Without knowing anything about the player, he looks the kind of player that we need in our squad. Experienced, has played for his country at the world cup and will provide the other players good competition

I have recently got into the whole Twitter thing, it is a great way to catch up on all of the Arsenal gossip. I don’t always have the time to join in the banter as much as I would like but I do try and flick through as often as I can.

Rumours are usually flying around from Gooners, from Schwarzer set to sign after passing a medical to Kompany being in talks with Arsenal. This time the Sebastien Squillaci rumours seem to have some weight behind it. The Italian sounding Frenchman who is plying his trade in Spain for Sevilla was not involved in their 1-0 defeat against Braga last night to prevent him from being cup-tied in the Champions league.

According to the Sevilla sporting director Ramon Rodriguez, both clubs are still not close enough on the valuation on the player which is common enough. Especially as the player is 30 years of age and I assume Sevilla do not want to lose the player. As this is now in public I am guessing that things will move quickly. Arsenal are likely to stick to a limit and it will be down to Sevilla to come down to that limit otherwise Arsene and Gazidis will switch targets.

From what I have seen from Koscielny I would expect him to remain as first choice and it will be down to whichever player comes in to fight for his place to get ahead of Koscielny and Vermaelen. That is only my opinon not any sort of fact but if Koscielny can start as he has then you can only imagine his level of performance increasing and that is an exciting prospect.

Needless to say the quicker we can bring someone in the better it will be for the squad. Having said that everything is fine as long as our current three central defenders stay clear of injury. Djourou should come back into the team against Blackpool which is good for him, he deserves his chance but we will not have much room for manoeuvre if multiple injury start to attack our back line.

While one player could well be joining the club another looks certain to leave. Armand Traore looks like leaving Arsenal to join Benfica for just over £3 million. His path to the first team looks blocked by Gael Clichy and the emerging talent of Kieran Gibbs although he is capable of playing further forward it would be unlikely that Traore could push out the wealth of attacking talent we have at the club.

Traore does seem pretty much stuck in the middle at Arsenal. Not good enough defensively to be a top left back and not enough end product in the final third for Arsenal, this is not to say that he will not develop into a top player elsewhere. His pace and power along with his excellent crossing could be very useful in the years to come. I remember first watching a 16 year old Traore at Dennis Bergkamp’s testimonial and he looked very impressive. I guess it shows that first impressions are certainly not final whether that be to hype up a player or to write him off as not good enough. Alex Song can tell many a story or two about that tale.

Another Arsenal youngster who is close to an exit away from Arsenal is Jay Simpson, apparently Hull City are waiting to offload some of their players before announcing the signing. More and more books have to be balanced before deals can be done. I wish Jay well, a gutsy Gooner who is full of running and hard work but perhaps lacks the technical ability to be a regular member of future Arsenal squads, especially with the likes of Carlos Vela around fighting for a place.

I have just heard that Emmanuel Frimpong will be out injured for the season following a cruciate ligament. It would be a massive shame for the lad who has leapt into Arsene’s plans after some quality pre season performances. He will be throwing something at the television during the first game in the Carling cup as that would surely have been his platform to show his funky Frimpongy stuff. It does give others like Craig Eastmond to reclaim the title as the most progressive youth holding midfielder, but it would be a shame for it to have happened in this way.

I am very much looking forward to the Carling Cup this year, competition for that erm.. competition looks incredibly fierce. Hopefully the fact that many will already be in the first team squad will give them that extra incentive to show Arsene what they can do. Wilshere, Eastmond, Emmanuel-Thomas. Nordtveit, Gibbs, Vela and plenty others will want to leave their mark along with any of the first team players who may be included to add a strong spine to the side.

Hopefully the first few games can be at the Emirates so they can play their football. Last seasons victory against Liverpool was one of the highlights and hopefully we can see a few more of those games.

That is just about that for now,

Back tomorrow.

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