The Warm-Up: Arsenal spend some f****** money, West Ham crash out

"Spend some f****** money," the Arsenal fans yelled at Arsene Wenger during the very first game of the season. With five days remaining of the transfer window he has finally obliged. In a distinctly un-Wengerlike development, Arsenal last night struck two deals worth a combined total of £52 million to strengthen in both defence and attack. That's right. Now apply smelling salts to the nearest Arsenal fan you can find.

At this point it almost seems churlish to even investigate who Arsenal have spent their money on and whether it might be worth it. The medium is the message, and what really matters for many fans is the fact that Wenger has loosened up those purse strings, brushed aside the cobwebs and liberated the family of bats which had built a colony in his wallet.

Valencia centre-back Shkodran Mustafi arrives for a considerable fee of £35m, although according to reports he could have been considerably cheaper had Arsenal moved quicker, rather than allowing their desperation, and the price, to grow.

Second through the door will be Deportivo La Coruna striker Lucas Perez for a fee of £17m. The Independent's Jack Pitt-Brooke has a good piece on him this morning; let's pick a sentence at random:

Added to the £35m signing of Granit Xhaka, Arsenal have now spent almost £90m on three players, none of whom will be automatically guaranteed a starting role with everyone fit (at least, not yet). Spending some f****** money was Wenger's instruction and he has carried it out. But time will tell if it was used well. You could have got Paul Pogba for that.

Those famous European nights at London Stadium didn't last long. Last night, West Ham were denied entry to the Europa League proper by Astra Giurgiu, losing 1-0 at their new home. It is the second season in a row they have lost to the Romanians at this stage - proving that some traditions have at least remained intact during the move across East London to Stratford.

In fairness, though, playing in the Europa League group stages would only have accelerated the creeping gentrification of this grand old club so maybe it's a good thing. After all, the West Ham identity isn't exactly synonymous with European football. The sushi bars of Westfield and the pricey fish and chips on offer at the Olympic stadium are one thing; actually competing in Europe quite another.

'Narrative' is one of football's most over-used words or phrases. In terms of being devoid of any real meaning now, it is on a par with 'if anything, he hit that too well'. But narrative is all around us. Especially when the Champions League draw is made. See it, submit to it.

Top of the narrative Pops is of course the inevitability of Barcelona being drawn against Manchester City to give Pep Guardiola a slightly awkward date with his ex, now in bed with his former pal, Luis Enrique. The subplots are manifest; the build-up will be overwrought and unbearable. Narrative, narrative, narrative.

First came the analytics revolution, which is sweeping aside conventional scouting methods to eschew personal gut judgement in favour of data-led analysis. And now at Aston Villa, a club at the vanguard of modern football, scouting could be abandoned entirely in favour of crowd-sourcing transfer targets.

New owner Dr Tony Xia has taken interactivity to a new level with his open dialogue with fans on Twitter - perhaps too open, if you are Ian Holloway - and now Dr Tony has revealed he doesn't need the wisdom accrued in Villa's scouting department as long as he has fans letting him know on Twitter who they want to sign.

A scout's black contacts book being replaced by Mao's Little Red Book - what could go wrong?

Steve Bruce's literary side-career is the stuff of football legend but few have actually ever read his books, which are as rare as a first edition of the bible. The Set Pieces got a copy of Sweeper, his second book, though and their review is absolutely amazing.

We don't know what's best: the lengthy Partridge-esque rumination on the Jaguar belonging to the lead character, Steve Barnes, or said character's gripe about never getting an England cap. We could probably do without the Mr Malik character though.

Inspied by Bruce's literary tour de force, The Warm-Up would like to point you in the direction of one of the great football-murder mystery crossovers, the Arsenal Stadium Mystery. George Allison, Tom Whittaker, Cliff Bastin, Eddie Hapgood and Ted Drake all star, along with a number of other Arsenal luminaries from the 1930s, and the whole thing is available on YouTube.

It's the Europa League draw today and you can follow that live with us from 12pm, with Manchester United and Southampton in the hat.

Deportivo La Coruna will somehow try and struggle on in the post-Lucas Perez era when they take on Real Betis in one of two La Liga ties tonight. That's live on Sky Sports 2 at 7.45pm.

There's no Friday Night Football in the Premier League but you can see Burton Albion v Derby County in the Championship at 7.45pm on Sky Sports 1.

At the same time, Kilmarnock v Rangers is on BT Sport 1 and Marseille v Lorient is on BT Sport ESPN - while at 7.30pm, Bayern Munich v Werder Bremen is on BT Sport 3.

What better way to spend a Friday night (if you don't have any friends)?