Tonight there are more murmurings that he is flying in for a medical blah blah, whatever Trevor. Just let me know when it is signed or the deal off. As much I would like him at Arsenal, I am getting a little fed up with this now

Slightly later than usual blog today, so apologies for that. The Arshavin story has taken its usual daily twist. I started writing this piece this morning with the intension of putting something up at the normal time of 1pm then my day went horribly wrong and I had to abandon it until later. Anyway, I started writing this..

Me quoting myself, weird!

….This time it is about his work permit and quite unusually it has been granted. The way it has been going it should have been denied with Arsenal taking on drastic measures to get it through on time….

Not long after I wrote that Arsene came out and rubbished the work permit situation.

“No, and we have not applied for a work permit yet for Arshavin or anybody else.

Yet? Interesting. Arsene has however said that he wants to Arshavin deal sorted out before the West Ham game, I don’t know if he has anyone else in mind if it does go wrong but I guess the feeling that he doesn’t. He has churned out the ‘I will only by super class players’ in the last few January and Summer windows and as far as I know, these super class players do not grow on trees especially for a ‘reasonable’ price, although I am not sure if £15 million is a reasonable price in this financial climate.

Tonight there are more murmurings that he is flying in for a medical blah blah, whatever Trevor. Just let me know when it is signed or the deal off. As much I would like him at Arsenal, I am getting a little fed up with this now. But what it is good for is when you cannot sleep at night and you have run out of warm milk just flick onto newsnow and read through a few websites about Arshavin and that does the trick.

Our priority right now should be getting ourselves back in the top four where we Song Belong. But although important it is not imperative that we do, at least that is according to our Chairman Peter Hill-Woody Woody (without the y Woody)

Woody said:

“There is no denying that it would be a real financial drain on the club if we didn’t qualify for the Champions League next season. Even if we were in the UEFA Cup and enjoyed a long run in Europe, that would not come close to making up the shortfall. But although missing out on the Champions League for one year would be a big disappointment, it would not mean financial Armageddon for Arsenal.

“When we worked out the budget, and did our fund-raising calculations in respect of the new stadium, we did not assume we were going to be in the Champions League every season. That may be an assumption at other clubs, and it’s not for me to comment on the way they are run, but we did not want to get out of our depth in terms of paying our bills.

“So although it would certainly hurt us in the pocket to finish outside the top four, it would not be a huge shock to the club’s finances.”

You can be sure that if we finish outside the Champs league places then we will be rather conservative in our spending on players, even for our standards. We might even see some making way to make up the difference in revenue lost.

But hey, I do not want to go there because it is not going to happen anyway. Either Villa or Liverpool will lose out and it is a shame for either of them.

Liverpool appear to be doing an us (does that even sound right?) and cocking up when it matters, the difference is they haven’t got a shed load of injuries stacked up like we did at the important stage of the season last year.

I heard recently that we are 66/1 to win the league and Aston Villa are half that at 33/1. Whether we can win the league or not I think that is madness, and I should really nip out before the Hammers game and put my money where my mouthfinger is. Especially considering we have players coming back and a decent run of fixtures ahead of us until the home straight. Infact I am going to do that after I write this. If we win it then I will share it with you.

According to the press we have turned down a £12 million bid for Kolo Toure, it will be interesting to see what Arsene and the board do if that is upped to £15-18 million. It will leave us short in the defensive position of course but Song could cover that position if need be. I am not suggesting that we let him go I just wonder what will be too much to turn down for a player who finds himself as second choice at the moment, at least for now.

There were a few other things that I wanted to talk about but responsibilities are calling me. James Poplett’s and my own preview tomorrow.

Remember, supporting Arsenal is for life and not just for Christmas! what?? I don’t really know either.

Good evening to you all.