Three of Arsene Wenger’s incoming players last season were purchased from Ligue 1 in France, a league full of talented players but who play at a far less physical and fast league. Two key injuries to our spinal players Robin Van Persie and Thomas Vermaelen meant that Laurent Koscielny and Marouane

A start to the new week is here, an exciting week ahead of more transfer rumours linking the same names to Arsenal over and over again. I am so excited about talking about these same names, so much so that my excitement has prevented me from talking about them. Again.

I would however like to talk about the players we already have at the club, please excuse me if I have already mentioned this point last season but it is certainly worth noting that many of our established first team players had completed their first full season at Arsenal.

Three of Arsene Wenger’s incoming players last season were purchased from Ligue 1 in France, a league full of talented players but who play at a far less physical and fast league. Two key injuries to our spinal players Robin Van Persie and Thomas Vermaelen meant that Laurent Koscielny and Marouane Chamakh were plonked pretty much in the deep end and they had to swim from the off.

While Koscielny flapped and spluttered for a few weeks, Chamakh was performing breast stroke of the highest order. So much so that a majority of Arsenal fans were talking about how to accommodate Van Persie with the Moroccan forward and not when will he be replaced.

Chamakh’s unselfish work was refreshing, combining great link play with his team mates with consistent hard work in chasing every lost cause. Meanwhile Laurent Koscielny was slowly beginning to cut out his errors and stamp his authority on games. Koscielny and Johan Djourou were starting to develop a very strong partnership at the heart of the Arsenal defence. While Sky Sports are quick to point out the overly high number of goals conceded from set pieces, it is often difficult to acknowledge or credit the central defence for having the best defensive record in play and that is largely down to the qualities of Koscielny who is known as being one of the better one on one defenders around.

Koscielny had improved so much so that he is able to flip open a portfolio of top forwards that he was able to contain. Carlos Tevez 32, Chicharito 14 and of course Messi 10 could be hung on his living room wall with pride. All those forwards struggled to get the better of the Premier League rookie.

While Koscielny was finding his feet, Chamakh had lost not only his form but his place to the best striker in world football, not that Chamakh knew that at the time but I am not totally convinced that tiredness was his only problem during that period, whatever his problems were I hope that he is back to normal come the new season.

All in all they both had good debut seasons, in what is often referred to as the most difficult league in the world and that surely bodes well for the future. I have lost count of the amount of talented players who have been written off after half to a full season of football.

In recent history the likes of Robert Pires, Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Alex Hleb are just a handful of examples of players who came from another league into the rough and tumble of the Premier League. The league is too physical for them, they cannot handle the pace of the game we were told, but once they managed to adjust their talents to the league and they understood the roles that Arsene had designed for them then they were able to improve and develop into better players than they were at their previous clubs.

I am looking forward to seeing progression from both players come the new season should they get enough games to display the potential improvements.

It is slightly different for Johan Djourou, Jack Wilshere and Wojciech Szczesny. All three having had experience in the English game at different levels but all having experience of being a regular starter for Arsenal, all still learning and developing their game, especially Wilshere and Szczesny who came from the reserves into top level football in a short space of time.

All should continue to improve what needs improving and all should improve what they are already good at. It is the beauty of having so many young players in a squad, the upwards progression curve should mostly be just that although those who do not manage to get regular playing time are also likely to stagnate as is the case with Denilson and perhaps even Nicklas Bendtner, so moving onto a new club is not only good for Arsenal in regards to squad spaces and transfer budget increases but it is vital to the individual’s career as they need to play games to improve.

While many Gooners may look enviously at the riches of Chelsea, it becomes clear that major investment in experience players only is not sustainable for a club like Arsenal who do not have a rich sugar daddy to flip out his collection of credit cards and replace half a team who are clearly on the way down with new experienced players at £30m a pop.

Chelsea paid £70m on two players last January to replace Drogba and Carvalho’s vacancy in the squad. With the financial fair play rules supposedly coming into play over the next few years, I wonder how they are going to replace Lampard, Anelka, Cole, Terry and company. That is not of my concern but the point is that the stream of young talented players into our squad means that the need to buy a whole new team when they come to the end of their careers is unlikely. Alex Ferguson to his credit has managed to balance this out pretty well over the years but at the same time unlike Arsene, he was not forced into making massive cuts during a stadium move.

What was my original point again? Ah yeah, improvements.

We also have Aaron Ramsey to look forward to. We only saw glimpses of his undoubted talent during the end of season run in, a good pre season is what he needs and hopefully we can see the Ramsey who swerves past Portsmouth defenders before smashing the ball with his left foot past the keeper. What a great goal that was.

So even without new signings I expect our squad to be stronger this year than last season. As long as we keep our key performers that is. With additional quality added to the squad then I see no reason why we cannot be successful in season 2011/12.

Hopefully we will have to some real news to talk about in the next coming days.

Back tomorrow.