Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

In this case, the answer is simple. We wanted (and needed) a central midfield body and Lokonga fits that bill, and we intend to go all-out for Gallagher in the summer as by then, he will either be firmly available or permanently staying at Chelsea and we want to keep our powder completely dry to be in position to buy him if the latter is the case. A purchase option for Lokonga now sounds good but is pretty meaningless, all told. If we can't get Conor, there's nothing to stop us from pursuing Lokonga on a permanent deal if we want him in the summer, whether we have an option or not. The option might help a bit, but no more and he's clearly not our primary summer target, at least as long as Conor might be available. Our obsession with Conor, bless him, has wrecked two transfer windows now. I suppose the good news is that either way, there shouldn't be a need for him to wreck a third.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

the clever part of this is Lokonga has to show his best here if he has any serious aspirations at Arsenal - his performances haven't matched his opinion of his himself acc to reports - if true we may well enjoy watching him ram it down his critics' throats to our benefit.

On the "loan" scenario there are also the soft skills of relationship building with key figures at top 6 clubs, we did well with a couple of CFC loans (RLC & CG) if we do well with an Arsenal one, etc etc, life becomes a bit easier in the taking of other teams players on loan, once you have that successful trading history, especially those teams at the top 6 or 7 who have significantly better resources / deeper pockets than we do -

Whilst of course I would rather see us buying our own players, or at least loaning them with an option to buy, so we are not developing someone else's product, at the end of the season I am to quite a large degree happy to see the points on the board, PL survival for another year & the club having the opportunity to operate on a higher income level than if they were in the Championship having to sell their soul trying to get out of it -

There is the possibility that Lokonga could become available during the next transfer window. Arsenal have another young player on loan - in Europe - who is scoring goals for fun. They will have to accommodate him in their squad (their first team to keep him away from PL top six) leaving Lokonga spare. Again, for Lokonga, they will want to keep him away from PL top six, which could be achieved by a lower valuation sale to Palace with both a requirement that he is given a three or four year deal, with a sell on clause, at 50%, for the first three years reducing to 30% in year four and 10% in year five.

All the sources I've seen say it's a straight loan. I understand that it was a simple case of needs must once the rumoured Gallagher option fell through. Apparently, had Fernandez signed earlier in the window for Chelsea, Gallagher was going to be offered to us on loan again. How true those rumours were, who knows? We clearly needed a midfielder who was PL ready and Lokonga was made available to us (Did Vieira's Arsenal connections swing it). I don't think it's a case of learning from the Gallagher scenario, rather a case of not having the money to buy that calibre of player.