signing would have been at either our new kit launch or on the Asia Tour.

But almost 11 weeks after the season ended we still haven’t spent a penny.

I am still in Canada and been to see Niagara Falls, which was such a great experience. Unfortunately for you the reader perhaps, this post may be littered with spelling mistakes as this is yet another written entirely on my iPhone. Anyway, back to the matter at hand…

As it becomes abundantly clear that Arsenal won’t buy any players (but not without “trying really hard” of course) the way they have failed to strengthen the squad this summer is quite spectacular. After just about finishing 4th in the Premier League on the final day of the season, it was clear that Arsenal needed to bring in some real quality if they were to compete for the major honours next season.

But this has been the same old story for the last 8 seasons. 8 years without a trophy and 8 summers where we’ve sold out best players to rival clubs.

But then, Gary Neville (who I think is a top pundit by the way) gave us Arsenal fans a thing which all football supporters love and dread in equal measure – hope.

He, quite rightly, talked about Arsenal’s barren run for the last decade and pointed out at some point, Arsenal will have the stadium paid off and use the money they have to really compete at the top. He said if Arsene won something big next season then it would be a masterstroke. He said he believed our time was now (well, next season).

Then, Ivan Gazidis jumped on the bandwagon. He publicly announced that Arsenal had a massive war chest (reportedly at around £70 million) to spend “if” Arsene wanted to spent it. He also said that we could not just compete with the top teams in the league in terms of transfer fees, but also wages, stating that Arsenal could pay players £250,000 per week if necessary.

This of course, put the media (and fans) into a frenzy. We were linked with Stevan Jovetic, Gonzalo Higuain, Wayne Rooney, Marouane Fellaini, Gareth Barry, Lars Bender, Luis Suarez, Benteke and Julio Cesar. Most of whom would have improved our squad. And while most of those “links” were made up by the media, we were genuinely interested in at least 3 of those players.

But of course, Gazidis publicly coming out and saying we had loads of money to spend has to be one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever seen. Why, even if we had £70 million to blow on new signings would you come out and say it? It instantly weakens your position in the transfer market, tells other clubs that we will pay the top prices (like the inflated fees Manchester City pay for instance) and gives the media a free hand in making up transfer rumours meaning they will link you with any player who is looking to engineer a move away from their club.

But maybe, Ivan Gazidis isn’t stupid and has this planned all along. Maybe, this was the greatest PR spin in football. It doesn’t matter one bit if you come out publicly and tell the world you have massive money to spend on players if you don’t intend on spending a penny.

You can safely bid £18 million for Lars Bender and know that the selling club will turn it down and ask for more. It’s the nature of the transfer game – you never accept the first offer, especially if you know for a fact the bidding club have a war chest at their disposal. It doesn’t make financial sense to accept the first bid without trying to increase the price.

And you can safely bid £30 million for Luis Suarez and know it will be turned down. And you can bid £40 million and £1 and know the same will happen again. It doesn’t matter that the offers are being turned down, we’ve put the bids in so it “looks like” we tried to bring in players. The fact is though, Arsenal fans know better and see through the whole charade.

I guarantee that when the transfer window closes, Arsenal fans will be upset we haven’t strengthened in the summer but Arsene can come out and say that we tried to bring in world class players, bid huge amounts that were well beyond what we’ve ever spent in the past and that it was the selling clubs that didn’t want to part with their players.

I might be completely wrong and this time next month we’ll have a world class striker, midfielder and defender all signed up. But don’t count on it.

Arsenal will not sign Luis Suarez. I can say that categorically. The whole idea when it first emerged was preposterous and it’s still ridiculous even now.

Unless Arsene Wenger has had a stroke then be cannot seriously consider buying Luis Suarez for anything near the £50 million Liverpool are asking. In fact, buying him for the £40 million is still ridiculous. Mark my words, if in some crazy universe we do agree a few with Liverpool, the deal will fall through when we fail to agree on personal terms.

There are a multitude of reasons why the signing won’t happen. In no particular order, they are:

1. The fee is way beyond what we’ve spent in our history. That fact cannot be ignored. Arsene is notoriously prudent in the transfer market and would never take a massive gamble, which spending £50 million on a single player would be. He doesn’t care if there’s £70 million available to him, he won’t put the clubs future at risk for one player. You have to consider what that £50 million will get us, and a guaranteed Premier League title is isn’t. Suarez may have a great season for us and score 40 goals, but that’s not enough. A more prudent approach would be to spend £50 million on 3/4 quality additions in various positions on the pitch.

2. Luis Suarez’s well-reported problems. I’ve had countless agreements about whether he is a racist but the fact is he was banned for racist behaviour. He was also banned for biting players not once but twice. He’s been banned for long periods and is banned for the first month of the season. Who in their right mind would pay £50 million for someone who can’t play the first 6 games of the season and could be banned again later on in the season? His attitude and behaviour is not one of an Arsene Wenger type player.

3. Olivier Giroud and Lukas Podolski. So do we just confine both of these players to the bench? Arsene has a record of bring extremely loyal to his players and he is unlikely to give up on Giroud in particular just after one season, particularly when he did well and has something to build on next season. If there were rumours of Giroud leaving Arsenal this summer it would make sense bringing in another striker but there’s been nothing of the sort.

4. Why would Arsene sign another player who wants to jump ship at the first opportunity? Arsenal are notorious for selling top players who want to move on without much fuss. Emmanuel Adebayor, Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy all wanted moves away and got them with consummate ease. And on top of that, if we were soft enough on players who wanted to leave, we also sell some on for less than they are worth. When you compare them to the fees Andy Carroll, Fernando Torres, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson all went for, Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie went for way below market value. Van Persie only had one year left on his contract you say. Well who’s fault was that?!

So lets picture next summer shall we. Suarez scores loads of goals and has a phenomenal season, or has an awful campaign and gets banned for kicking a ball boy in the face. Either way, he wants to move. With Arsenal’s track record, do you honestly believe that we could get £50 million for him? Could we hell, we’d get £30 million backs for him if we were lucky.

5. Luis Suarez wants to join Real Madrid. Is moving from Liverpool to Arsenal that much of a step up really? Sure, if we had already signed 2/3 top quality players and shown our intent for next season, then fair enough but we haven’t and as it stands we are we we’ve always been, a side fighting for the Top Four. The only real difference is we play in the Champions League. Do players really care about that? I’m sure that what footballers really care about is getting a big pay rise and Real Madrid could offer him more than we could afford, and they have a better chance of “winning things” if he cares about that too.

So that’s five major reasons why this transfer will never happen in a million years.

As the transfer window rumbles on, it becomes abundantly clear that Arsene Wenger, and Arsenal, won’t buy anyone this summer. I say “buy” anyone as we’ve already signed Yaya Sanogo on a free. What I mean is, we won’t use any of our reported “£70 milliom war chest” on new players.

Mikel Arteta, Bacary Sagna, Jack Wilshere, Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott have all commented on good it would be if Arsenal signed new players and how it would add to our chances of winning a major honour next season. It’s quite telling when senior members of our squad are basically pleading with the men upstairs to get their asses into gear and put their hand in their pocket, and publicly too.

And the signs are not looking good at all. Stevan Jovetic has joined Manchester City for £22 million, Gonzalo Higuain has joined Napoli for £32 million and Wayne Rooney looks to join Chelsea or stay at Manchester United. So our last hope of strengthening our attack lies with Luis Suarez.

After making an opening bid of £30 million, we’ve followed it up with another bid of £40 million and £1. Liverpool have made it abundantly clear (as well as John Henry via his Twitter account) that something closer to £50 million will be needed for the Anfield club to even consider selling him. They have stated Cavani sold for £55 million and that Suarez is on the same level, if not better. And even if we bid around that price, they still might not sell.

The problem I have with all of this is that it all seems to be a bit of a joke, and I honestly believe that these bids aren’t serious. We bid £18 million for Lars Bender and didn’t follow it up. We haven’t even tried getting in another midfielder, so was that bid a token gesture? With Suarez, we started with a low bid and have now come in with £40 million. Now it’s clear it will take £50 million plus for Liverpool to sell and honestly, I can’t see Arsenal doing it.

First of all, would Arsene Wenger be crazy enough to spend £50 million plus on a single player. The most we have ever spent on a player was £15 million on Jose Antonio Reyes. Would Arsene risk his job on the ticking time bomb that is Luis Suarez? If he spends £50 million on Suarez and it doesn’t pay off (which is highly probable as he has a shocking attitude) then his head would be on the chopping block.

What is much more likely is that we sign no-one, the transfer window closes and they Arsene can proclaim that “we tried signing big players but the selling clubs would not cooperate”. With all of these “serious bids”, no-one could claim that he “didn’t try”.

And secondly, why on earth would we go for Luis Suarez for £50 million (or maybe more) when we could have technically purchased Stevan Jovetic and Gonzalo Higuain for a combined £52 million? For an extra £2 million (which we can obviously afford now) we would have 2 world class strikers who aren’t banned for the first month of the season, have something to prove and would score a hatful of goals for us?

It’s because we’re not signing anyone. New strikers would “kill” Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud.

Jovetic, Higuain and Suarez were and are all pipe dreams.

The best we can do is support the squad we have now and hope they can do well for us next season.

If you follow me on Twitter then you will probably know that I am currently on holiday in Toronto, Canada. I’ve been here since Sunday and having a wonderful time with the wife. We’ve already seen the CN Tower, Casa Loma, The Hockey Hall of Fame, China Town, Kensington Market and had a Peameal Bacon Sandwich at the World’s Best Food Market (according to National Geographic). And later today we’ll be catching a Blue Jays Baseball game at the Rogers Centre. They have a player called Jose Reyes funnily enough. So for the last few days at least, I’ve managed to get away from all of the stressful, and on the whole, monotonous Arsenal “transfer news”, or the lack of it.

So I’ve only recently found out that a) Higuain has moved to Napoli and b) we’ve put in a bid of £40 million (plus £1) for Luis Suarez.

On top of that, another reported “transfer target” we’ve had this summer, Stevan Jovetic, has moved to Manchester City. The only available striker left, it seems, is the infamous Luis Suarez.

But Arsenal should pull out now. If Liverpool don’t want to accept the £40 million bid then, excuse my French, fuck them.

£40 million for a player who wants to leave your club, is banned for the first month of the season and has major attitude problems is one hell of an offer.

If they don’t want it then Arsenal should drop their interest and personally, I would rather start the season without him and without having spent a penny.

First of all, he has his well-publicised problems. Banned for racism, banned for biting and he’s a cheating diver. People ask me if I’d rather start next season with no signings. My answer is a categorical yes. Yes, yes and once again yes. Can I be any clearer?

I’ve supported Arsenal for my whole life. I love Arsenal. When I watch Arsenal there’s nothing like it. And I feel pride when I see players wearing the red and white of Arsenal. And I’m proud that Arsenal is a football club with morals and class. Luis Suarez has none of those things.

Let’s say he did join Arsenal. Would my opinion of him change? No. He still a cheat and a person will poor morals. He’s a player who is the definition of mercenary. He doesn’t care about Liverpool, despite the fact he was supported by the club 110% during all of his troubles. Loyalty? He doesn’t know the meaning of the world.

I am not one of those football fans who will blindly support their player if they do something wrong. I loved Bobby, but I’ll admit he dived at times. Tony Adams had problems but he realised his mistakes and did something good and has helped others in similar situations. Suarez however, has completely overstepped the mark on several occasions and has shown no remorse whatsoever. We all know those Liverpool fans who make the lamest excuses for his indiscretions, freeze frame the incidents and come up with conspiracy theories – I will never be one of those supporters.

I will always call it how I see it. I love Arsenal and while my support will always be there, I am not blind to the rights and wrongs. If I see a player who doesn’t put in the effort I’ll call them on it. If they are holding the club to ransom I’ll also say so. We all know about Adebayor, Nasri and Van Persie. So if a player is a cheat and guilty of racism and biting then that’s a fact I can’t ignore.

The most important thing is the club. It’s a cliche but no one person is bigger than the football club and Suarez is no different. You never know, he might sign for us, learn the error of his ways and score 40 goals for us and help us lift the Premier League title. And he might be extremely loyal and stay with us for 10 years. Then again, he might play for us for one year, then try and manufacture a move away next summer.

So take my advice Arsene, stop your pursuit of Suarez now and go after someone else.