Amaury Bischoff became Arsenal’s fourth Summer signing when he transfered from Bundesliga side, Werder Bremen. Wenger later admitted that signing him was a gamble because he has had two surgeries on his groin and he will have some major fitness issues seeing as he’s been out of action for so long. In fact, he’s only ever made one senior appearance for Werder Bremen and that was only for a few minutes against Celta Vigo in the UEFA Cup and this of course will make people even more skeptical about him. However, I told myself that I would trust Wenger on this one and I’m sure once Bischoff gets back to full fitness and when he gets a few games under his belt he will turn out to be another gem Wenger unearthed.
And speaking of Summer signings, since my old blog died we signed Frenchman Samir Nasri (finally) and the young Welsh international, Aaron Ramsey. Both are promising young players and you can probably expect Nasri to slot into the starting XI fairly quickly, especially when you consider that Rosicky will be sidelined due to injury for the start of the season and Hleb has left for Barcelona.
Which brings me nicely to the next subject I would like to discuss: Hleb. It’s old news but I just want to say my piece and be done with it. He turned out to be a cunt after all and after only 7 goals in 89 league appearances, I was glad to see the back of him. I mean, not only did he contribute next to nothing in terms of goals, he only made about 10 assists in his time at Arsenal. He can now enjoy getting paid well for sitting on the bench at Barcelona.
Moving on to more current matters and our preseason has been going very nicely indeed. We’ve managed to win all our preseason games fairly comfortably and although they don’t mean that much they do provide opportunities for some of the younger members of the squad. At 16, Jack Wilshire has been one of the most impressive players so far and I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if we saw him feature in a Carling Cup game or two. Carlos Vela and Niklas Bendtner, who has hit a fine bit of form, have also been very impressive.
In other news, David Bentley’s £17million pound transfer to Sp*rs means that we will pocket around £5million thanks to a useful little clause in his contract. Wenger believes that the squad has enough strikers and Cesc Fabregas has backed William Gallas to retain the captaincy but he also admitted that he would relish the opportunity to wear the armband.
The Emirates Cup kicks off this weekend and personally I can’t wait until we some competitive football again.
’til tomorrow.
