Arsène Wenger said just a few days ago that his priority this summer will be a tall defender, to aid our problems with conceding goals at set pieces.

If he stays true to his word and isn't just trying to appease the fans in the short-term, then he is finally accepting there have to be ugly elements for his otherwise enchanting team to work. Every Bergkamp needs a Vieira and an Adams behind him. Every Zidane needs his Makelele.

At the moment, however, all the rumours point towards the imminent arrival of a striker, either Peter Odemwingie or Jermain Defoe, neither of which are good enough or needed anyway.

People cry out for a fox in the box player at Arsenal, or an attacker of any kind, such as the strongly linked Eden Hazard, but while our tippy tappy football can get frustrating when things aren't going well, it's definitely not the main problem.

For a while I toyed with the idea that with the way our side gifts goals, we might as well go all-out attack regularly and just focus on outscoring everyone we meet. However, I accept that that was a bit knee-jerk and wouldn't be sensible. To be honest, the way we play already isn't too far from that, with us regularly enjoying 60% possession or more. Adding a bit more variety to that attacking style would be an improvement, but in a way I feel like that's less likely than our defending improving.

Sure, Wenger could sign a less shot-shy attacking player, perhaps a free-kick specialist, but he would soon drain that talent out of them. Look at our very own van Persie - he came to the club with an obvious knack for long range shots and free kicks, but has now totally lost it. Would Cristiano Ronaldo ever have been encouraged to work on his now famous free kick technique under Wenger? Of course not. If all you do in training is work on your short passes, you'll get less work done on your shooting and you'll lose it, which I suspect is exactly what has happened with van Persie.

Still, you have to take the positives with the negatives; we might not score from outside the box at all, but we are still capable of big wins. Sometimes it won't quite click into place, but 0-0 draws at home to Blackburn and Sunderland didn't lose us the league, it was 3-2 home defeats to West Brom and Spurs, or that 4-4 draw at Newcastle. We outscored Chelsea and City who eventually finished above us, but conceded a lot more. When was the last time we conceded fewer goals than Chelsea or United?

Having had time to cool off, I can honestly look back at the season and say we played some good football, and it doesn't need to be sacrificed for success. Wenger said himself that we conceded very few goals from open play, and that's because we have so much of the ball there's not a lot of opportunity for other teams to create chances. The tippy tappy game has its advantages in that sense.

In fact, if I could recommend one change to our attack it would be to sign a player who doesn't get injured, but that doesn't seem to happen at Arsenal. Fabregas and van Persie only started 25 games each last season, and only played 13 times together in the league. If you think that in two of those games van Persie went off injured early against Blackburn, and the two of them came on as subs in our defeat at Old Trafford, you can see how starved we've been of our two best players when it comes to creating and scoring chances.

If error-prone players like Eboue and Almunia finally leave this summer, then we should be saved of a few calamities next season, and that could be worth as much as 9 extra points. And if Wenger sticks to his word and signs players who can address the height issue at set pieces, we'll be better equipped than we were this year.

Still, the boss will have to be prepared to part with his money. However tall the player is, they have to actually be good as well, and not a Senderos or a Cygan. Christopher Samba from Blackburn would be my first choice, as there's not much he'll need to learn from about defending at set pieces, or about playing in the Premier League.

I hope we see some action soon, and not the usual waiting around until the final hours of deadline day. I imagine Fabregas' situation will have a big say on how much we have to spend. But that's for another day

Asenal-mania