On Friday Wenger said that a deal with Valencia before the transfer window closed was 50-50. Yesterday he was saying that he was 99% sure that Edu would in fact stay, and there's been no news of a last minute deal.

But I think we can take it that this just means that no-one's come in to buy him at the "expected level", not that it means he'll be signing a new Arsenal contract. So, he'll be off to Valencia or whereever in the summer and we can only hope, however great a player he may be, that we've seen the last of him.

Apparently Le Boss has had talks with the player and Edu told him that if he ended up staying at Arsenal there'd be no question of his playing with anything other than 100% commitment to the Arsenal cause. Well of course he'd say that. It's hard to believe that Wenger believes it any more now than he ever did. More than ever, now that he's bound to be leaving on a Bosman if at all, there is a huge amount of money riding on the next move for Edu. An injury between now and the summer could cost him millions.

It's a racing certainty that Edu won't be picked ahead of the current 3 regular central midfielders. But if a couple of them come down with injuries and/or bans, and if Gilberto doesn't make it back before the end of the season, then you never know.