The market closes soon

"I do not know why we are always under pressure to buy £30m or £40m players. I am under pressure to buy good players, it is as simple as that. Good players are not always necessarily linked to the price. There is still a market to buy the right players. We are struggling to find them but we will find them, don't worry. "

- Arsene Wenger, breaking my heart

No Connolly's agent, there is no Wenger Claus.

He is an apparition, much like the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny. Arsene Wenger isn't going to splurge on a big, big player. Rather, he'll merely splurge on a medium big player - if the price is right.

I've been buying a lot of meals at supermarkets lately. It's cheaper than the restaurants. For a couple of pounds, you get a couple of sandwiches or a cold pasta salad. It's a compromise, because while it fills me up, it doesn't beat a hot meal. Sometimes, I walk past a dodgy Chinese restaurant offering a buffet meal, and my stomach quivers. I have to remind myself that a buffet does more harm than good. My stomach has shrunk at the moment. I couldn't eat that much, anyway. And if I did overeat, my stomach would expand again, which creates its own problems.

Wenger's got a similar mentality. He's been shopping at Tesco's for the past three years. Now and then, he'll walk past a three-star restaurant and get hunger pains. He'll be salivating in the window. Then, to fill that gnawing pain in his belly, he'll skip over to the nearest, nastiest buffet he can find and eat until he can't eat anymore.

To cut a tenuous metaphor short, he'll buy injury-prone players like Silvestre and Bischoff because they're cheap and can satisfy that groaning belly for just a little while. And he'll watch with envy as Chelsea sign Robinho, Man Utd sign Berbatov and someone else signs Alonso.

I agree that we shouldn't pay exorbitant prices. But we do need at least ONE defensive midfielder, and everyone knows it. Our choices seem to have narrowed to Alonso, now. Liverpool knows we're as desperate to buy as they are to sell. If £16 million is the going rate, maybe we should just do it.

I desperately want to believe we'll get someone before tonight's FC Twente game. But I'm not holding my breath. After all, I shop at Tesco's, too.