Let me take you back to the end of last season (2006-2007):

Struggled in the league, never mounting any sort of serious title challenge, finishing fourth and with TH on his way out of the club. The general opinion at the time was that we were soft centred, physically weak, too young.

At that time, like many other Arsenal fans, I thought that there were two players in particular that weren't good enough for Arsenal - Flamini and Hleb. Flamini was ok filling in at full back but otherwise was pretty poor. Hleb at times looked great but had no end product and tended to lose the ball more often than not, very frustrating to watch.

Forward on a year and also like most of those same Arsenal fans I came to change my opinion of those two players. Flamini really stepped up and put in some great performances. He worked hard all season and deserved the accolades he was getting in the press. Hleb for the first half of the season was a revelation. Suddenly it was all clicking for him, no more wasteful passes or deadend runs. Instead we were seeing a new Hleb who was making the difference and even occasionally finding the net!

So now the season is over and with Flamini already out the door and with Hleb due to follow am I crying in my sleep over lost talent?

The answer is a resounding no and here's why:

I'd like to talk about 'worldclass' players. Here, I don't mean you need to be the finished article. I only mean that you could see the player one day being one of the top players in the world at what he does. For example, I would call Theo worldclass since he has that level of talent but I could never see Flamini being at that level.

I think it is important that Arsenal continue to build a truely 'worldclass' team full of players that could compare with the likes of Pires/Bergkamp/Overmars/TH/Adams etc. and not fall into the Liverpool trap of being happy with 'really quite good' or 'does a job' players.

Although I really like Flamini and he has undoubtedly had a great season, for me he is still not a 'worldclass' player. I believe that he lacks a little technique and physical presence to be at that level. I only have to think of the likes of Vieira or Gilberto at their peak to find Flamini lacks that last extra bit to be called 'worldclass'. If Arsenal are to be one of the top club teams in the world then in my opinion they need to have worldclass central midfielders. Fabregas is truely worldclass but unfortunately in my opinion Flamini is merely very good. So i'm sad to see Flamini go and wish him luck but ultimately I believe we will be stronger for it as hopefully we can try to find a truely worldclass player to replace him.

Up until the Milan game I was happy with Hleb. Here I thought we might have finally found a player that might in time be compared favourably with the likes of Pires or Overmars. Ok, so he wasn't scoring that level of goals but I was hopeful he might bring that more into his game and in any case he was contributing so much to the team. Everything from after the 'ice-cream' incident proved just how wrong I could be. Every part of his game dropped and his 'true' colours came through. Here was a player that was obviously looking out of the club and couldn't be bothered to put in top performances anymore. Suddenly almost overnight it was back to the Hleb of last season with misguided runs and misplaced passes. Also given that he spent so much of the season as a second striker his goal tally was proving to be pretty embarrassing. Given that sort of attitude i'm personally glad to see Hleb leave and perhaps Nasri can come in and show us a true Pires replacement!

So looking back I find that i'm actually kind of optimistic since the two players I most wanted out at the start of the season are now leaving the club.

I guess since I now really want Eboue to leave the club that he will go on to have a great season next year before leaving in the summer!