Squad Announced + More Injuries

The squad was announced for the game against FC Twente tomorrow night and with it came the news that Kolo Toure and Cesc Fabregas are injured. According to Wenger, Toure has a hip muscle problem and Fabregas has a hamstring problem. The young Spaniard also looks likely to miss the game against West Brom on Saturday too. This is frustrating news to say the last. This leaves us with one ‘experienced’ central midfielder in Denilson and although we should still have enough quality to beat Twente, I’ve a funny feeling the game might have got a bit more difficult.

Robin van Persie has been speaking about how it’s important for a club like Arsenal to play in the Champions League and he’s labelled Twente the Dutch equivelant of Sp*rs.

19 year old midfielder, Vincent van den Berg has joined side Dutch side FC Zwolle on loan.

In transfer news, we’ve been linked with Ghana midfielder, Anthony Annan.

More tomorrow.

Slowly, Slowly for Rosicky

Tomas Rosicky, who will miss the start of the season due to the fact he’s still recovering from the surgery he had in May, has said that he will not be rushing back to first team action and will only begin to play again when he feels he is ready. Rosicky is one of my favorite players at Arsenal and although I would like to see him back playing sooner rather than later rushing his recovery would be a huge mistake.

Abou Diaby is likely to be out for about a month after picking up a thigh injury. This means that Denilson, who had an impressive preseason will more than likely partner Fabregas in the centre of the park for the beginning of the season and I wouldn’t be that surprised if he remained Cesc’s partner for the rest of the season. Samir Nasri also picked up a light knock but it’s not thought to be serious.

Looking ahead to the Champions League qualifier against FC Twente on Wednesday night and Cesc Fabregas may play but seeing as he’s only participated in 84 minutes of preseason football it’s unlikely that he will be at his very best.

And that’s pretty much all that’s been happening today. Things should get a little more exciting tomorrow.

Amsterdam Tournament Winners

Arsenal were crowned Amsterdam Tournament champions yesterday after a 1-1 draw with a strong Seville side. And with came the end of the preseason preparations and the beginning of the new season for real. How bloody exciting is it? It’s FC Twente on Wednesday and I am expecting a convincing victory. There can be no room for mistakes because if we do slip up and miss out on Champions League football then that will really mess up the club financially speaking.

Transfer news first and there was rumours going around that Arsenal had agreed a fee of around £3million with Middlesbrough for Justin Hoyte. However, Wenger said yesterday that there were no official bids for Hoyte but there is a little bit of interest from one or two clubs.

Arsene Wenger has also said that he is too busy to look for a new midfielder at the moment. That is understandable seeing as we play FC Twente on Wednesday and then newly promoted West Brom on Saturday. However, I seriously hope Wenger brings in another central midfielder and another centre half wouldn’t be too bad either. And speaking of signing a new central midfielder, we’ve been linked with Swiss international Gokhan Inler. I don’t know much about him seeing as I didn’t watch much of the Switzerland games during Euro 2008.

Moving on, and now I’d like to talk about one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever heard come from Wenger’s mouth.

“We missed Nasri tonight who has a little knock. We missed Diaby and we missed Song who’s at the Olympics. I don’t know if our midfield tonight was ideal but it’s certainly not far from the midfield we’ll play on Wednesday night.

“I’m not concerned about that. But I would have been very concerned tonight if we had one or two injuries in midfield. We can’t afford that at the moment with Nasri and Diaby out. It’s very positive for us that we have no injuries tonight.”

So, first of all, he didn’t know whether or not his midfield was ideal last night and, secondly, regardless of how the players played together he’s going to stick with that same midfield throughout the season? That’s absolute bollocks.

Thirdly, why can’t we afford any injuries in the midfield? Because we don’t have enough bloody players that’s why, Arsene. If he was really concerned about some of his midfield players picking up injuries (and they will throughout the season) then he would bring a few more ‘bodies’ in! Is Wenger just going to turn his head the other way and hope to go a whole season without injuries? That’s what it looks like to me anyway. Wenger knows - well to be honest it seems like he doesn’t have a clue what to do at the moment.

More tomorrow.

Happy Wenger + William Gallas

So, the biggest piece of news coming from the Arsenal camp today is that Arsené Wenger is happy Ronaldo is staying a Manchester United. Basically it’s just a load of power to the clubs and all that. But Ronaldo really is a right cunt. Can you imagine if Fabregas wanted to leave for Madrid even though we had just won the Premier League and the Champions League? Anyway, we don’t have to worry about Ronaldo for a while seeing as he’ll be out for a couple of months because of the surgery he had on his ankle.

Moving on to more Arsenal related news and Arsene Wenger has explained why William Gallas will be captain next season. He made a lot of mistakes last season but he has held his hand up and admitted to them and he’s promised to improve himself as a captain and player. He’s the most experienced player in the squad and personally I think he is probably the most logical option for the captaincy.

Wenger believes that the pain of being so close to winning the league and just falling short at the last hurdle will spur his team on this season.

Not much else going on really. Amsterdam tournament kicks off tonight and that will be the final part of our preseason preparatons. Shouldn’t be interesting to see how the team does.

Cana Linked + Wenger Wants Double

Arsene Wenger revealed yesterday that Arsenal will be focused on winning the Premier League and the Champions League in the forthcoming season. No real surprise there. Winning the FA Cup is always nice but it’s nothing really compared to the Premier League or the Champions League. And we will still be fielding our youngsters in the Carling Cup. Wenger is also adamant that Arsenal’s seemingly lack of experience will hold them back again this season. Although we do have a relatively young squad, they are hardly inexperienced. Most of the starting XI have made more than 100 league appearances so inexperience defenitely shouldn’t be a problem.

Arsenal played a preseason friendly against Huddersfield last night to commemorate the great Herbert Chapman. We travelled up with a very young squad and despite a poor first half performance and going 1-0 down we eventually ran out 2-1 winners. You can read an extensive match report over at the Young Guns blog.

It looks as though Justin Hoyte doesn’t want to leave Arsenal but rather raise his game to the same level as Bacary Sagna. Frankly, Sagna is miles ahead of him at the moment but you have to admire Hoyte’s determination to improve. Fair play to him, I say.

In transfer news, we’ve been linked with Marseille midfielder and captain, Lorik Cana. From what I’ve heard he’s a bit of a Flamini type and at £6million he may be worth a punt. Judging from the quotes in that article he is frustrated with the lack of trophies at Marseille so a move to Arsenal might not be his cup of tea.

In other news, Theo Walcott reveals that the number 14 was actually his second choice and Robin van Persie says that he wants to extend his contract with Arsenal. If he gets a decent number of games under his belt over the next few weeks then a contract exension will mean that he will be able to focus on staying fit and playing well for Arsenal in the future.

That’s all for today.