Arsenal Linked With Matuidi, Madrid Want Alonso

Hello everyone. Not a lot happening in the world of Arsenal today but I'm posting anyway. I'm pretty much starving by the way, but that does tend to happen at lunch time. I'll probably make some coffee and have a microwave pizza, because that's clearly a good combo.

First off today is Arsenal have been linked with St. Etienne midfielder Blaise Matuidi. He's 22, plays as a DM, and really wants to join Arsenal.

“I asked myself questions at the end of August after Arsenal showed their interest. An opportunity to join them is not something ordinary. It gives you great self-esteem, it is Arsenal."

I tell you, it is REALLY hard to find any videos or anything on this guy, but I did find this one of a really nice goal he scored this season. If anyone knows more about him, feel free to fill us all in.

If Xabi Alonso is really a target again this summer for Arsene Wenger, then the competition for his signature just got a lot tougher. Real Madrid are interested in signing him, and since they'll pay just about anything to get the players they want, it could price us out of the picture. I've given you my views on this subject. Xabi Alonso is a good player, one who I would certainly like to have at Arsenal, but I'd rather have someone who will knock some dudes out. The only dude I remember seeing Xabi Alonso knock out is...well, Cesc...last season. Not nice. Still, if that's the way Arsene wants to go with it I'll be quite happy to have him because he really is an excellent passer with mounds of Premier League experience.

Kolo Toure has called for the squad to stay together this summer, and says it is the key to really improving.

"I think keeping the team together is the most important thing. When you stay with your team-mate for three or four years you start to learn how he plays. That helps you for the games and I think we have been together for a while now. It's important for our improvement next season. Sometimes when you bring somebody else, these players have to settle and that can take a year sometimes. The Premier League is already difficult so if you play six months badly it's difficult to come back."

That's a really long quote but it all needed to be shown. While I agree in principle with Kolo on this, and would like to keep most of the squad together, there is no doubt in my mind that we need additions to it like Andrey Arshavin was last year. The impact he made was unquestionable, and it didn't take him six months to adjust to the league. So yes, keep the squad together, but add to it as well. Depth never hurts any team.

And last but not least today, good ol' Jens Lehmann is getting set to make his film debut. He's apparently going to play a talent scout in the movie Themba, which is a pretty weird title to me but fair play to Jens.

So yeah, that's about it. Join the forums and start talking, because it makes the world a better place. Follow me on Twitter too. Man's game. Cheers.

Arsenal Fans Let Their Voices Be Heard

Morning all. What's crackin? Not a whole lot of news to go over today regarding Arsenal, except that Gareth Barry reportedly really wants to come to Arsenal. So nothing we haven't heard before. Would you rather have Gareth Barry or Xabi Alonso? That's a tough question. I'd certainly take either but I do wonder who most of you would take if you could pick one.

So yesterday I asked you all to fill out a survey about the 08/09 season for Arsenal, and the responses were really interesting to me. So today I think I'll just go over the survey results and talk about what they mean for Arsenal.

The first question was simply, how do you feel about the season as a whole, and 40.9% of responders said they were disappointed, probably online betting people. 27% said it was acceptable, while 18% said it was neither acceptable nor disappointing. So very few people were REALLY happy with this season and not many were VERY disheartened either. I'd say that's probably a pretty accurate reflection of all of the Arsenal fan base. While there were some positives, like reaching the semi-final of the Champions League and the FA Cup, winning zero trophies yet again makes it disappointing for me.

The next question was about the player of the season, and this one really surprised me! With 31.8% of the vote, Robin van Persie was selected as Arsenal's player of the season over Andrey Arshavin and Manuel Almunia, who placed second and third. I may get bashed for this one but I think Robin van Persie gets a lot more credit than he deserves. He's a great player no doubt but if you're never fit than how useful are you really? He did a better job of staying healthy this year but if I'm asked for my personal player of the season I'm taking Almunia or Alex Song, who I thought really made a breakthrough.

A whopping 95.5% of responders said that Arsenal need to strengthen the squad before next season, so no debate there really.

50% of fans said we weren't too far off from Champions Manchester United, while 40% said there is a noticeable gap between us and the league winners. I think when you look at the squads as a whole, the gap is possibly wider than it appears. When you look at our bench on most league games, you see players like Eboue, Diaby, etc while on United's you see Tevez, Berbatov, Giggs, Nani, and others that I think are better players. Our first eleven can play with anybody, but I think we lose out in squad depth.

For the question asking which position needed strengthening the most, unsurprisingly the top answers were center back and defensive midfield. I think everyone agrees with that. Even with Song's emmergence, we could still use an experienced player like we got with Arshavin that could really lock down our midfield.

82% of fans say that Cesc Fabregas is our most important player, and he damn well is. He's our Xavi and Iniesta all rolled into one, and when he's gone our team isn't half as good as it is with him.

A really interesting one asked if it was more important to play beautiful football or to win trophies, and amazingly, the vote was split 50-50. I have a follow up question for those of you who said beatiful football is more important. Are you saying that you would rather Arsenal always be able to play good football and not ever win another trophy? Personally, I'd rather have the trophies. Arsenal used to be a 1-0 team forever but winning still felt nice.

100% of fans said that Arsene Wenger is the right man to take Arsenal forward as manager. That's right, 100%. So that should put that debate to bed. In Arsene We Trust, that's right.

So the survey did provide some interesting results, and I think most of them really showed that Arsenal fans have very similar opinions about most subjects regarding the club. We still have faith in our manager, and we know where are main weaknesses are, so let's get them fixed. Come on Arsene, if Barry wants to come, then let's bring him in.

If you have any thoughts, share them. If not, thanks for reading. Cheers.

Arsenal Sign New Manager!

Morning all. I have a very special announcement for you all today. Arsenal have decided that Arsene Wenger has no idea what he's doing, and they're moving on. They've found a new manager, and he's just what everyone has been hoping for. He's got a much better track record than Wenger, who of course only won three league titles and four FA Cups and is Arsenal's most successful manager ever. This manager has guaranteed that he will win the title, the FA Cup, the Carling Cup, and the Champions League every year. Losing a single game is unacceptable, which is good because he has never lost one in his career.

He's also promised a whole host of signings. Clearly Denilson, Diaby, and Ramsey are no good so he will bring in Gareth Barry to partner Cesc in the middle. Barry might not be enough though because our "squad" still won't be big enough, so he'll also invest in Xabi Alonso AND Yaya Toure. At striker he's going to fulfill everyone's desires by buying David Villa, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, and Samuel Eto'o. That should make us stronger up front. Never mind if it affects Vela or Walcott or Bendtner's development, because our new manager doesn't concern himself with the future.

Arsenal's debt they had to pay off was clearly made up, because the new manager has spent over 150 million pounds on players to make sure our squad is "strong" enough right now and wants to make every fan happy. So it turns out Arsene Wenger just used that whole "debt" thing as a way to not spend any money and not try to improve the club. In fact, the whole thing was his attempt to sabotage Arsenal and make them never win anything again. He figured he had won enough to get away with never winning again, so his new goal was to last as long as possible without a trophy.

And perhaps best of all, this manager is an Englishman. Clearly these foreigners don't know how to manage football clubs, because every time they try in England (Mourinho, Ferguson, Wenger, Benitez) they fail horribly. He'll probably use the rest of his alleged 300 million pound transfer budget to buy a lot of English born players who are clearly top quality, like David Bentley, Jermaine Pennant, and maybe even John Terry, who we all love. So we have that to look forward to because Arsenal should definitely not employ all these foreign types.

So now the presentation of this new manager who we will all love for years and years to come, who will fulfill all of our ambitions and buy every player we've ever wanted to see in an Arsenal kit...

Here he is!!!

Oh wait, he doesn't exist. There isn't a manager like that. Man, I was really excited there for a minute. Guess we're stuck with Wenger for now....

Go USA!

Kolo Toure Has Malaria

Just what we needed. The man I've been wanting to captain this team for the new season contracted malaria over the summer in the Ivory Coast. He was feeling a little weakness during the training camp in Austria and was taken to the hospital for a check up, and they discovered...wait for it...that he has contracted the deadly disease. He stayed in the hotel during the match yesterday, which finished 1-1.

He's said to be "in good spirits" and "not too concerned" about the illness, which by the way can kill you. A couple of other African players have gotten Malaria in the past few years, and Yakubu and Lomana LuaLua are still living so that is a good sign.

It does look though that he'll miss the beginning of the Premier League season, which means we are even more in dire straights than we were before all of this. Arsene really is going to have to look into bringing in a defender now. Depending on how long Toure is out, we'll only have three central defenders going into the season, Gallas, Senderos, and Djourou. So now is the time to spend some money and go find a defender.

The other main news of the day is that Arsene wants to buy a midfielder. It's not really surprising since Flamini is gone but he hadn't confirmed that this was his intent until now.

“We will need one more body in there,” said Wenger when asked about his midfield. “At the moment we do not have Alex Song who is going to the Olympic games, Abou Diaby was not here tonight and nor was Fabregas.

“If we find a reasonable target then we will do it. But there is no special name on the list.

“We have some time. We have until August 31. We left 11 players back in Austria for this game. They will play in Stuttgart [on July 30].”

I think the comment about it being "no special name" may be a hint that it isn't going to be Xabi Alonso or Gareth Barry. It could be though, who knows with Arsene?

Sorry it's so short. Had work early today but I'll get something together tomorrow. Cheers!

Xabi Alonso To Arsenal, Hleb Confirmed By Barca

Morning all, how's it going? I'm super so that's good. Let's get right down to it. Did you see AC Milan finally signed Ronaldinho? Imagine two years ago if Ronaldinho and Kaka were in the same squad. How unfair would that have been? Now that Ronny has fallen off a bit though it's not as daunting. Still should be fun to watch though. The signing does mean that AC Milan will have no more signings, which means no chance for Adebayor to go there. Sucks for him as Barca haven't got any money left either.

So on to Arsenal where we have a couple of interesting bits today. First off is Alexander Hleb who is in Barcelona right now and will have his medical at 7 pm. He should be unveiled by the club officially tomorrow, but they have confirmed it already on their website. Looks like the fee is going to be 12 million pounds, which is more than we paid for him even though he's now 3 years older so I'm quite happy about that, it more than pays for Samir Nasri's transfer and leaves us with more money to spend. On the move, Hleb said:

'It is a dream. I love this team. I will give my best. I have spoken with (Barcelona coach Pep) Guardiola and for me it is very important that he wants me, and I will give my best for the team and I want to win everything with Barca.'

So did you hear? Hleb's going to give his best. He didn't say it enough times in that statement so I read between the lines and figured it out. I'm so happy Barcelona are wasting their money on Hleb, because the more I think about it, the more I realize just how useless he is and how I'd much rather have Nasri and Walcott on the wings. It'd be really nice if we played them in the Champion's League too. We would undoubtedly win and then we could laugh and laugh at how he still won't be winning any trophies. Wanker.


In the search for a new defensive midfielder we've seen Arsenal linked with a ton of names, but now a new one has cropped up: Xabi Alonso. And why not? Liverpool don't want Alonso and they need money to get the guy they do want, Gareth Barry. Juventus were supposed to sign Alonso but they've pulled out and Liverpool are left badly needing to sell him if they are to make the signing they've wanted all summer, which could mean we could get him for a discounted price. He's quite a good player for one, and he plays with Cesc for Spain as well. I had never thought about him as a possibility until this report came out, but it seems to make sense to me. There haven't been any official bids yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if one comes in this week or next.

The first preseason friendly comes up this Saturday and Aaron Ramsey and Carlos Vela have been included in the squad. I can't wait to see how Vela looks myself, and I'm sure Ramsey will put on a good display. With any luck they'll get to play at least a full half of the game so we can all get a good look at them. Remember that Samir Nasri is joining up for training on the 21st which is why he isn't in the squad. Young prodigy Jack Wilshere is also in the squad and could be involved.

And that's all I've got. Gilberto looks to be on his way to Greece but that's all for the news. Can't wait until Saturday. Until then, join our fantasy Premiership League to win an Arsenal kit, talk on the forums or the comments, and get ready for the new season!