Good afternoon,

We are still some way off before our beloved Arsenal stroke the ball around the lush Emirates turf but we have been granted some good news. Some of our walking wounded are off the treatment table and are ready for selection. Laurent Koscielny, Johan Djourou and Sebastien Squillaci have almost ended the center back crisis that we had last week. Thomas Vermaelen is *fingers crossed* two weeks away from competitive action so let us all hope and pray that the dreaded setback doesn’t get wind of our excitement, and come along to stick its ugly oar in.

I suspect that the return of Squillaci and even Djourou will make some sneer, snarl and show plenty of disgruntlement but the more players we have fit and healthy the better it is for the squad. For a start, the return of Koscielny will mean a return in midfield for Alex Song and that is very important for the team. I would go as far as to say that Alex Song has been our best player up until now, almost in every part of the pitch and I just hope he can maintain that consistency.

I hope that Djourou’s lay off has given him time to clear his head and rebuild his confidence. By gee he needs it. About this time last season he was our best defender, he was the player that when he played, we didn’t lose. Football is a fickle game and a dip in form changes perception considerably. Only one player can swing that perception and that is Johan Djourou himself.

I worry that he will be Wenger’s chosen player to replace Bacary Sagna at right back. Playing a central defender who is out of sorts is bad enough without moving him to a position where he isn’t used to. I guess it will be between Djourou, Jenkinson and Coquelin who although has less experience at the top level than the Swiss, he probably has far more experience at right back or indeed on the right side of the pitch where he played for the most part on loan at Lorient. I guess it all depends on how ready Carl Jenkinson is. If Arsene has faith that the Gooner will turn it around quickly then he will be given that chance.

Gilles Grimandi has filled in some of the gaps about our summers work and some of what he says gives my blog yesterday a tad of credibility.

If you didn’t manage to read it then I was basically just saying that perhaps our new squad isn’t finalised and the rebuilding will be done over a few seasons rather than one. Have a gander at it, if you have the time.

Grimandi said:

“We have some quality and have to believe in our work. We were left with little time to act in the transfer window and we opted to pad out our squad in terms of numbers. There are no proven big stars currently on the market.”

Pad out our squad? Interesting choice of wording and I doubt that Arsene would have chosen to call some of his new players padders, not the best vote of confidence is it?

I assume that Benayoun, Park and perhaps even Arteta were padders. Short term fixes while the search for ‘super super quality’ in our price range continues.

I am going to toss away the calculator and put 2 and 2 together and see what I get. Daring I know.

Piecing the bits together, I am guessing that the summer went a little along these lines

1) Cesc & Nasri wanted to leave but Arsene hoped he could persuade them to stay

2) Arsene had a list of quality that he wanted to bring in which may have included Hazard, Gotze, Gourcuff, Benzema and Mata

3) The club did not want to shell out vast sums of cash before players departed or CL cash not guaranteed until qualification was assured.

4) A visibly frustrated Wenger snapped that we were not buying Mata and didn’t have to explain himself as Chelsea pounced before we should ship players out

5) Barcelona and Man City gave Arsenal a taste of our own medicine and strung this out until the very end

6) After CL qualification and Cesc, Nasri departures it was too late to bring in Wenger’s targets because either their clubs could not bring in replacements or they just did not want to sell.

So that would explain the loan deal for Benayoun, something that Arsene rarely does. If he wants a player then he wants a committed player, one that has a long term future at the club, Instead we have a loanee and a player who has to return to Korea in two years. This tells me that our rebuilding job is far from finished.

Grimandi also went on to say:

“Besides, we are not competing on a level playing field with Manchester City and Chelsea. Our means are limited by comparison and our pay structure prevents us going crazy when we sign players.

“The fans want us to bring in star names, but they don’t all grasp our economic limitations.

Which is something else I touched on recently. It is all well and good screaming that time should be up on our manager but without finding a manager who can stretch our pound as far then we are only going to drop further behind. Arsene Wenger has been able to cling onto coat tails on far less resources due to the club’s model and that needs to be taken into account when supporters dream of wielding the axe over the head of our greatest ever manager.

Dennis Bergkamp has been talking to Martin Keown and you know what you have to do when Dennis talks? You listen. When Ian Wright or Paul Merson talk, you turn over as quickly as humanly possible or risk your ears being infected with cliche ridden diatribe but when Dennis Bergkamp talks, everything must stop and you have to give him 100% of your attention. What a player, what a man, what a legend.

Anyway Bergkamp spoke about a few things regarding our current situation. Firstly that Robin van Persie should be playing in the position that is printed on his back. He should have another forward making runs ahead of him and in many ways I agree with the legend.

That said, the 4-2-3-1 should be fluid enough and flexible enough for that to be the case. The trouble is, we are not using it to the full right now, plenty of new players and lack of confidence plays a massive part in that.

Look at the despicable yet outrageously gifted lot at Barcelona and you will not find anyone suggesting that Lionel Messi shouldn’t be playing as a lone forward, that he should have a striker ahead of him because he drops into that number 10 role and is replaced by wide forwards who repeatedly and rotationally make runs ahead of him over the course of 90 minutes. This does not always seem to be the case at Arsenal, hence the amount of times van Persie appears isolated.

I cannot envisage or imagine van Persie adapting to the number 10 role in our 4-2-3-1 system. I just could not see that working for a number of reasons. Mobility, engine, stature and many others. I cannot see anyone getting the best out of van Persie if he has to play in large sections of the pitch. He needs to be playing around the penalty box and no further or he would more than likely be wasted.

Dennis also said that he would have done all possible to have brought Patrick Vieira back to Arsenal to supplement the coaching staff and I would have to agree. A former Arsenal captain who has the stature, leadership and motivational skills that could have done wonders to this young Arsenal squad. When you are going through a funk, he is the type of person you want pulling you aside in training and having a quiet word in your ear. Wenger had his reasons for not bringing him home and we don’t know what those reasons were but on the outside, I would have loved to have had a PV training shirt over another fantastic legend.

We are continuing the retro feel with former left footed midfielder Edu who has bigged up new left back Andre Santos.

Edu said:

“He is a very good player and a very good guy, With the ball he is technically fantastic, a typical Brazilian player.

“But every Brazilian needs time to adapt to the league because the English league is so different. I am 100 per cent sure that the fans will love him because he is very good with the ball.”

Edu himself took sometime to settle in and then get games but once he did, he showed how classy he was. I really liked Edu and felt that we never really got everything out of that guy. Hopefully we can get just that with Santos.

It is almost a race to get settled in vs a race to stay fit, whoever gets there first between Gibbs and Santos will win the battle.

Right, time to go.

Back tomorrow