Arsenal's gamble, Liverpool's forward planning, Newcastle's big push

Arsenal's big gamble

Would the last one out of the Emirates Stadium please turn off the lights?

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang's Deadline Day departure to Barcelona capped a bizarre transfer window for Arsenal in which they cleared the decks without bringing in a single replacement.

Aubameyang became the sixth member of the first-team squad to leave either on loan or permanently, the striker following Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Folarin Balogun, Sead Kolasinac, Pablo Mari and Calum Chambers through the exit door.

His departure makes sense from a business perspective. Aubameyang had fallen out of favour since being stripped of the captaincy following a disciplinary breach in December and his free transfer to Barcelona should save Arsenal around £25m in wages.

But supporters are entitled to wonder where exactly the goals are going to come from in the second half of the season. Their only remaining options up front, Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah, have scored three between them all season in the Premier League.

Arsenal did try, pushing hard to sign Dusan Vlahovic from Fiorentina only for the Serb to join Juventus instead, but it is not just up front their squad looks worryingly thin.

Mikel Arteta now has just 18 senior outfield players to choose from and that includes several, such as Nicolas Pepe, Mohamed Elneny and Cedric Soares, who he does not appear to trust.

Perhaps it is better to do nothing than panic buy. Perhaps Arsenal feel they can manage their relatively light schedule in the second half of the season with what they have. But somehow Arsenal have reached the end of the transfer window with a weaker squad than they had at the beginning of it.

It seemed Liverpool were set for a quiet transfer window but that