Arsenal 1-2 Hull…bollocks 29 September, 2008

Oh dear, well we’re going to just have to stand up and face this, there’s no hiding our shame. It is an awful result and an embarrassing one.

I don’t think I need to talk about the game in depth, I think we all know what went wrong, we just have to put that game behind us now and turn over a new leaf.

We were terrible though, we never turned up and I bet the players are just trying to forget about it now. We showed no real commitment both on and off the pitch and it looked like the players had the same complacency that I must admit I had as a fan. To be honest, I was expecting us to win 3 or 4 nil and never really took a moment to think about Hull. I feel like a bit of an idiot just expecting us to win like that…

That’s the attitude I thought the team had too. It looked like we just assumed the goals would come from somewhere and were in no real hurry about it. Hull capitalized on this giving 110%, giving everything they had which resulted in them actually playing some nice football. So fair play to them for winning.

I was sat directly behind the goal next to the away fans, in the 3rd row. You’d think that’s a pretty good seat but I hated it, I couldn’t see anything that was going on unless it was coming towards my goal. I didn’t even realise we’d scored our first for a few seconds.

Then Hull scored to great goals in quick succession and that was it. They went mad, and deservedly so. They went on to win 2-1 and you really have to congratulate them, they did well. It’s not acceptable for us though, Hull become only the second ever team to win and The Grove.

We just need to put this behind us now, and very quickly becasue tomorrow night we play Porto at home. Lets home we put in a better performance.

Thanks for reading.

We’re back up and running & Hull Preview 26 September, 2008

I am finally writing to you for the first time from my new house in Bournemouth on my brand new laptop with the internet all set-up. It’s been a long two weeks or so but The Cannon is now officially back up and running. You’d think only moving 100 miles south wouldn’t really cause much disruption but there you go.

I’m not going to bother re-capping everything that I’ve missed, because 1. That’d be very boring for you as you’ve probably already read it somewhere else, and 2. I have had no internet and that would mean me doing 2 weeks worth of research for one post… effort.

So, Hull make the visit to The Grove tomorrow and I doubt they will be looking forward to it very much. We’ve picked up some form recently: 4-0 vs. Blackburn, 3 goals past Bolton and 6 scored against Sheffield United in the week; you wouldn’t be wrong to predict a few goals tomorrow. However, Hull have had a decent start to the season and are sitting 7th in the table. Even still, if we play like we have been recently I believe we should have no problems.

Clichy and Silvestre are fit, along with van Persie and Walcott who were on the bench last weekend, Alex Song has a knock and will have a fitness test today and I believe Diaby is still injured. Nasri should be back, he missed the Bolton game and Wenger said he would be back for the Hull match but I haven’t heard any news. Obviously, Rosicky and Eduardo are still out.

Edit: Nasri is not fit to play and there’s nothing saying when he will be back in that link. In the team below I guess you can substitute Eboue for Nasri and swap wings with Walcott.

So that gives the manager quite a few to choose from. I think he will go with Nasri and Walcott on the wings like he has done previously,  Eboue has actually done well this season but I’m not expecting him to start. In defense there is now another option with Mikael Silvestre available to play. I’m not sure how highly Wenger rates him but I guess we’ll find out tomorrow when we see the starting 11. Here’s my guess at it:

Almunia
Sagna – Toure – Gallas (c) – Clichy
Walcott – Fabregas – Denilson – Nasri
Adebayor – van Persie

Pretty standard really I think. However there are a few players not in that team above who’ve done well recently, like Bendtner, he might be given another game.

As for Hull, Anthony Gardner has been ruled out and new signing Stelios Giannakopoulos isn’t full-fit, apart from that they’re as expected.

Last weekend the Tigers drew 2-2 with Everton so we’re going to have to play well. I’m predicting a cagy start, but once we’ve scored on we’ll follow it up with a couple more: 3-0 to the Arsenal. However I’m hoping we come flying off the blocks and get an early goal or two to put this tie to bed.

I’m traveling up to the game tomorrow. That sounds weird, ‘traveling’ to a home game. It’s going to be my last game in I don’t know how long so I’m quite looking forward to it. I hoping it’s a really good day out and we’ll win comfortably to stay top of the league.

It’s a 5.30 kick-off and it’s on Setanta over here. enjoy the game and I’ll be back with a match report on Sunday. Thanks for reading.

COME ON YOU GUNNERS!!

Hello… 23 September, 2008

Long time no speak. Well I’m  still not up and running with the internet down here. It’s all ordered and apparently connected but can’t get the bloody thing to work. I’ll have another go at it tonight. Instead I’m writing to you from Uni quickly before my day starts just to let you know I’m still alive.

Since my last post we drew 1-1 in the Champions League, not the greatest of games but I think we did well just to get the point in the end. Bolton was much better. Despite them trying to kick us off the park again we absolutely out-classes them and could’ve got about 6 or 7.

Tonight we play Sheffield United in the Carling Cup and Wenger says it could be a very young side. I don’t think I’m going to be able to watch this one but I’d love to see how the kids get on.

I’m still planning on going to the Hull game this weekend. Hopefully I have the blog up and running before the weekend.

Speak to you soon, thanks for reading.

The Cannon will be very quiet for a while… 14 September, 2008

Good victory yesterday, 4-0 against Blackburn but more importantly, Paul Robinson. An Adebayor hat-trick plus one from Robin van Persie and it could’ve been more. It was a really exciting game, end-to-end stuff but whenever we had the ball we just looked a little bit more dangerous. Blackburn were probably unlucky not to score in the first half but well done to us for keeping the clean sheet.

I did manage to find a pub showing the game. Good atmosphere in there, especially with United losing earlier in the day. I think everyone was just glad to be watching football again.

So those three points puts us just one point behind Liverpool and Chelsea who top the table on 10 points. Those four goals are also very valuable, as Man United proved last season if you can rack up a decent goal difference it almost counts as an extra point towards the end of the season.

No time for a match report today, I’m running behind schedule and I need to be heading off to Bournemouth now.

That’s why the site’s going to a bit quiet. I’m going to get on the case of getting the broadband sorted tomorrow but it might take some time to set up. I’m not sure, give it a week and we’ll see. I’ll get on here as soon as I can.

Also, some of you navigating around the site today may have noticed that Photobucket have decided to be absolute cunts and change their bandwidth limit, therefore all the pictures have gone from the squad, kits and the club pages. I’ve only just noticed this today, right before I’m about to fucking leave. Cheers. I’m going to have to get those all re-uploaded but it’s going to take me a while because I need to get the files off this computer and then transfer them to my new laptop an….ARGH Photobucket you absolute cunts, cheers. It’s not like uploaded a load of stuff and it’s exceeded the limit, I haven’t used it in a while so they must’ve just suddenly changed their bandwidth limit.

Right, so I better be off. Enjoy the game against Dynamo Kyiv on Wednesday and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Hopefully I’ll be back with a Bolton match report next weekend, but don’t hold your breath.

Thanks for reading, speak to you soon.

Blackburn Preview: Nasri & Walcott might be out 12 September, 2008

It’s back to the Premiership tomorrow afternoon in what seems like a fucking eternity. We travel up to Ewood Park to face Paul Ince’s Blackburn. They’ve had a mix and match start to the season; they beat Everton on the opening day, drew with Hull and lost 4-1 to West Ham in their last game. We played well in our last game against Newcastle but we were shocking against Fulham. So you can’t be 100% sure how either team is going to play.

I’m fairly confident though. I hope believe we’re going to put in other decent performance and take all three points. We need to.

We have a few doubts for the game though. Samir Nasri missed France’s game in midweek with a knee problem. I still haven’t heard anything out of the club on this yet but we should hear the latest in Arsene Wenger’s conference later today. He’d be a big loss if he doesn’t make it. He’s been one of our most exciting players this season and can really make the difference.

Theo Walcott might be out too. He’s not injured but with those impressive performances for England over the break Wenger expects him to be tired. He did look tired when he came off against Croatia, he did give a lot. The manager was impressed with his performance and says there’s still more to come+ from Theo. However Wenger fears that his new-found time in the spotlight might earn him a few kicks. Arsene thinks he will have to brought down unfairly if he is going to be stopped and that referees must watch out for this.

I think Theo’s going to be ok to start tomorrow, especially if Nasri has to sit out; we haven’t got many options.

Carlos Vela is out though, his game with Mexico, with the time difference was one of the latest games of the international break.

Mikael Silvestre was due to be fit for tomorrow’s game but it looks like he’s a couple of days short. Here’s what Wenger said this week:

“We had a minor setback with him, but if he is not available for Saturday he will be OK for Wednesday certainly.”

Ok then.

As for Blackburn, well Andre Ooijer picked up an injury for Holland and might miss out, Santa Cruz got a knock against West Ham but is expected to be fit and Blackburn now have the services of Robbie Fowler at their disposal. He joined on a free transfer today.

So, with all that in mind this is how I see us lining up:

Almunia
Sagna – Toure – Gallas (c) – Clichy
Walcott – Denilson – Fabregas – Eboue (/Nasri)
Adebayor – van Persie

There’s one or two in there you might argue aren’t really on form at the moment but I think Wenger will stick with his team rather than split them up. Also, with the international players coming back to training as late as today I still haven’t heard yet if we’ve picked up any more injures or tired players and I haven’t yet heard Nasri and Walcott’s state of fitness.

I still think we’ve got too much for Blackburn though. I can see them being dangerous, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if we didn’t keep a clean sheet, but I’m hoping we can come away with a win here.

We need to win games like these, I know they aren’t the most popular trips for us but these are the ones where we need to be picking up points if we’re serious about challenging for the title this season.

Last year it was our good start which kept us going for the whole season, we need to get off to the campaign well again. If we can open an early lead it really will give us confidence.

The game isn’t on Sky or Setanta over here being a Saturday 3:00pm kick off. It is on BBC Radio 5 Live though, I might tune in to that or find a pub that shows the dodgy foreign channels. I’ve heard the 12 Pins near Finsbury Park should have it on but I won’t be able to get down there personally.

I’m properly moving down to Bournemouth on Sunday so I’m going to try and squeeze a match report in before I go but it doesn’t look likely at the moment. So if there’s no update for a few days that’s why. Might actually be quiet on here for the duration of the week as my internet is still not sorted for my new house. But hang in there and I’ll get on the site as soon as I can.

Thanks for reading.

C’MON YOU GUNNERS!

Nice one Theo 11 September, 2008

All the headlines are going to have to be for Theo Walcott today. The 19-year-old bagged a hat-trick in England’s 4-1 win over Croatia last night. It was a fantastic team performance but on paper it’s Theo who will be getting all the praise. Croatia have never lost a competitive international before but last night the FIFA ranked 5th best team in the world were outplayed by England.

Yesterday morning I pulled on my England shirt and I was looking forward to an international match for the first time in a long while. The Andorra game was the first match I’ve actually watched or been vaguely interested in since Steve McLaren fucked it up for us. Yesterday I felt happy to support the team again and was looking forward to watching our world cup qualifier against Croatia.

I suppose Theo Walcott’s inclusion for the Andorra game got me interested again, of course I still wanted England to do well but with no Arsenal players ever involved I just lost interest. There are a lot of players that play for England that I hate because of their club association so you can probably see why I didn’t really care for a while.

Now I’m looking forward to our future internationals and what Theo Walcott can bring to the team.

It was three good finishes, the first came from some poor defending but Theo reacted quickly and shot low, across goal to make it 1-0 to England. The second was a similar finish with Rooney spotting Theo unmarked in the box and he hit it across the goal again and the ‘keeper couldn’t get to it. For the third, England were on the break and once the through ball was put through to Walcott you just knew he was going to finish it. He made a diagonal run from the right and then slotted it under the goalie with his left foot.

3 nicely taken goals, he really looks like he’s becoming a clinical finisher when you think about his goal against Dinamo Zagreb earlier this season. Apparently, Beckham told him he has to be more selfish sometimes and go for goal and that advice served him well last night. At Arsenal he’s so used to passing all the time so maybe he might think about having a shot next time when he gets into dangerous positions.

We don’t want to over-hype Theo though. You have to congratulate him on his hat-trick but it doesn’t mean anything has changed. We all know that he’s capable of this kind of thing but the fact it’s happened on such a big stage has given him all this attention.

What’s next for Theo, well if you believed the media you’d expect him to be the first name on the team sheet for England’s next world cup qualifiers and that he’ll be banging them in, in the Premiership. Well I’m not expecting anything different, he’s done well enough this season and hopefully those goals last night will do his confidence a lot of good. I don’t think this will all go to his head, but I hope he’s not watching Sky Sports New today…

In other news, Gael Clichy got his long awaited France debut last night in their 2-1 win over Serbia. It’s remarkable really that Gael hasn’t played for his country before, he was voted best left back in the league last season but still no action for France. I know that he was really desperate to get an international cap so I’m glad for him, I haven’t heard how he actually played but I’m sure he was incredible.

Nicklas Bendtner scored for Denmark last night in a fascinating game against Portugal. Bendtner got a late equalizer to make it 1-1 in the 84th minute but the game was by no means over. Two minutes later Denmark conceded a penalty which Deco converted to make it 2-1. Denmark didn’t give up though and they made it 2-2 in the 90th minute. A great last-gasp equalizer yeah? No, because in extra time Daniel Jensen hit a long range shot which took a massive deflection into the opposite corner to give Denmark the 3-2 win. Exciting stuff.

Lukasz Fabianski saved a penalty for Poland against San Marino and Johan Djourou’s Switzerland lost 2-1 to Luxembourg who lost every single qualifier in the build-up to the last world cup. Oops.

That’s it for today. The players will be returning to training now so hopefully I’ll have something more Arsenal related to talk about tomorrow.

Until then.

Some personal news & an international round-up 10 September, 2008

This must be the most dull international break ever. There is actually no news. I’m glad I’ve been away the last few days because it’s really hard trying to update the site in times like these. I managed to check up on what was going on yesterday when I got to a computer but I still haven’t got an internet connection at my new house yet. I’m moving down there properly at the weekend so the site will be very quiet for about a week. Sorry for all this messing around but I should be up and running from my new south coast location very soon.

Regular readers will know that I’m lucky enough to get to all the home games and a handful of away games, but this wont be the case for much longer. I’m moving down to Bournemouth and I’m starting University there so I won’t be able to follow Arsenal to the extent that I do now. I thought I’d be able to get to a lot of games this season but I’ve had to realise I wont be able to any more.

I can’t afford to be going back and forth to London every weekend and I’m probably going to be working too. In fact, I’m not sure how many games I’m going to be able to watch this season, never mind actually go to.

It feels kind of shit to be honest, but I don’t have a choice. The site will stay the same, however I won’t have that first hand match experience to add to my match reports and there might be some games I haven’t even seen. I know for most people this is a reality but when I’m so used to going to the games it’s going to be hard to adjust.

So it looks like my last game for a while is going to be the Hull match. In fact I’m not even 100% sure that I can make that.

Anyway, enough of me. I might as well talk about all our lads away on international duty. Theo Walcott got 90 minutes with England at the weekend but it was the U19′s side that had the strongest Arsenal involvement. Rhys Murphy, Henri Lansbury, Gavin Hoyte and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas were all in the side that beat Nacer Barazite’s Holland 2-1 with Murphy getting both goals for the Three Lions who were captained by Lansbury. Glad to see us having so many players in an English side.

Gallas, Sagna and Nasri got 90 minutes, 70 minutes and 10 minutes respectively for France in their 3-1 defeat to Austria. Clichy still waits for his debut but I heard that he’s starting tonight. I hope he enjoys that and plays well…as long as he doesn’t get injured.

van Persie played 45mins for Holland so hopefully his foot isn’t too bad. He came off injured in his last game for Arsenal but it wasn’t as bad as first thought. I’m a bit suspicious that he only played one half for the Dutch but I haven’t heard anything about a problem with his foot forcing him off but we’ll have to wait for news on that.

If you want to read up on everyone else involved in international action click here.

So that’s about it for today. I’m going to watch the England vs. Croatia game now, Theo Walcott’s starting again.

Thanks for reading.

Walcott Plays For England & Some Takeover Talk 7 September, 2008

Theo Walcott played 90 minutes in England’s 2-0 win over Andorra last night and was one of the highlights of a not so great game. I’ve been hoping that Capello would give him a chance to play for the national side because I think a player like him can really help the side, there’s a bit of a lack of inspiration for England at the moment and a player like Theo can really liven things up.

Andorra are ranked something like 170th in the world and Theo was given the start ahead of the more established David Beckham. It was all England pressure, the whole game. There was one point in the second half where Andorra got a corner but that was literally all the attack they had. They had 9 men defending + 1 ‘keeper + 1 striker just encase a ball went loose. So they were hard to break down and Walcott was the only man having any joy getting through in the first half.

He had a few decent chances but couldn’t convert, he did a good job though and Capello has been shown what he can do now. Maybe he’ll be so impressed that he’ll play him against Croatia on Wednesday but I have a felling that for that game he’ll want to go for a bit more experience.

Here’s Theo’s post-match interview.

The only other bit of news this week has been about a possible takeover. It looks like Red & White Holdings, dubbed ‘Fat & Orange’ by Arseblog, has become just ‘Fat’. The Daily Mail says David Dein is stepping down as chairman from Usmanov’s holdings company. That’s what they’re saying anyway, maybe he got sacked because Usmanov knows Arsenal won’t go near him with Dein on his side or, maybe he’s laid him off saying that if he takes power of Arsenal he’ll employ him back.

I don’t know, but whatever it means but one thing we do know is that Fat & Orange are still trying to manipulate a takeover. Peter Hill-Wood’s been talking about it saying that we’re not interested, however if the right price came along then we’d have to take it. Hmm.

More on this another time but the story doesn’t end here.

Lastly, Cesc Fabregas has been talking about a move to Man City after he was named in their dream team of hopeful signings with their new mega-rich investors. City are supposed to be going on a spending spree bringing in all the top players from around the world including Ronaldo, Puyol, Buffon and anyone they can think of. Anyway, Cesc had this to say:

“It would be suicidal for my career at 21 years of age to move to City. It would make no sense.

Man City might have shit loads of money but I don’t think they’re going to be able to get the top 11 players in the world just to say, “Hey, yeah! ‘Course I’ll come, it’s not like I care about the club I’m with. Woo!”

Right well that’s it for today, and Monday, and Tuesday. I’ve got to go down to Bournemouth for a few days to sort stuff out for my new house and there’s no internet connection set up down there. If I get it sorted before Wednesday then you might get an update but otherwise I’m not coming back here until Wednesday.

Thanks for reading, speak to you soon.

Happy Friday! 5 September, 2008

Just another quick post today, sorry. I’ve got to get ready to go out tonight will all my mates before I move to Bournemouth. Luckily there’s not much news going about anyway. I planned on writing something about our midfield options but I’ll save that for what should be a very dull next week.

So what’s news? Not much. Everyone’s away with their national sides at the moment, there’s a list here of everyone who’s away playing in World Cup qualifiers.

Most of them will be playing two games, one this weekend and one mid-week before coming back to us (probably knackered) to face Blackburn next weekend. Any bets that someone will get injured?

Amaury Bischoff has been talking about his recovery from injury:

The injury is getting better bit by bit. I’ve been doing ball work for five or six days now and I am running three times a week. I’m nearly pain-free and hope to be back as soon as possible.

He says that he should be training with the first team squad in about two weeks and then fighting for a position after that. I’m interested to see what Bischoff has to offer, he’s a total unknown quantity. I know he’s hardly played any first team football but at Werder Bremen he had two good players ahead of him so I don’t know, we’ll see.

Mathieu Flamini has been talking about his move to AC Milan and says he’s still happy despite not playing in the Champions League. He agreed to join Milan before their fate in the UEFA Cup was decided but says that wont bother him. He says he’s supporting Arsenal and Marseille in the Champions League and thinks that Arsenal can “do something good”. Yay.

I really miss Matty. I’ve seen pictures of him playing for AC Milan and it’s heartbreaking. It’s like seeing an ex-girlfriend with another bloke. It’s just not right Matty! Come back! We still love you…I still love you. Oh how we could do with him going into this new season…

That’s pretty much it today then. I’m going to have to shoot off. See ya.

Why get so worked up about the lack of signings? 4 September, 2008

The world of Arsenal is not a happy place to live at the moment. A lot of people are very unhappy that we haven’t replaced players that have left in this summer’s transfer market. Me included. From overwhelming support, Arsene Wenger has got more than one or two critics at the moment.
I think we can all see his thinking, just most of us think he’s gone mad. If we have a fully fit squad with everyone playing well and the youngsters fulfil their promise then yes we do have a pretty good squad. In fact, we probably wouldn’t actually need to sign anyone. You see that’s never going to happen. There’s no way that are squad is going to stay fully fit for a whole season, and you can’t expect every youngster to have a break-through season.

One or two injuries in a certain position and we’re in big trouble. Especially in central midfield. Fabregas has no one behind him, no one there to take his place. I wonder how that lack of pressure inside the squad but massive expectation from the fans is getting to him. It can’t be good anyway.

So it’s not a great time to be an Arsenal fan at the moment, a lot of people are worried about what the season ahead will bring. But getting upset with other fans and the manager isn’t going to solve anything. I have a lot of frustration built up inside me right now but me ranting and raving on here’s going to get me nowhere.

It’s exactly the same situation as with Emmanuel Adebayor, we’re not too happy with him, but booing him isn’t going to help. We’ve even started signing his song again, not because we’re forgiven him but because we’re getting behind him.

The same applies here, so I’m just going to get on with the season, get behind the team and the staff and support them with everything I have. So, for now, I’m drawing a line under all of this.

There you go.

So on to the news. Well there isn’t much. I suppose the only thing is Wenger saying today that the appointment for a new chief executive will be made soon. Hopefully that gets sorted out quickly and properly.

Right, now lets all just take a deep breath and get on with the season. Thanks for reading.

So we didn’t sign anyone… 2 September, 2008

Yesterday was a mental day in the transfer market. Lots of deals going on but the headlines are going to go to Manchester City. In the morning they have an agreement for a takeover by one of the richest men in the world, by the evening they’re sending out bids all over Europe for the best players in the world. In the end, they only signed Robinho, outbidding Chelsea but I’m sure they will be a very busy club in January.

Chelsea were to first to do it, when Roman Abramovich came in. Now we’ve got another European super power were money is no object and it’s Manchester City. As funny as it was thinking of how fucked off Chelsea must have been not getting Robinho and how City nearly stole Berbatov off their local rivals, however this now means that soon enough it will become a ‘big 5′.

What does that mean for Arsenal? Well with things as they are I’m quite worried but that is really a debate for next summer. I don’t think City will have enough to challenge for this season’s title. Maybe after a few January signings they’ll be up there but they will have played half a season by then.

Enough about them, what about us? What did we do yesterday? Well, I heard from someone close to the club that we made a bid for Alonso that was a few million under Liverpool’s valuation. I heard this morning that we met that valuation later on in the evening but a deal was never sorted out. I don’t really know whether I wanted to hear that. Yes, because it was some intent in the transfer market. No, because I’ll be fucked off we hadn’t sorted it out weeks ago.

I stayed up last night, watching Sky Sports News like every other football fan in the country watching this saga unfold. There was so much going on, but nothing about Arsenal. We played Chelsea in a reserve game at Barnet and Wenger was there, he was asked:

Will you be signing anyone?
“No”

Will anyone be leaving?
“No”

“I have to go, I’m very busy.”

That last bit left a chance but I don’t know why I ever felt that. It got to about 11:30pm and I started to finally come to terms that we weren’t going to sign anyone. I carried on watching, I told myself it was fun just watching this Man City thing unfold but really I know I was just sitting there waiting for any Arsenal news.

I couldn’t sleep, a few times I sat up, turned the TV back on, checked Arsenal.com. Nothing. I waited until the morning, still with the faintest of hopes that Wenger had strengthened our squad. So I woke up this morning, rushed downstairs to the computer and went straight to Arsenal.com praying that Xabi Alonso’s picture was splashed across the home page. Who was there? Emmanuel Eboue. With Wenger saying he is a ‘pass master’. I swear they did that on purpose, just to infuriate me further.

Now it’s Vela up there with the headline: Wenger: Vela class is positive for our future. It’s now Wenger’s plan to remind us what players we already have.

I am very angry with it all today. Well not angry, more frustrated mixed with disbelief. Wenger will talk his way out of it and the board will bow down to him. I’m not going to bother going into this any further today but I want to remind everyone how Wenger has lied to us over the summer in another post. If we can stay fully fit Arsene’s plan will all fall into place, but if someone gets injured now then we’re screwed.

Goodbye for now then, speak to you soon.

Deadline Day – Let the madness begin 1 September, 2008

It’s deadline day and you know what that means – Sky Sports News has a crazy party. It’s the one day that we’re all sat at the computer with the TV on in the background frantically refreshing various websites. Of course, there will be one or two out there just to have a bit of fun with: “BREAKING NEWS OMG KAKA’ AT ARSENAL TRAINING GROUND LOL!!1″ I was thinking of doing something later but people would think I just wanted hits and being a NewsNow whore blah blah blah…

In recent years this day has been a busy one, last year we bought Lassana Diarra off Chelsea with about half an hour to go. The year before we completed the complicated swap for Gallas and Cole whilst also sorting out a move for a Brazilian youngster by the name of Denilson.

I’m expecting another cheeky last minute deal from Wenger. I don’t think it’ll be anyone special, but I think he’ll just get someone in to bulk up the squad, no one really high profile because I’m sure the manager knows we’re lacking in number. I wouldn’t actually be surprised if he brought in two players tonight. Gunnerblog has compiled a list of his transfer candidates, some interesting options in there.

He talks about the possibility of Alonso still making the move to London. Initially he was expected to leave once Gareth Barry’s signing was completed but that never happened. However Alonso isn’t particularly happy at Liverpool and despite playing every game this season Benitez might be tempted if we came in with a late offer.

What I said last Monday still stands, I’m not happy with Wenger’s lack of signings and we are STILL desperate for players. Ok, with a fully fit squad we’re probably alright but you can’t take that risk! We have an awful injury record here and it’s just not going to happen. Say Fabregas gets injured, who’s his replacement? Ramsey? We still need someone.

I saw this coming, Wenger leaving it ’til the last day and leaving us still in the blank. I still think we’ll sign someone though, Arsene likes last minute cheap deals and I’ll be surprised not to see at least one player announced as signed in the morning. I say I’ll be ‘surprised’, I mean ‘furious’. I don’t even want to start talking about ‘if we don’t sign anyone…’ yet.

Yes, we have been playing well recently. That’s not an excuse not to sign someone though. Wenger said last week that we don’t need to sign just because we lost a game, that’s not what we were saying but that’s what he said. Well now I’m saying that just because we won it doesn’t mean we don’t need to sign anyone. Look at all the other teams, they’re doing well but they’re still keen to add to the squad, make it better. That’s what we should be like.

I do hope Wenger’s busy at work and he can prove me and lots of other Gooners wrong by signing someone. If he does, he’ll still get criticized as to why he’s done it so late and risk points in our first few games, but at that point I’d just be glad to have one extra player to add to our thin squad!

So now we play the waiting game. Not much more we can do. I will speak to you tomorrow, hopefully to announce a new signing or two. Thanks for reading.