To have started the window with Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott and a thoroughly disinterested Alexis Sanchez, and to end it with Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and a newly betrothed Mesut Ozil is quite the coup.

Whatever happened against Swansea City, and however clear it is that the Gunners are well out of the running for a top four spot - eight points behind now - there’s little doubt that this has been a month where the side has seen an upgrade. In an attacking sense, at least.

Whether the Gunners actually needed an attacking upgrade - rather than a midfield or defensive one - is up for debate, but the fact remains that this is the most exciting window that Arsenal have had in years.

And yet, it’s not the big money signing of Aubameyang, or the arrival of his former Dortmund assist-provider Mkhitaryan which should excite Arsenal fans the most: it’s the renewal of Ozil.

Contract extensions are by definition less important than signings. Ozil is already an Arsenal player and fans know exactly what he brings to the party (even the infuriating bits). But at the same time, the fact that Ozil has signed - rather than leaving on a cut-price deal like Sanchez or on a free in the summer - should be just as good a sign as breaking your transfer record for a world class striker.

Why? Because it shows a change. Specifically a positive one.

A few months ago, it looked for all the world like Ozil was leaving. Now he’s staying and will have more good players around him, too. That signals a shift in something, a certain confidence in his club that Ozil didn’t have a little while ago that he appears to have now.

Perhaps he knows something: about future transfers to come, about a change in management, or about the structure above Arsene Wenger which now seems to be more progressive than ever before.

Either way, the Gunners can make club record signings until they’re blue in the face, but if they don’t back it up with a real vision and an overarching structure which actually works, the club will continue to stagnate. But if, as the Ozil news suggests, the club are beginning to change and become more like the other top six sides off the pitch, then they can dream of success on it, too.

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