The goalkeepers were an area that we needed strengthening, Arsene pretty much confirmed it with comments like “the number 1 is up in the air” and the resfusal to rule out Schwarzer. Perhaps it was all left too late, yes I think Arsene has to field much of the criticism for this but when Hughes joined Fulham I pretty much knew he wouldn’t sell to us – he hates Arsene. Couple that with the injury to Fulham’s second choice keeper and Schwarzer was going nowhere. So we are left with Almunia as number one, his confidence must be shot to pieces knowing that Arsene was looking to replace him right until the window closed. Fabianski has shown himself to be a very weak backup keeper as well. It is a massive worry for us this position, and might cost us silverware, but only one person will carry the can for this. Verdict – no change from last season

We had issues in defence last term, the reality of only having two centrebacks hurt us at times. Sylvestre was not Premier League quality and not Arsenal quality. Sol Campbell was a great signing for the second half of the season, which timed well with the routine Gallas injury so again we were back down to two centrebacks. But all three of those players have left the club. Two replacements have arrived, Sebastian Squillaci and Laurent Koscielny the former brings experience but has yet to feature so no further comment can be given and the latter looks promising but needs to adapt to the league. Johan Djourou also returns from long term injury, but there are concerns he will stay fit for the season so he will be fourth choice I feel. But we now start the season with what appears four decent central defenders, that gives more confidence than last year did. No change in the left/right back positions but I don’t think we had issues there and the return to fitness of Gibbs will provide some competition for the at times lacklustre Clichy. Verdict – stronger than last season

In midfield we have not added, however the emergence of Wilshere is a bonus. A year older and with half a season of loan experience with Bolton seems to have made him more of a player. The early season form of Rosicky is promising too. But in reality we were pretty strong in midfield anyway, and there have been no major changes so, Verdict – no change from last season

Our forward line was going strong, banging goals in until van Persie got injured. But no issues like that this seaso…oh hang on. Bendtner can cover, ahh but he is injured too. At least we have Chamakh, he looks promising and has a high work rate. A player who offers something different to what we saw from the dwindling Eduardo last season. Provided we can keep van Persie fit for most of the season and have Bendtner back at some point we will have competition for the front position. Walcott looks transformed too, he could even be given a shot in the middle if we fancied it. Goals were not a problem last season, and I doubt they will be this. Verdict – stronger than last season

So overall I think we have a stronger squad than last year, not more depth but certainly more quality in the depth we have. The 25 man squad rule wont hurt us too much either as we have a long list of under 21s we can add at any point in the season. As I said before goals being scored wont be an issue for us, it’s the conceding goals that will be the problem – just like it was las season. While Arsene has strengthened in the central defensive positions I do still worry about the keepers. Schwarzer would not have offered an improvement compared to Almunia, but he would have been a far more confident player and that is something that I think many gooners are worried about.

There is a group of death which sees AC Milan, Real Madrid, Ajax and Auxerre. Should be some decent games from that one.

No confirmed fixtures as yet, might update later on if I get time otherwise it will be in the Blackburn preview tomorrow.

I’m sad to see him leave, but his form since his return from his horrific injury has not been great. I think it is best for the player that he gets a fresh start somewhere, and we get some money in the transfer market as well. Aside from a few good goals early on we never saw the sharp Eduardo we previously had, he looked nervous going into the tackle and did pull out of them (the “penalty-gate” against Celtic was probably partly caused by this). It was a shame to see such a promising talent have his career ruined by a thuggish challenge from Martin Taylor at that fateful game at St. Andrews. I hope he thinks about what he did.

My abiding memory of the post-injury Eduardo will be his goal-scoring return against Cardiff in the FA Cup, it was great to simply see him back on the pitch that night but when he scored the opening goal I am not ashamed to admit I had tears in my eyes. It was quite an emotional moment.

I hope he forges a good career with Shakhtar, I am sure every Arsenal fan wishes him well.

The goalscoring return

picture from Arsenal.com

All change at Arsenal? Well minor details are, the club officially announced today that Robin van Persie will wear the number 10 shirt this season. He joined when Dennis Bergkamp was our much loved number 10, in the intervening years Gallas (strangely) wore the forwards’ shirt but with his departure Robin can take the famous shirt back up the the front of the pitch. Carlos Vela will switch to the number 11 shirt, which sort of confirms he will be at the club for at least one more season, but we need to see performances worthy of the number 11 shirt.

Another change was announced yesterday, the “quadrants” will be ditched at the stadium and the Highbury stand names will be adopted. The North Bank will be blocks 4-13 in the lower and 94-109 in the upper, the East Stand will be blocks 14-19 in the lower and 110-115 in the upper, the Clock End (with a new clock) will be 20-29 in the lower and 116-131 in the upper, with the West Stand having 30-3 in the lower and 132-93. Good to have named stands rather than coloured ones. Hopefully it will help it feel more like “our” stadium, but it’s something that should have been done from day 1 rather than a number of years down the line. But credit must go to Ivan Gazidis and his Arsenalisation program.

The club confirmed that Gallas and Sylvestre are expected to sign for other clubs for the coming season, still no news on Sol at the moment though despite numerous press rumours.

The squad left for the Austrian training camp yesterday, a full list of players is here on the main site – the most note-able absentee is Eduardo with his move likely to be confirmed in the next day or so. Cesc and Robin are of course still on holiday following their World Cup exploits.

I mentioned there will be a competition, well the prize will be two club level seats for the second day of the Emirates Cup, more details later today on how to enter. Thanks for reading.

Our pre-season kicked off on Saturday with the trip to Barnet. We ran away 4-0 winners with Arshavin, Jay Simpson (2) and Nasri on the score sheet. The game also saw debuts for Chamakh and Koscielny, for the former Arsene said “Chamakh was very good at bringing players in. With our creative midfielders, that will be suited to our game” and he added “Koscielny adjusted slowly to the required challenges in the air”. Only 45 minutes each but at least they are starting to get involved in things. Hopefully they will both progress well in the early season.

Cesc is still being talked about by Barca, but Arsene has asked for this all to stop. I’m not convinced that they will listen, but we can all hope. I’m still not sure this saga is over, even if he does remain at the club I worry what reaction the fans and players will have to the want away captain. Time will tell, and no doubt there will be more on that in the coming weeks as well.

One final bit of intrigue was on the keeper situation; Almunia was “unwell” for Barnet, so Fabianski, Mannone and Szczesny all played a part. After the game Arsene said this;

“At the moment, in pre-season, there is no No 1 – you have to give a chance to everyone to show how good he is. You cannot decide that today.”

Interesting, surely our best keeper would be number one. I doubt Casillas or  Stekelenburg will be fighting for their number one spots when they return to their clubs. I would hope a transfer move takes place for this position. On the subject of which rumours are that Eduardo is off, to Shaktar Donetsk, more on that as it comes.

Also there will be a competition on here over the next few days, more to come soon. Thanks for reading.

picture from arsenal.com

Very much an end of season feel to yesterday; quite a few empty seats, a subdued crowd, a few goals in what was an easy run-out for Arsenal. Fulham to be fair had other things on their mind, I hope they win on Wednesday, and the team they fielded showed that. In the end it was a comfortable result which ensured 3rd place, but that was not to be an issue following Spurs hillarious 4-2 defeat to relegated Burnley.

A nice individual effort from Arshavin opened the scoring, something I thought at the time I would liked to have seen more of this season but today I read that was his 12th of the season so perhaps his lack of effort at times masks the higher points of his game? Robin van Persie was again prevalent in attack, a goal and a number of chances for our main striker. An own goal capped the first half scoring in what was admittedly a one way affair.

The second half saw much of the same, but only one goal this time. Another Carlos Vela chip, a la Carling Cup, makes you wonder if he can only play for us when the pressure is completely off. He joins the ranks of players who I wonder if they will be with us next season, along with the Mexican is Eduardo who did not feature even on the bench yesterday. I wonder if we have already seen his last game in an Arsenal shirt?

Manuel Almunia was still afflicted by wankers wrist (many think it’s a convenient injury) so Fabianski again started in goal. Much groaning came from the crowd when he mis-punched the first cross into the box, this later turned to ironic cheers when he caught or kicked a ball – probably does nothing to help matters but there is frustration amongst the fans with the keeper situation. Much talk in block 6 was about Buffon, a great signing but I doubt we could afford the wages.

It was also good to see the return of Johan Djourou following his season long injury. Hopefully he can form a key part to our defence next season.

But the questions still remain; is Arsene the right man for the job? – at the moment I think yes, but this summer will be key. He must know we need 3 or 4 signings to allow us to try and get near the top two, but the thing we all want to know is will he make them.

A few more blogs over the next week or so to review our season. Thanks for reading.

There were also questions on Arsene’s future; he said it will be decided by how well he does and secondly if he enjoys what he is doing. There was the usual “what if another club came in for you” but this was rebuffed with the “I will honour my contract” line. I think we will get to early in 2011 before Arsene commits to any more years as manager.

There was also the transfer rumour mill, started by the suggestion of Joe Hart. The response from Arsene was “all the rumours are wrong, any name you give me (today) they are wrong” citing the market not yet being open. I will leave the transfer merry-go-round to another day as well.

On the keeper subject there was the question of Fabianski starting, Arsene said “come to the game, you will see who starts in goal”. I am worried if he does start, but I’m not sure we have any other option. In other team news Arshavin will not return for this game but should be back for Blackburn. Eduardo missed Wigan with a broken toe but will be in the squad tomorrow, Alex Song also makes a welcome return to the side.

I’m not feeling that upbeat about the game at the moment, the recent poor results combined with facing a Citeh side chasing 4th (or possibly 3rd) place means I doubt it will be a comfortable afternoon in the stands. Perhaps the Adebayor factor can distract us from the pain of recent games.

Thanks for reading.

We were given hope early on when Diaby won the ball well in the centre circle, made the pass to Theo and he made a run forward, Bendtner was with him but the pass he was given was terrible and it bobbled at his feet. He got a shot off but Valdes saved it. However Bendtner did very well to pounce on the rebound and toe-poke home a ball that was probably not the easiest thing he has done in football.

We were 1-0 up, at the Nou Camp. Perhaps, just perhaps it might happen. But then the brilliance of Messi shone through, a hat trick in just over 20 minutes pretty much put the tie to bed. In the first leg I didn’t see anything special from Messi to warrant “the best player in the world” label he has, but last night he showed that he is the best and best by a long way. His late goal I think was one too many for Arsenal hearts, 3-1 would have been a more comfortable loss.

In the midfield we battled better, Denilson and Nasri pressing more than happened in the first leg but we still stood off too much. Clichy was back at his best, it was good to see, but he did get exposed when no-one covered his forward runs and the left side was left open. Rosicky however was poor, if he wasn’t fully fit he should not have played. Eduardo should have started in his place I think, but it doesn’t matter now.

After the game Nic and Arsene did interviews and both said we were beaten by a better side. No question about that from me. It’s the simple reality. We now have to pick ourselves up for our next league game in a weeks time. Hopefully our walking wounded will have recovered and we might have a few more players to pick from, more on our injuries in the coming week but I looked last night (thanks to those who helped on twitter) and I am not sure we have any of our first team outfield players who has not been injured at least once this season. It has really hurt our push for trophies. Something needs to be done to fix our injury problems.

Then Sagna lifted the ball in from the right, Bendtner rose to head it.

The back of the net bulged.

The Grove went wild.

A great goal. One we deserved given how one sided the game had been despite the solid defending from Wolves. Another nail biter is not doing good for the fans’ hearts. But it keeps us in with a shout. Yes it is a very slim chance in reality, but we will keep on fighting. It isn’t over until we have no chance. We are keeping going till the end of games, the team has massive desire and it might, might just take us over the line.

The game itself was not the greatest footballing spectacle, with Nasri and Bendtner rested and Cesc out injured some of our attacking fluidity was missing. Arsene clearly had an eye on Tuesday night. Eduardo, who I am becoming increasingly worried for, had chances but lacked that killer instinct for goal. He looks lost at times, I know he hasn’t played much but I think the injury is playing on his mind – Ramsey’s similar fate cannot have helped matters.

Wolves were down to 10 men following a rash challenge by their captain, I have yet to watch MOTD but at full speed he looked to go in from behind studs up. Prick McCarthy covered himself in about as much glory as Phil Brown covers himself in fake tan when he applauded the player off the pitch then goaded Arsenal fans after the final whistle. Cock. Once they were numerically inferior they just sat back. We broke them down many times but Hahnemann kept them in the game with a number of fine saves akin to Almunia against Barca in the first half. But we broke the deadlock very late on. Those who stayed beyond 90, which seemed more than usual, were treated to a massive amount of elation. Will we be able to celebrate like this come the end of the season? I think we are still in with a shout. Come on you reds!

Whatever is said by the media, Stoke City, Tony Pulis or Shawcross himself; irrespective of there being no malice in the challenge you cannot escape the fact that on of our most promising youngsters is currently in hospital with a broken leg. At 19 he will hopefully recover, but my worry is that this injury will affect him much in the same way that Eduardo has been affected. Eduardo is not the same player he was, he has niggly injuries and he shys away from challenges which is totally understandable. I wonder what effect yesterday’s game had on the Crozillian as well. More news on Ramsey’s condition as it arrives.

Looking back at the game it started same old, same old. A long throw from Delap was badly defended and Stoke were 1 up early on. No real surprise to me. It took us a good half hour to get into the game but when we did we started to play well and had plenty of fight. Our equaliser came from a lovely Fabregas cross which Bendtner met and placed a great looping header into the net, a nice goal for Nic. At half time we looked like we could score another and win this, something we have not done on our two recent visits to Stoke.

The start of the second half was not as fluid as the first had ended. Then the incident happened. The game fell flat, unsurprisingly, and I didn’t feel like watching. Our two goals came in the 7 added minutes, the first a penalty following a handball (it was generous but we had been denided two clearer penalties in the game) and the second was from a rebound which Vermaelen tapped in from a few yards. Both goals were celebrated by the players in front of our support with gestures that they were for Aaron. I was pleased but the result had a sour taste following the injury.

After Chelsea lost we are now only 3 points behind them, the race is still on. We lost the title after a broken leg two years ago, but the reaction of the players – the post match huddle led by Cesc and Sol shows a different character to the team this time round. I am not sure if this will help them focus minds for the title push but there clearly is a strong team bond there.

A mention on Sol, he clearly loves Arsenal still. He was properly celebrating after our third goal and his experience could we be invaluable for our title push – this might have been a great signing for us.

Finally a word on the press, some but not all have been part of this injury to Ramsey. The “get stuck in” and “Arsenal don’t like being kicked” or “they don’t like it up them” has been written about so often by the press that it glorifies  the tactics of Bolton, Birmingham, Blackburn, Stoke etc and makes it ok. Yes we can play in a physical game, Man Utd or Chelsea give us a physical game, but they don’t go too far. Clubs often do, 3 broken legs in 5 years is testament to this and whilst nothing will be done some people need to look themselves in the mirror.