Rosicky is a classy individual who looks in good shape right now. His haircut has given him a new aerodynamisism (real word??) which prevents any type of injury

Today is mostly a transfer speculation type of day, nothing concrete happening as the team and manager are working hard out in Austria in order to reach peak fitness. As the wheels of the transfer window have already slowly started to turn we will read and hear more and more news about player x moving to club y.

Arsene Wenger has been slowly working on the squad since the end of last season. Chamakh has replaced the departed Eduardo, whilst Koscielny has so far replaced William Gallas or Mikel Silvestre depending on his ranking from the manager. The rumour doing the rounds at the moment is that Sol Campbell will come back from his honey moon and resign with Arsenal. We shall see how much truth is in that but I certainly would welcome Campbell back at the club. Even if he does not manage to rack up a high number of games, his presence and experience in training and the dressing room will be very important. From the outside we witnessed how much of a positive effect Sol Campbell was and that can only help the likes of Johan Djourou, Tomas Vermaelen and Laurent Koscielny not to mention whichever youngsters will be taking the step up to the first team squad.

It will be interesting to see if another center back comes into the club. Four main center backs seems to be the required amount for most clubs in the Premier League but most clubs have a normal injury record. The question is how do you prepare your squads when injuries have been such a problem for us in the last couple of years. It would be madness to buy an extra two players for every position just incase we suffer in that area. We were never short of right backs last season but if Wenger went and bought another one or two right backs as cover then what would happen to those players? At the same time we have to be aware that injuries in certain areas derailed our season last year and we finished the season with an outrageous amount of players being unavailable.

The good news is that we have a good handful of youngsters who are getting closer and hopefully some are already ready for the first team which in turn makes our squad bigger for the new season. Jack Wilshere, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Kieran Gibbs and Craig Eastmond are ready to get games from the bench or selected games whilst the likes of Havard Nordtveit could be vital with his versatility. A natural center half who played as a defensive midfielder last season has impressed at right back thus far during the pre season.

It remains to be seen how these players will do against tougher opposition, especially the defensive players. Wenger will be looking at those players in training and in pre season before making his decision to go after the next player on his watch list.

Much has been made of Manuel Almunia missing the first two pre season games and I wouldn’t necessarily look too much into that. We all know what Manuel Almunia can do and what he cannot do. Arsene could well be using this time to see what his younger goalkeepers can do and how they work alongside the defenders. This is not to say that Almunia will start the season at Arsenal, there is a chance that he may be let go to find another club after a stop start, inconsistent last season.

That said I would not feel 100% comfortable with Lukasz Fabianski in between the sticks as our number 1 goalkeeper. The last two seasons have told us that he was not ready, unless massive amounts of improvement has been made in only a few short months then I cannot envisage him being top of the tree. The Mark Schwarzer rumour hasn’t disappeared and Wenger has had the chance to bat it out of the court but has chosen not to do so. If our interest is real then I am sure we are waiting for Fulham to appoint a manager before a deal can be concluded.

If I woke up as Arsenal manager then I would buy a number 1 keeper, I don’t know who, I’d just ask my goalkeeping coach to do that job as my football manager skills do not stretch as far as goalkeepers. Then I would hope that Almunia stays to battle with said keeper for the number 1 spot, starting the season on the bench. Lukasz Fabianski would go on a season long loan to get regular football and regain his confidence whilst Chesney Hawkes goes on a six month loan hopefully back in time to be our Carling Cup and FA Cup keeper.

God, this is so simple sitting in the comfort of my armchair.

The rumours continue to circulate as Tomas Rosicky is the next target out of the club. Apparently some German clubs are looking at him. Personally I would tell those clubs to get stuffed or to go and take a look at Steven Gerrard or something. Rosicky is a classy individual who looks in good shape right now. His haircut has given him a new aerodynamisism (real word??) which prevents any type of injury.

Ok, perhaps I made that bit up but I certainly would like to see him given another chance again. I do not like when people write off players with obvious talent because of a drop of form at a certain point. It doesn’t mean that the player is past it or finished or no longer cares, it means that the player has lost form. I don’t expect Manchester United to sell Rooney for £7.5 million because of a drop of form at the world cup.

The likes of Rosicky, Diaby, Nasri etc who lost form last season can and most probably will bounce back to show their best form.

I have cringed in the past when the likes of Andrey Arshavin and William Gallas have spoken to the media, but I every time Tomas Vermaelen has something to say I usually end the article with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

The Verminator believes that we can be in the title fight again this season.

Vermaelen said:

“We have a good young group who are very aggressive and want to improve. I think people will always say we can’t compete — it is not the first time.

“But we have to do what we always do which is work hard and play our own game. Then we can compete — I hope we can compete for the title this year and I’m convinced we will.”

That’s it Tommy! you say it as it is. Are you gonna stand there and disagree with Tommy V? I certainly am not going to.

Hopefully our back four and keeper (whoever he may be) can gel quickly and remain fit together for most of the season.

David Villa is the latest in Barcelona players to come out and have something to say about Cesc Fabregas. I have said before that this is a Barcelona free zone but I have seen terrible things happen when this whole Cesc situation is spoken about too often. So it is my duty to warn you of the dangers.

I created the animation a few years ago but I changed the audio this time round. It is a bit of fun so if you are offended then don’t be. As advice goes, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Before I go I would like to take off my virtual hat to Thierry Henry who scored his first goal for the New York Red Bulls against the Scum. He was taken off at half time with his new team winning 1-0 (I think) had he remained on the pitch then they would have won, instead the scummers fluked a 2-1 victory. Oh how I hope they lose their qualifiers. Please footballing gods, make me happy.

Back tomorrow.

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