Looking at the fixtures we have finally arrived at the famed tough run of Villa (27th Jan), Man U (Jan 31st), Chelsea (Feb 7th) and Liverpool (Feb 10). If we had bought a striker in January who could make a difference in these games he would have had to hit the ground running - otherwise he wouldn’t be worth playing or paying for.

After Feb 10th the league fixture list is pretty straightforward with games against also-rans and teams from the bottom half. Given our recent record following the November Chelsea defeat against teams of that ilk, you would fancy our existing strike force as being able to deal with them.

The next real challenges are Spurs and Man City. Spurs is April 10th and Man City on April 24th, so with Van Persie coming back hopefully mid-April, is it worth gambling/spending Arsenal’s hard earned gate receipts on a big money striker, especially as most worthwhile players would be cup tied for the Champions League away?

I had hoped that we could have signed Fulham defender Chris Smalling this month, but aside from that, I would keep the faith with what we have and save our cash for the summer. If our title challenge dies, it will probably die between Jan 27th and February 10th and it would have been a miracle if we had bought someone this month who would fit straight in and influence this period.