Wenger may want a box to box midfielder who has drive. A player who puts his foot in as well as hits low drives from outside the penalty area

The 2009/2010 pre season has flew by, the fans have hardly had much time to talk about the mix matched pre season run outs from the squad players. Senior players such as William Gallas through to up and coming talent such as Jack Wilshere. Wenger has been able to keep his cards fairly close to his chest in recent weeks by splitting up what most guess will be his strongest team. An area that supporters have been calling for is the central midfield position.

With the sale of Emmanuel Adebayor, Arsene has been able and willing to tamper with his troops and set them out in a new fluid way. I say new, but of course we have been playing the 4-2-3-1 formation during much of last season, it appears to be a slightly tinkered version of that with more support being offered to the player in the central role.

The three floating attacking players have meant that the three players behind them will have slightly adjusted roles to that of the 4-4-2. With Cesc Fabregas in the middle of those two other midfielders, Wenger will be looking for power and dynamism. Step forward Abou Diaby.

Arsene Wenger hasn’t paired Cesc and Diaby together in central midfield many times in their many years at the club but this could well be possible with another more defensive minded player tucked in alongside them.

Alex Song is a player who has power and height, while Denilson is the reader, the game dictator as Gilberto was before him. While Cesc is attempting to pull strings in forward positions Wenger may want a box to box midfielder who has drive. A player who puts his foot in as well as hits low drives from outside the penalty area.

Many people will bemoan his lack of consistency or his tendency to give the ball away by ‘doing too much’ and yes this has been something that the player will have to work on but I am a firm believer that if given an extended run in the side, a chance to iron out the negatives then he will come good.

I can think of many players who have needed games, experience and development to get the best out of them. The Dennis Bergkamp who arrived in 1995 was not the same player who showed his ability in 1998. Alex Hleb in his first season kept running into players and not finding his man soon enough, Robert Pires was half the player in his first season. You can point out that Diaby is not in his first season, he has been at the club since January 2006 but the problem is the same, he has not had a run to get over his bad points, to improve on what has gone wrong.

Abou Diaby’s only obstacles are injuries, and I am not saying that lightly. If it wasn’t for Dan Smith and many following niggles perhaps he would have established himself as one of the best in Europe, we shall never know.

With height, strength, goals and high technical skill on his side, perhaps it is time for Diaby to show that he can step up and find the consistency to stay in that Arsenal midfield and help win some silverware this season.