The dust is settling after the events of a crazy last day of the transfer window in which the fickle footballing sands of fortune shifted once more. After an evening without Arsene pulling his finger out and signing someone just before deadline like he has done in the past, he instead choose to spend his evening watching the reserves against Chelsea. An evening in which for once we were ominously missing from the whole hyped up proceedings.

Now that the dust has settled what can we see apart from our threadbare midfield? Well it appears now that Arsene has now fully made his intentions clear to us just by his actions in the window. He is prepared the play the long game. Use his talent in bringing up youth players more than ever for success in the long run. Success this season however as a result may not be forthcoming. The Fulham game was proof that when the team were light of a few players the performance was awful. Unlike most clubs out there today the board has the patience to deal with this. I know I do. Hopefully the same can be said of our other fans.

The same however now cannot be said of course of the Abu Dhabi United Group whose arrival at Manchester City and the money they have spent in just the first 48 hours of owning the club put a lot of pressure on the manager. The fans will now expect instant success, which in their eyes this season is a top four finish. This arrival could actually put pressure on Wenger’s long term plans, as well as every other major club in the league - and not just because Man City is now being tipped to get into the top four.

What makes Abu Dhabi United Group quite dangerous is that for them, this is not a business venture, not at all. It’s another plaything for the Saudi royal family; anything goes and they don’t give a hoot about the club being able to sustain itself or even it making profit and getting the invested money back. Down at Chelsea (even considering the amount of cash that has been pumped into the club) they keep making those comments about breaking even by 2010.

The boards of Liverpool and Newcastle are boards that have gone into buying clubs for the money making aspect of it, egged on by the success of the Glazers at Man Utd. Both now are finding it a hard task, both now look small fry, and to be honest we would look the same if Usmanov took over. It’s just not worth the behind the scenes aggro it would cause and that even if he did get in he still would not be able to put enough money in the bank to compete with the amount Man City want to spend on transfers.

This brings us to the effect that all this money going into football from Man City could cause to the leagues as it trickles down. With the increased amount of resources available to Manchester City now, players’ values on the transfer market will undoubtedly skyrocket, and players’ wages also will spiral up again.

When a club sells a player to City and then uses the large amount of funds they have received to buy a replacement player (that would have once cost them £20 million) he may now cost double. The selling club knows they can hold the buying club to ransom due to the increased capital available.

This could cause serious issues for Arsenal. Currently, the most we splash out on one player is about £11 million (for Nasri) and we turn our nose up at Alonso due to his increased valuation from Liverpool of £18 million. What’s going to happen in future when the price of players starts go up again? Bring up the youth players? I guess this is what Wenger is trying to do at the moment. Or as I mentioned at the start, playing the long game.

This could also cause issues for us fans, not just for Arsenal but everyone. If the only way a club can compete (even to invest in average players that have had their price inflated) is to raise ticket prices, what’s going to happen? With the economy in the shaky situation it is at the moment how many fans will be priced out?

I know what a lot of people could be wondering if they were reading this and are not Arsenal fans. If the boot was on the other foot and Abu Dhabi had bought Arsenal out, would I be writing this article and be happy about it? Well yes actually I would still write an article. Simple reason being I don’t really want a royal family investing in a club who are part of the ruling class of a country that’s got such awful human rights records. It’s not something to be proud of really. I wouldn’t want them to be associated with my club regardless of the money.