“My view of how I should be playing didn’t coincide with the manager’s. I told him last season I wanted to leave and think he was quite upset about it. But ask him. It may turn out he’s happy to see me go. I don’t know where I’ll be next season but I’d prefer Barcelona. It is being negotiated and, hopefully, will be decided soon.”

When we get scoring opportunities, Fabregas is much more selfish than me. Given a chance to shoot, he always goes for it — unlike me.”

When I heard these quotes this morning from Hleb, I was absolutely fuming. How dare he?! I was especially upset with that second statement, about Fabregas, I screamed at the television: “Well maybe you should fucking shoot then, you twat.”

However, I had the afternoon to think about these (out of the blue) quotes whilst I was very, very bored at work. It’s obvious that this has just been lost (or should I say ‘manipulated’?) in translation. These quotes in this morning’s Sun were quite shocking, but you have to be suspicious…

Apparently, these quotes are from ages ago, from the Russian media I think and they have been totally twisted. It’s understandable. I think what Alex probably said about the manager is that they have different ideas and that a move for him is for the best. And on Cesc, The word ’selfish’ has been slotted in there purposely to cause a fuss. In translation, it would be a different word, not meaning selfish, but just saying that Cesc likes to take the ball on his own and has the confidence to shoot, and that is not Hleb’s game. That’s all.

Hleb was quick to deny these quotes on his official website:

“I am shocked by some media-reports. In some newspapers it was mentioned that I have attacked Arsene Wenger and Cesc Fabregas. But let me tell you: This is not true! The statements in the papers are definitely not my statements.

I would never ever say something disrespectful about them. And there is a simple reason for this: Cesc is a very good friend of mine and Arsene is one of the persons, I respect most.”

I believe him. It’s The Sun’s job to make stories like this out of nothing and it is a perfect example of the tabloids twisting words. Hleb is still yet to sort out his move away but any news on that and I’ll update you here.

Today is officially the first day of the season; the first set of players went back into training today. Photos are here. It was basically all the players that haven’t been involved in international fixtures this summer.

And finally, Ray Parlour is set to retire. No, he hasn’t retired already, if you remember, I actually told you a while ago that he joined up with Barnet’s training sessions last season to work on his fitness but it looks like a knee problem is going to stop him from playing professional football again. Shame really, good luck to Ray anyway.

Thanks for reading, speak to you soon.