Felipe Melo only signed a contract extension at Fiorentina a few days ago but that has brought no halt to the transfer speculation. When he re-signed on the 30th June I ruled us out of a move for him but it looks like I could be wrong. His agent says they are not in talks with any club yet but names Juventus as a club Melo would like to play for. It seems his recent contract extension was meant for one purpose only – the buy-out clause. By creating this they have made it impossible for clubs to bargain with the price, so if they want him they have to pay for him. The price tag on Melo is £21.4m but we rarely spend over £15m for a player – only on special occasions do we splash the cash. I think Wenger has seen the price tag and done his best to get around it by offering a player + money deal – Fiorentina have confirmed we have a made an offer for the player which was not up to the valuation but they would consider a price reduction if the deal included Emmanuel Eboue going the other way:

“Fiorentina sporting director Pantaleo Corvino, in denying the transfer rumours of the past few hours, which sees Felipe Melo definitely at other clubs and reporting potential meetings to finalise the transfer of the player, underlines the following:

“In case the footballer has already reached an agreement with any club, the release clause fixed with the player himself is €25million. We would not contemplate any exchange, unless it is to the liking of Fiorentina.

“Arsenal is the only club to have come close to the sum established by the release clause.

“Fiorentina in turn proposed to the aforementioned club a reduction in the amount set by the release clause by including right-back (Emmanuel) Eboue in the deal.”

I think many, many Gooners will be delighted at this news. A lot of people want Eboue out of the door at any cost, I am not like that but I will admit that I wouldn’t be too upset if he left! He has changed for the better recently but that doesn’t make him my favorite player. If we can sort something out with Fiorentina then I would be very happy.

I don’t really seeing us paying the £21.4m so by sending Eboue the other way (a surplus player anyway) we can bring the price down to our level. The sooner we enter negotiations the better because now they have announced they will sell Melo for that set price there are bound to be a few clubs interested. Juve might be Melo’s personal choice so if they make a bid we could lose out on him.

This is quite big news, for a club to come out so clearly talking about their transfer business isn’t common. We know Wenger is very against it so hopefully this announcement won’t put him off. More news on this as it comes, it seems the Melo story isn’t over yet.

The Independent are reporting that Robin van Persie has signed a contract extension until 2014. It hasn’t yet been announced on Arsenal.com so I’m not taking this as set in stone just yet. Yesterday I spoke briefly about how I was concerned by him not signing on yet but it looks like it will be wrapped up shortly. Hopefully The Independent do know something and it will be officially announced soon.

I also spoke yesterday about Marouane Chamakh and Wenger’s possible interest in him. Well the Bordeaux coach has said any deal must the be sorted out quickly so he can plan ahead of the new season. We are tied down until Adebayor’s future is sorted so we can’t offer anything yet. On the subject, Arseblog has a leak of a Michael Owen-style brochure for Ade which is worth checking out.

Right I better be off, I have my second work shift of the day in an hour and I need food. See ya.

In an interview with the French media Arsene Wenger has revealed the names of two attacking players he’s had an eye on this summer. They are Bordeaux’s Marouane Chamakh and (soon to be) Real Madrid’s Karim Benzema. We’ve mostly been linked with defensive midfielder’s recently but this news suggests that Wenger will ignore that vacency again. He says we’ll only bring a striker in if we lost one and Arsene has said that Adebayor’s future is down to him:

“If he does not want to stay, he will leave but I think that he will be still at Arsenal this season.”

He’s not being shoved out the door, if he wants to leave then we’re not bothered. Strong contrast to last year though when we were saying he is 100% not for sale and we will do everything we can to keep him. Arsene says he thinks he will stay but he could just be saying that; Milan want an attacking player, Ade wants to go to Milan, we’re quite happy to let him go – all the elements are there so I reckon he’ll sign for Milan. If he does go then we’ll have a bit of money to get a replacement and when asked whether he was interested in Chamakh, Wenger said:

“Yes, but only in the event of a departure.”

So if Ade leaves get ready for a heap of Chamakh stories. Wenger was also asked about any other possible French signings:

“There is one who interested me but he (Karim Benzema) left for Madrid. I did not make of approach because I would never have thought that Lyon would sell this year.”

Even if we did know that Benzema could be persuaded to leave Lyon this summer we would’ve never been able to compete with Real Madrid or Man United’s terms. He was a player United identified as a possible Ronaldo replacement but Real were quick in there with a tasty bid and it was too good to turn down. Now the Premier League champions have strengthened added to their attack by signing Michael Owen.

It’s a bizarre transfer, one day you’re organising meetings with Stoke and Hull, the next day you’re signing for Man United. He has not impressed since returning to the Premiership with Newcastle and as a result has not been considered to play for England for a long time. Of course the service at United will be better than at Newcastle so he might get a few more goals that way but I just generally don’t think he’s that good a player any more, he’s past it. Well the experiment of Henrik Larsson worked for them before so this might too. No doubt he’ll score against us this season.

We’ve also secured a signing today – Kieran Gibbs on a long term contract. It’s yet another new deal for one of our young stars. Making sure our promising talents stay at the club is just as important as making new signings and I’m glad we’ve got another player signed up. What excites me is four out of the five young players we’ve re-signed this summer are British – Gibbs, Walcott, Ramsey and Wilshere. Having all the foreign players that we do doesn’t bother me but I look forward to us hopefully having a few more local players in the future. By the way, the other player that signed a new deal was Fabianski.

All this news of new contracts has reminded me about van Persie. He still hasn’t agreed a new contract. There were some positive quotes recently about him getting it sorted but there’s still no news. Hopefully it can get sorted before we start pre-season, otherwise Wenger really is going to have to look at some attacking players to bring in.

Thanks for reading.

Ah it’s so hot. Too hot. This is England for christ’s sake I can’t be dealing with this weather. Even lifting my fingers to the keys is tiring. Anyway, while the BBQ is heating up I’ll bring you up to date with what little news there is.

Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere have both signed long term contracts this week. A bit odd seeing as Ramsey only transferred here a year ago and Wilshere signed professional terms in January. It just shows how highly we rate the teenagers. They will no doubt be an important part of future midfield – possibly even midfield partners.

I’d like to know the length of the deals but as always they are undisclosed. I reckon they could be somewhere close to 8 years Fabregas signed for last time. Aaron has spoken about his new contract saying he’s happy he chose Arsenal, is pleased with his first season but hopes he can get a few more games next year. A few bloggers have discussed a possible loan move for him next season, I’m sure he would do great at a lot of clubs and gain some good experience but it’s up to Wenger. I’d guess that he’ll stay and get more cup games and the occasional league game, he’s a good player even at his age and has proven that he has got the talent to play at this level.

This summer has gone money-mad. Real Madrid and Man City have been flashing the cash – Madrid like never seen before. They’re just about to make another top signing in Benzema and then after that possibly Ribery! Then there was Man City offering £25m for Eto’o a player with only one year left on his contract. It’s not just that though, they were willing to pay him something ridiculous like £250,000 a week! I don’t remember the exact amount but I know it was stupid. Ivan Gazidis has been talking about salary capping after all this ridiculous money spending and I think he has a very good point. Other clubs are never going to be able to keep up when players are being offered a quarter of a million pounds for week’s work. I don’t think salary capping would ever be able to be brought in, but this summer it has got to that stage where it is just getting stupid.

On a side note, seeing as Real Madrid are signing the talent of Europe and Man City are by no means finished business… who are United going to get to replace Ronaldo and Tevez?

Gallas has said he’ll be staying at Arsenal next season but has not spoken about extending his contract. He currently has just a year left on his deal and would be able to go on a free next summer. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s exactly what he did but to be fair that wouldn’t bother me at all. I’d like another year out of Gallas, he’s done really well since losing the captaincy and although he might not be the most liked player he does his job at the back and that matters more.

We’ve been linked with Werder Bremen’s ‘Naldo’ after their manager said he is no longer in their plans. I have no idea why they don’t want him anymore but they said he’s likely to go for about €10m and Arsenal are the most likely destination. He’s a defender and he’s 26 so I guess if any of our defense leave (which there is a big chance of) then this guy could be a possible replacement.

Right, the BBQ is good to go. I better be off. Thanks for reading, enjoy the sun while it lasts.

New pictures of our 2009/10 third shirts have been released – and they’re fucking hideous. I think I showed you an image of it before but there are new images released by the club if you follow that link.

It’s even worse than I first expected, the dark shorts make it actually look like a Spurs kit. I thought the last white shirt was bad but this is worse.

I’ve heard that the club shop was dead for the new away shirt release and it hasn’t sold well at all. I will admit to not minding the new away kit but this is a shirt I can’t image us playing in. I hope they find this even harder to shift at the club shop rather than last time when the white shirt became a top seller.

Just a quick update because I’ve just seen these images and I wanted to share them. Speak to you soon.

Hello from a surprisingly rainy Bournemouth. As London passes the 30℃ mark I’ve been sat inside watching the rain all day. A bit jealous but I guess we do get our fair share of sun down here.

Anyway, the top story in the Arsenal world today you’ll notice is not in my headline – and nor should it be. The Sun have printed a ridiculous story with the headline ‘Andrey is Shavin a laugh’. The article is only five lines long. Five lines of absolute shite:

ANDREY ARSHAVIN has stunned Arsenal by revealing he wants to play for Barcelona.

The Russian striker, 28, who joined the Gunners in a £16.9m deal five months ago, said: “If I have the chance to play for Barcelona, I’d be really happy.”

Wow. Just wow. I thought the Cesc stuff last week was ridiculous but this is something else. I was getting angry about the Fabregas rumours but this just makes me laugh. Using a complete bullshit quote completely out of context just to fill a gap in a newspaper. Now the story has spread and ‘Arshavin to Barca’ stories are all over the internet. It doesn’t deserve any of your time so lets just laugh and let it pass.

There’s some big news on the transfer front as two European stars announce they’re staying at their respective clubs. Dzeko has said he is 100% committed to Wolfsburg and is looking forward to the new season with them. That should mean that AC Milan will set about signing Adebayor as their 2nd target. This might get moving next week now so expect some action.

Felipe Melo has also decided to stay with his club signing a one year contract extension. No doubt this will mean an improved pay cheque for Melo but it also includes a buy-out clause. This new contract doesn’t necessarily mean an end to the transfer speculation; Fiorentina have set a price at which he can bought out so if any club decides to meet that then he can still be off.

Today, Amaury Bischoff has left Arsenal along with seven others. Arsenal Blogs around the world are today paying tribute to the great man and Arsenal Shorts has news of a support line set up by Vic Akers. Oh Amaury, we hardly knew you. Reports of Barcelona coming in for the midfielder were dismissed as ‘a practical joke’. Maybe he’ll go back in the wilderness to find his inner child, who knows? James Dunne, Rui Fonte, Abu Ogogo, Raul Rogers, Rene Steer, Vincent van den Berg and Anton Blackwood are all following Bischoff out the door at London Colney.

It’s not all sad though because Luke Ayling, Craig Eastmond, James Shea and Cedric Evina have all signed professional contracts with the club after last season’s Youth League and Cup double winning side.

It wasn’t a good night for Theo Walcott’s England U21’s last night as they lost 4-0 to Germany in the final. I went down the pub to watch it and we didn’t threaten enough. I think we had the more attacks but the Germans were much more clinical and sealed it with some good goals. Theo didn’t look very dangerous again up there on his own but Gibbs did a good job down the left.

So everyone is on summer holidays now. Cesc, Gibbs and Theo are all done serving their countries. Obviously they all played the maximum amount of games they could rather than getting knocked out early and getting a rest, but that’s just our luck.

What can you look forward to this week then? Erm I’m not sure, maybe the transfer of Adebayor might speed up and we can get the transfer ball rolling again.

Speak to you soon.

Happy Sunday to you. Not a great deal of news today, nothing major’s happened anyway. I guess the top story is Robin van Persie saying he will be staying at Arsenal. To be honest I was never worried that he’d leave but it was a risk. Well he’s confirmed that he wants to remain in North London and he wants to become the best while he’s bere:

“I’m not in negotiations with any other club – just Arsenal. I want to become the best player in the world. My career will only be a success when I consider myself the best. Anything less won’t do.

I see the potential at Arsenal. We have to do it. One fact which aggravates me is that in the five years I’ve been at Arsenal, we’ve won exactly the same number of trophies as I did at Feyenoord – ONE – that’s not enough. When I arrived here, Arsenal were winning trophies for fun. But, if everyone is fit, we have a heck of a team and it’s up to me to ensure we go out and win these trophies.”

Ambitious statements from Robin but fair play, he should set his aims high. It really hits home that statement he gives at the end there – we’ve won one trophy in five years. When you think of it like that you can maybe understand Robin hesitating over his new contract. I’m glad that he does understand the potential of the side though and is going to stick with it. Hopefully he can get that new contract signed up soon.

There’s some news on Adebayor’s possible transfer. As I said in the week AC Milan want Dzeko from Wolfsburg, if not they’ll take Adebayor as second choice. Dzeko is the ball that’s going to get everything rolling and he’s said he’ll be staying at Wolfsburg but not by his own will:

“I am not happy. I would like to join Milan, but I am tied to a contract and the club have decided not to release me.”

Doesn’t sound concrete to me but if he’s going to honour his contract then good on him. Wolfsburg will probably offer him a better deal but he’ll probably reject it. It might force the Bundesliga champions to cash in and sell him while the iron is hot, as they say. I don’t know why ‘they’ say that or who ‘they ‘ are but that’s not important.

Well if the Dzeko thing does fall through then they are supposed to be coming in for Ade. I think if anything £20m+ gets offered we’ll take it right away. More on this next week I’m sure.

The News of The World and The Sunday Times are both reporting us making a move for Lyon’s Karim Benzema. He’s a great player and I’d love us to get him but I don’t really believe these rumours. Man United are supposed to be getting him with some of the Ronaldo money and that would price us out immediately. The only way we’d want Benzema is if Adebayor did get sold but even then I don’t think we can win a bidding war with Man United. The tabloids are saying the player would rather join Arsenal than the Premier League Champions but, well, that what the tabloids say and they might as well be saying he prefers Cheerio’s to Coco Pops… whatever they say could be bollocks.

On Friday night I watched the England U21s play Sweden in the Euro 09 Semi Finals. Theo Walcott and Kieran Gibbs were involved and played a full 120 minutes each. I tuned in at half time when England were 3-0 up and they managed to throw it away in the second half forcing extra time. The scores stayed 3-3 and it was penalties to decide who went through to the final. Theo and Gibbs converted both their penalties and we’ll be playing Germany in the final tomorrow night.

I’ll definitely be watching that, any England vs. Germany final is worth watching. Theo Walcott will be playing centre forward as Agbonlahor and Campbell are suspended; ‘keeper Joe Hart will also miss out after picking up a yellow in the shoot-out. So hopefully Theo will score but to be honest he didn’t have a good game on Friday, he was sloppy and made some poor decisions. However with his pace he’s always a threat so hopefully he can up his technical side for the final.

Cesc Fabregas’ Spain won today in the 3rd/4th place play off against South Africa, however Cesc was an unused substitute the whole game. It was a dramatic end to the match, South Africa went 1-0 up in the 73rd minute but two goals from Guiza in the 88th and 89th minute put Spain 2-1 up right at the end. However South Africa made it three goals in three minutes scoring in the 90th minute to force extra time. Spain won in the second half of extra time thanks to Alonso.

The Confederations Cup Final is on in an hour, I’m gonna watch that and hopefully get a look at Melo and see if he’s actually any good. Thanks for reading.

At a time where misleading headlines rule the world/News Now, I have made an extra effort today to bring you an article that does exactly what it says on the tin. First, there some news from Andrey Arshavin and I guess it’s good news. He’s left his agent Dennis Lachter and will now represent himself:

“Recently I sent a formal letter to Dennis Lachter, which said that I do not want him to continue to represent me and that I will act on my own behalf.

‘This is no way associated with my Arsenal contract. On the contrary, I want to express my deep gratitude for Lachter’s help in moving to the English club.

But now I am having operational problems and Dennis, who has a newborn son, lives in Israel and cannot always be close to me, so it is easier to solve all these problems myself.”

I say this is good news because Dennis Lachter is a horrible football agent to deal with. After Euro 2008 he flirted outrageously to every top club in Europe to try get as much money for Arshavin and himself as possible. No one bought it and in the end he joined us for about half the price he wanted in the following transfer window.

I don’t know how it’s going to work now with Andrey representing himself but I’m sure it’ll work out for him. I’m glad because I’ve always been worried Lachter was going to start flirting with more top clubs sooner or later whilst Arshavin was still in contract with Arsenal; Almost immediately after sorting out the deal Lachter was already talking about possible moves in the future. Good riddance, Dennis.

Birmingham City are lining up a bid for Arsenal Legend Patrick Vieira. This comes after our ex-skipper saying he needs first team football ahead of next summer’s World Cup; it’ll be his last chance to compete in the competition and he wont get in the French squad just sitting on Inter Milan’s bench. He says he’s having a meeting with Mourinho to decide his future, if it’s not at Inter then he said he fancies a move to Ligue 1. PSG look the most likely to get PV4’s signature but Birmingham’s chairman David Gold has said they are going to give it a shot:

We have pulled rabbits out of the hat before and we want to do it again, but you can’t do these things unless you try. People would see Vieira as the second Dugarry if he came to Birmingham. Even now it’s not impossible but the odds aren’t good, we maybe only have a one in 10 chance.”

I doubt Paddy would want to join a club with such a low profile, as much as I bet he’d like to return to England I don’t see him playing in the Blue of Birmingham City. PSG, Lyon or Marseille would suit him much more and he’d still have a chance of first team football whilst playing for a top side. I’m interested to see where Vieira ends up so if there’s any more news on this I’ll bring you up to date.

And finally, U16’s and U18’s star Samir Carruthers has turned down a new contract with Arsenal and has chosen to move to Aston Villa. He has captained our U16 side on a few occasions and is a highly rated winger but he has chosen to move on. Villa’s academy director Bryan Jones said he chose to join then because of their excellent facilities and their record of giving youngsters a chance in the first team. Erm excuse me but aren’t Arsenal better known for both of those things? I would guess we would’ve wanted to keep him but there’s no official comment from the club on it. I dunno, maybe we thought he wasn’t going to make it as an Arsenal player. I hope he doesn’t go on to become a great player with Villa that we missed out on but I wish him luck in his career.

Right then that’s it for today. Satisfied with a non-misleading article? Tomorrow I’ll probably bring you news of ‘OMG ARSENAL STAR SET TO LEAVE AND BLASTS WENGER!!1′ when the story is actually Bischoff deciding to move on to a new challenge or something.

Thanks for reading.

The top news today is all Cesc Fabregas related. This after some fresh quotes that have appeared in The Sun (you can see where this is going already can’t you) saying he is angry with Arsenal and we are ‘impotent’. It’s all been mistranslated to make it seem like he wants away from Arsenal. He said he is angry in the same way that we are ‘angry’ at not winning any trophies. It doesn’t mean he’s in a strop or anything he just saying he wants us to win stuff. And with the impotence thing, another poorly mistranslated sentence.

It really pisses me off all this shit about Cesc leaving every summer. After going through it summer after summer with all our top players I have learned just to ignore it because it’s all bollocks anyway. These Fabregas to Spain stories have been cropping up this summer too but I have just chosen not to report most of them on here.

Every so often the captain has to come out and release an ‘official statement’ declaring he’s staying. This must get so repetitive and frustrating to do and is pisses me off equally as much as it must do to Cesc Fabregas.

It’s happened again this afternoon, that Sun story spread and now there’s an official statement on Arsenal.com from Cesc saying he’s staying. It’s got all the usual stuff we’ve seen time and time again but this time with a bit more emphasis:

“I’m not sure how many times I need to talk directly about my commitment to Arsenal as I continue to say the same thing over and over again, but it appears that every time I have spoken to the Spanish media recently, my words have bounced back to England, leaving question marks about my future.

So, for anyone who is unclear or may have misunderstood what my position is, let me make myself absolutely crystal clear. I am wholeheartedly committed to Arsenal and my future lies with this great Club.”

What that says to me is – Stop talking to the Spanish press then! That’s a bit harsh though, it’s the English press that pick up a bit of Spanish transcript and translate it whatever way they want. Not saying the papers in Spain are all good and innocent, they do try to get things to slip out. In another part of that interview The Sun picked up on they asked the question if Cesc’s family would support him if he wanted to move to Real Madrid. Cesc gave the usual stuff any son of a proud family would give about ‘my family will support any decision I make etc.’ So the papers have taken that and that means Cesc’s off to Real apparently.

He was in action last night with Spain as they got knocked out of the Confederations Cup by USA. It was a massive shock and Spain’s incredible winning streak has been broken by the complete underdogs. So Cesc is still out in South Africa at the moment, whether those quotes on Arsenal.com were done by Cesc on the other side of the world or they were ghost written I don’t know but the message is the same.

I need to change the subject now, it’s pissing me off. I’m just ranting, I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Hopefully that is that for one summer but would it surprise you that once this is forgotten about it all starts up again? I bet for players they must sometimes think ‘oh for fucks sake I bloody will move then so you just shut up.’

AC Milan have said they are looking for a striker but their main target is Dzeko, if they can’t get him then they’ll go for Adebayor. Haha, how does it feel to be 2nd best? Not so big now are you, maybe if you put some effort in you might be their no.1 target.

The Felipe Melo story has been cooled today, his spokesman has said how happy he is in Italy and has no desire to move. Doesn’t sound very good if we are actually interested in signing him.

I’m going to go now, writing this has somehow made me angry! The new away kit came out today, I was going to go down the shops and try it on but… I dunno, I didn’t. I think it’s alright but I know a lot of people hate it, I’ll have a look at some point this weekend.
Right then, I’m off to vent my rage somewhere. Thanks for reading.

Hello from very sunny Bournemouth, I’ve been down the beach today and it seemed like 30 degrees down there. Beautiful – doesn’t make you miss the city much. However while I was on the beach today I thinking how I can’t wait to be back watching Arsenal again. I’ll be there when we play Barnet in just over 3 weeks time and then again at the Emirates cup.

Arsene Wenger’s been speaking ahead of the new season on quite a few things so lets just get into it. He says he doesn’t want to lose many players this summer after what happened last year. He said losing Flamini and Hleb was too much and we had to rebuild. He’s not concentrating too much on just keeping the side together though, he wants to improve it too:

“I want to add to the squad and I have identified one or two targets. But identifying players and buying them are two different things.

Ideally I would like to bring everybody in before we start back in pre-season training in July. I don’t want to leave it until the end of August.”

However he doesn’t think the side needs rebuilding:

“We are at a stage were we need to convince people that this team does a lot of things right. It does not need to be transformed.

We don’t need that many players really, a defender (which we’ve got) a central midfielder and possibly another forward player if Adebayor leaves; more on him in a bit.

Arsene has also been thinking about a possible formation change. Next season we will have a lot of talent going forward – Rosicky, Arshavin, Walcott and Nasrito choose from. The boss thinks we might be able to pull off a 4-3-3 quite effectively:

“Next season we will play the formation and system that most suits the players and the balance of the team. That means it’s not rigid. It can evolve throughout the season, depending on circumstances and personnel.

If you play with Theo Walcott for example, you are more tempted to go for three midfielders because Theo is more of a forward than a midfielder in a 4-4-2.”

So don’t be surprised to see us shape up a bit differently next season. If we did go to a 4-3-3 then I guess we wouldn’t really need to add a quality central midfielder but it would be good to have one when we resort to 4-4-2.

He sounds positive about making a couple of signings but has cooled it down a bit reminding us we don’t have loads of money. He says we can’t afford to splash around £100m but we don’t necessarily need to. He believes in this side so much and every year they are improving so there’s no point in signing a £30m player if the next season one of our original players would’ve improved to the same standard. I’m still looking forward to a signing or two but I know that we don’t need very many.

Wenger’s also been talking about Nicklas Bendtner:

“When Nicklas is really switched on and focused, he is a handful for any defense in the world. He has shown that in the second part of the season. People forget how young he is, but I am sure he has won many people over in the second half of the season.”

He really did come on a lot in the second half of last season. He had a shit time at the start of the campaign then something just clicked in his head. Now he’s liked by a lot of the fans for his attitude and the effort he’s started to put in. He’s scoring too and if he can continue to improve next season I’m sure he’ll be awarded more performances.

Especially if Emmanuel Adebayor makes way and there’s some fresh news on that. His agent says he’s had contact with a ‘very important team’ but nothing from Chelsea, Man United or Italy:

“As of today, I have not even got evidence to speak of presumed interest from Chelsea and Manchester United. It’s a given fact that Carlo Ancelotti likes the player seeing that last year he tried to sign him for Milan, although Chelsea have not contacted us.

We have not received any calls, not from Milan or Ancelotti. Another team has contacted us, but I cannot say anything, it’s a very important team.

There has not been any meeting with Milan for Adebayor and lately I have not received a call on their behalf.

This doesn’t mean Ade is for sale to resolve Arsenal’s economic problems. I spoke with Arsene Wenger this morning and he told me nothing of the kind.”

Yeah, we know he’s not being sold for the money – it’s because he’s useless. I wonder who this ‘very important team’ is though. It’s not going to be another English club, I think he’s saying Inter and AC Milan haven’t contacted so it could be a Spanish club. I’m still not sure whether Ade is staying or not but to be honest I don’t really care. If he says then as long as he bucks his ideas up then I’m happy, if he goes then meh, whatever.

Right then I’m off to enjoy a bit more sun. Thanks for reading.

Just a few little stories to bring you up to date with today, so I’ll give you a few little thoughts on those. The time shortly after a signing is usually a quiet one so I must take whatever news there is and make the most out of it.

First up, Fiorentina’s Felipe Melo has spoken about Arsenal’s reported interest. News of this came up last week whilst I was away so this is the first time I have covered the story. It sounds exciting doesn’t it? Straight after buying an established centre back we’re linked with a Brazilian holding midfielder. He played 90 minutes in Brazil’s 3-0 victory over Italy but was outshone by a certain Gilberto Silva playing a similar role. Melo is 7 years younger than the Arsenal legend though and has plenty of time to fit into his mould.

Here’s what Melo said about Arsenal anyway:

“Obviously it is a good thing that great clubs are interested, as it shows that I worked well. But as I said, I have a good relationship with Fiorentina, with the directors and the fans.”

He hasn’t said anything right or anything wrong but more importantly he hasn’t denied or confirmed anything. Despite only seeing clips of him in action with Brazil I’d be quite excited if we did put a bid in for this guy. He was an important part of the Fiorentina side that finished 4th this season and was well known for his no-nonsense aggressive football. If anything more on this develops I’ll bring you up to date on it – however, last week Eboue’s agent said Fiorentina aren’t good enough for his client but I know I’d take some sort of a swap deal…

Abou Diaby has been hard at work this summer; instead of spending his spare time on holiday he’s been working with a personal trainer ahead of the new season. His trainer has been speaking to the French media saying Diaby wants to improve his physical power to be able to be stronger in the challenge. Obviously, this is positive news; Diaby is a player I wouldn’t normally associate with putting in extra effort so this is good. He has the stature to be just as strong as Vieira but at the final second he can be seen pulling out of challenges or giving up. If this training goes well for him we could have a much improved Diaby next season.

He did have that awful leg break up at Sunderland a couple of years ago so I guess you can’t blame him too much for pulling out of challenges but it’s not helping his football. There is another part of his game that he needs to work on and that’s his work rate. He has a lot of talent and from time to time he shows us but too often he is seen ambling around the field giving the impression that he doesn’t give two shits. This news of him putting in extra training suggests that he’s going to buck up his ideas next season. It might turn out to be very well timed too; last season his appearances were few and far between not to mention being all over the midfield whenever we had injuries. Clearly Wenger doesn’t know what to do with him and 08/09 could be his chance to prove his worth.

Andrei Arshavin has been talking to Radio Zenit in Russia about all things football and has revealed he might not retire at Arsenal. He played for Zenit for a long time and wanted to play abroad, but he says he wants to return to St Petersburg to finish off his career there:

“I played for Zenit for a long time and now I want to play abroad and then return to St Petersburg to finish off my career there,”

That’s fair enough. It reminds me of Thierry Henry’s situation who still says he wants to return to Arsenal one day. However I think now that Titi’s return will come after he has retired as some sort of coaching or ambassador role.

And finally, Nicklas Bendtner’s agent/father/fathent has been speaking about his son again and this time he says he’s staying at Arsenal. There’s been a bit of speculation about a possible move to Roma but the fathent says he was simply there on holiday. I believe him.

Ok that’s you up to date for today then. Thanks for reading.