Joe Fitzpatrick 
T'was the night before Christmas when, all throughout Highbury, rumours were stirring, and all the little strikers were shrieking “Buy me!! Oh please, Arsène, buy me!!” But alas, miserly old Scrooge was determined to hold on to his coin while all of the best strikers had to look for other clubs to join.
Go Chamakh, go Bendtner, Arshavin, Denilson, Fabianski, Almunia, Squillaci, Diaby, Djourou and, erm... Blitzen?!?
For you see, boys and girls, Ebenezer Wenger was in a real quandary, as, before he could buy any new clothes, he had first to dispose of all of his dirty, smelly old laundry!
50 and 60 thousand English pounds a week?! Paying that to Squillaci, Denilson, Bendtner, Diaby, Fabianski and Almunia really was an effing cheek!
So was our old Scrooge really as tight as we all had first imagined? Or was he just guilty of overpaying the few bad 'uns?
What he badly needed was some help with his team, so he prayed silently to be visited by his good old pal... Mr. David Dein!
Dein brought his knowledge and contacts and was willing to shoulder at least some of the blame. He even was brave enough to ask his old pal why on earth the Ox was not getting a game!
Merry Christmas, fellow gooners and, while I might be making Dickens and Clarke-Moore spin furiously in their respective graves with my little Christmas ditty, there are some serious matters to discuss and items to be added to our Red and White Christmas list.
First on the agenda is the clear out-of the aforementioned players who continue to haunt the Arsenal dressing room rattling their ghoulish chains, just like Ebenezer Scrooge's old pal, Jacob Marley.
Almunia and Fabianski have had more than enough chances to appear on the next decade’s worth of Danny Dire's (yes I meant to spell his name Dire) funniest footballing cock-up DVDs while Djourou, Denilson, Diaby and Squillaci are just simply not good enough for the Arsenal, whereas Arshavin, Bendtner and Chamakh couldn't even finish their Christmas dinner, let alone the numerous gilt-edged chances that always seem to come their way.
As has been mentioned by a few other contributors, we cannot sign many more players until we get rid of some of our overpaid, perpetual under-achievers and, unfortunately, they look as though they are going to take some shifting because of their ridiculously generous contracts.
If the much rumoured but admittedly unlikely January signings of Podolski and Götze fail to materialise, then Arsène Wenger must look at "internal solutions" for the second half of the season, and two possible "solutions" for competition for the wide forward roles appear to be emerging rapidly. Oxlade-Chamberlain and Benayoun have done the business when called upon this season, and one can only hope that all of their hard work is rewarded when Gervinho and Walcott are rested or dropped from the starting eleven. To call continually upon the uninterested Arshavin and the disabled Chamakh when Arsenal need to change things around in tight games is ludicrous when you have two hard-working, quality players like Benayoun and Oxlade-Chamberlain on the bench.
All the Arsenal fans want for Christmas is to see players who really try their hardest and produce an end-product to their play, and if we aren't going to sign anyone of note, then we would like the in-form players to be picked ahead of players who clearly no longer give a s**t about Arsenal F.C. or the fans.
Am I the only one who was hoping to see more of Miyachi and Lansbury this season, even if only in the cup competitions? They appear to be two exciting young players who would, at the very least, run themselves into the ground if given the opportunity, and their appearances for Feyenoord and England Under-21s respectively indicate that there is some real quality there too.
Instead of buying expensive Christmas presents like Götze, Vertonghen, M'Vila and Podolski, or giving the Tiny Tims of the squad (Lansbury, Miyachi, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Benayoun) a chance to produce, Arsenal are rumoured to be bringing in lumps of coal like Wayne Bridge on loan to paper over the cracks and maybe, just maybe, scrape into the top four again.
To all of the critics who always throw the "This isn't Football Manager!" comments at anyone who suggests that Arsenal should spend a chunk of their millions on some proven talent, take a look at the purchases of Scott Parker and Rafael Van Der Vaart for a combined £13 million by our own "noisy neighbours", and realise that, if there were bargains to be had in the last two summer transfer-windows, there could well be some to be had in this year’s January sales too.
When David Dein was involved with Arsenal, we signed Players like Bergkamp, Overmars, Pires and Henry, who were all well-known internationally before they came to Arsenal. Now we are making huge profits from the sales of our best players before they have even reached their peak. Dein may not be Saint Nicolas, but I believe that he has the best interests of Arsenal at heart and I think he is the only man who can convince Kroenke and Usmanov to invest the right amount of money into the playing squad and is definitely the only man who could convince Ebenezer Wenger to spend it.
