Week after week has turned into day after day. In a transfer-window that is still weeks away from closing, it seems more and more like Arsène is signing players with an eye to something more than simply strengthening the squad. Gone, it seems, are the days when we had to wait until deadline-day to learn of a signing. 10 July: Alexis Sánchez signs. 17 July: Mathieu Debuchy signs. Then, a lull…until 26 July: David Ospina signs, and two days later, 28 July, Calum Chambers signs. Time seems to be folding in on itself at a rate that will see us signing someone else 29 July, then someone else twelve hours later, and another six hours after that, and another, and another…in short, we seem to be disappearing into a wormhole with no end in sight. By the time it’s all said and done, we’ll have signed every player in the known universe, after which quantum physics takes over. It boggles the mind.

It started off, as all such processes do, with a big bang as we signed Sánchez. Not content to have poached from Real Madrid last summer, Arsène apparently felt that he had to burgle Barça, signing the scorer of 19 goals and 10 assists (good for 2nd and 3rd in the squad, respectively) for a mere £35m. That one was for the haters, those who brayed that Arsène won’t spend and that the big names won’t play for Arsenal. In two successive summer-windows, Arsène extended his arm and unfolded a certain, central digit and made sure that those donkeys understood whence (vence?) Wenger comes: “I’ve now signed players from Real Madrid and Barcelona, beyotches (pardon his French). What? Wot? You want me to sign from Bayern? We shall see.”

However, Arsène couldn’t resist certain impulses. Once his French-quotient dipped a bit following the sayonara de Sagna, we were greeted by the Debuchy debut (fair warning: you’re going to see a fair-few featurings of frequent falliterations from this fpoint fporward. I’ve had a fpint or ftwo…). Not content to b*tch-slap a few back-benchers, Arsène scratched an old itch by bringing in a Frenchie to play right-back, a debutante by the name of Debuchy. This one was an old-school signing, harkening back to the good old days of bringing in a few Frenchmen to fortify. Debuchy slots in for Sagna, who sidled off to Citeh. So it goes.

Speaking of scratching certain itches, Arsène couldn’t resist the signing of a certain stick-minder, this one of the a South American sort, to step up against Szczesny, perhaps even supplanting the Pole. Again, this signing carried calling-cards of the Wengerian-variety: A pittance paid. Found from France. Nicked from the Niçoise. Nevermind.

Closer to home, Arsène just had to tweak the Mancs, especially those who saw fit to splurge several shillings on Shaw, choosing Chambers for about half what those hankerers handed over for their Hail Mary. All alliteration aside, Arsenal may have acquired the better of Southampton’s defenders. Time will tell.

What’s next? Will we see the signing of Sami, the claiming of Khedira? Or will it be the bringing-back to Britain of Balotelli? We live in interesting times when it’s Arsenal that’s most active in the transfer-window. Willl wonders never cease? The only element missing to this point is the signing of a clinical closer, a striker who scores seemingly at will, at a fee that flummoxes the flibbertigibbets. I’m sure that Arsène will find him…