With Arsenal looking like the merest shadow of the teams that dominated the English Premier League under Arsene Wenger, reports have gone haywire over proposed targets during the January transfer window and indeed next summer.
There is no doubt that Arsenal are not good enough to challenge for the title, with even a Champions League place looking like a steep mountain to climb.
The performance against Swansea was just the latest among several games in which Arsenal have looked like they will need three different goal posts to score.
This is not the team that plays the expansive style and always, always creates chances, irrespective of how porous they might be at the back. This Arsenal side looks more like a mid table team, which the table indeed reflects as they lie tenth with 21 points after 15 games, the worst start under Wenger in his 16-year reign.
One of the players that Arsenal have been linked with is Marouane Fellaini. The Daily Mirror stated Arsenal are monitoring the 25-year-old, and could be pressed to make a move in January.
The Everton midfielder is one of the best players in the Premier League currently, and has gone from strength to strength since signing for the Toffees in 2008.
His power and technical ability make him one of the standout players, with defenders having a nightmare trying to stop him, as Arsenal duly found out last week. Fellaini was equally, if not more, dominating against the defending champions Manchester City in the weekend's 1-1 draw, where he was again on the scoresheet.
Wenger, knowing, while never admitting, the crisis that Arsenal are going through, and have been going through over the past few years, with a board that seems happy to just do enough to keep their place in Europe, has been looking for more readymade players, with the likes of Santi Cazorla and Lukas Podolski coming into the team over the summer.
Fellaini will be another one of those no-risk signings, although how much impact Podolski, especially, has made can be argued. The Everton man, however, is a Premier League player and knows everything there is to know about playing in England; so there is no doubt he will fit right in with any team, and that includes Arsenal.
There are two big hurdles, however, that might stand in Arsenal's way. First one is of course the transfer fee, with Fellaini likely to cost at least £30 million ($48 million).
The second is, with Everton looking like the stronger team this season, will the Belgian even be open to a move to Arsenal in the next transfer window?
Arsenal need new players, and Fellaini could just be the catalyst that makes this season a more memorable one instead of a forgettable one.