Problem is if Wenger can't get his No.1 target, it seems that he'll go for the bargain basement pick.

Sahko/Subotic failed so in came Squillaci.
We hear M'Vila is staying at Rennes, so Kevin Anin, who once failed a trial at Spurs is now linked.

And the No.1 targets mentioned above, won't be coming in the future as M'Vila will be at Euro 2012 and the other two will be playing in the CL, so their valuation is likely to sky rocket.

Samba and Parker may 'understand the English game' but they won't be able to fit into our hybrid of technical football trying to cope in the EPL. The players we're going for are as always young, technically proficient, so AW can mould them into our style, and from the examples above, also able to cope physically.

They're not stopgaps, but neither are they ever going to be the finished article. We all know this. But if we fail then, we're going for stopgaps cheaper than their English counterparts.