The player had been widely expected to come to Arsenal, because of the close connection between Arsenal and his current club Beveren in Belgium, and the fact that his brother Kolo has become an Arsenal star.

Kolo says that Yaya, a midfielder in the Vieira mould, is better than him. And he's been winning a lot of plaudits in the Belgian league this season.

We started to worry the other week, when the Beveren coach said that he didn't expect Yaya to play for them again, that he would be leaving in the xmas break. Combine that with the fact that Le Boss says he doesn't see anyone available that he wants to buy, and it adds up to Arsenal missing out.

Now it's being reported that Shakhtar Donetsk of the Ukraine have met Beveren's asking price, and he's likely to be going there.

But the good news is that we couldn't have used him anyway, not yet. We were hoping that maybe Arsenal would buy him and loan him back to Beveren till the end of the season. But apparently Yaya would have had work permit problems (not sure of the difference with Kolo - not enough caps or not been in Europe long wnough, I guess....?). Arsenal will continue to monitor his progress, and if they slip up in that then we trust that Kolo will remind them.

Incidentally, Stathis Tavlaridis has joined Lille on loan till the end of the season. At 23, we think it's probably too late for Stathis to make it in the Arsenal first team. But he has played in all the League Cup games so far this year and was a bit of a "character" in the win over West Brom.