Morning all, from a soggy Dublin.

First things first, the Cesc stuff from yesterday was recycled. The quotes were apparently given to a magazine called DIR Emotion. DIR is a chain of gyms in Barcelona. Me and Mrs Blogs used to be members of one near c/Mallorca, if I remember correctly. I stole some towels from them as I felt I wasn't getting value for money. Having kept his counsel throughout the summer I do not believe Cesc decided to open up to a magazine run by a gym whose towels are threadbare and don't really dry you off properly.

Once again though these quotes have been lifted straight from the AS site, who collated them to make it look like new stuff, and belched far and wide across the internet without so much as a bit of fact checking.

As for the continual nonsense from Captain Caveman, well, I would sincerely like for him to punched repeatedly in the face .. by Goliath. Let's see Puyol eat meat then. The man really has no concept of respect for others, and that includes Cesc.

Onto football and Arsene Wenger says he's confident we'll do better this season than last. He says:

I am very confident. We know in England that the Premier League is the biggest league in the world and everybody invests a lot of money. We invest in our work, in our beliefs, in the quality of our behaviour and I am confident that will pay off.

A lot of people have taken that quote to signify he won't buy anyone else but I don't see it. It's the usual pre-season quote about nothing much, however I do understand people's frustration at the same time. We have two very large gaps in the squad which we all want to see filled as quickly as possible, so we'd like Arsene to invest in players as well as the beliefs, behaviour and such.

There's still no word about a central defender. Loads of names have been thrown up but most of them appear to be agent led. As for the goalkeeping situation lots of papers this morning are running with the story about how Mark Hughes' first job as Fulham manager is to keep Mark Schwarzer. The Australian wants to come to us, according to the Mail, and Fulham have lined up Rob Green to replace him, but apparently Mohammed Al-Fayed is in love with Schwarzer and doesn't want him to go. These love triangle thingies are always complicated.

None of which does our situation any good whatsoever. The longer it goes the more it looks like the classic 'internal solution'. Is Wojscez©® ready? He spent last season on loan at Brentford and their manager has ruled out a return saying the young Pole's ambitions lie at Arsenal. Perhaps though, it's a measure of how desperate we are, and our current options, that we're hoping a 20 year old kid with one season's experience in League One will make the rather large step up and solve all our problems.

Friday funny? How about Sam Allardyce complaining about a team being too physical. Vital Arsenal has the good, good stuff, while Gingers for Limpar writes to the Mail

Not much else going on really. The Emirates Cup begins tomorrow and it's live on TV so we get our first look at the team at full size rather than a 500px wide box. Is Koscielny that small in HD? Let's hope not. We play AC Milan at 4.20, while previous to that Celtic play Lyon.

It also gives us a chance to hear from Arsene about his plans. I know he rarely gives anything away but even without specifics it would be nice to get some reassurance that what we hope is going on behind the scenes is actually going on.

Watch out tomorrow for a competition in which you can win a classic Arsenal shirt, with thanks to my old pals at Classic Football Shirts.

And finally, if you fancy a game of 5-a-side before the Emirates Cup, they're still looking for a couple of teams here. There is a team there representing Arseblog. You will know them by their uncanny similarity to the Invincibles side. Athletes whose torsos look like they were hewn from the 6-pack of Hercules himself, the silky skills of Bergkamp, the finishing of Henry and Pires combined, the midfield athleticism of Vieira and a goalkeeper mentaller than Lehmann. One part of this is actually true. Come on Arseblog!

Until then, have yourselves a good Friday.

*taps mic*

"Is this thing on?"

Looks like it is. No thanks to Amazon's hosting. This cloud bollocks is not all it's cracked up to be. 12 hours+ of downtime in one day. As someone who used to have a crappy little hosting business myself that's remarkable. And by remarkable I mean remarkably shite. Useless cunts.

Anyway, sincere apologies to everyone for the inconvenience. I suppose it's a good time to remind people that you can always subscribe to the Mailing List so you get the blog rammed into your box first thing in the morning. There are also apps for the iPhone and Android (hopefully a Blackberry one coming soon too) which should download it for offline reading. Anyway, while it's nice to have options it shouldn't have been so necessary yesterday. Apologies again.

So, what news of Arsenal? Well, we're down another centre-half as Sol Campbell decided to join Newcastle. Good luck to him up there. His half-season cameo was good for us and good for him. It allowed for a certain amount of redemption considering the way he left the club and he played his part in keeping us going as all around him dropped like flies - and we suffered a load of injuries. 

As I've said for a while I think his primary motivation is to play football and given Arsenal's need to spend money on the defence his chances might well have been very limited. It does make our need for new players all the more pressing, something Arsene is aware of, saying:

We are still on the search for centre-halves. We have three and we need at least four.

Interesting to note he doesn't consider Nordtveit yet part of the first team squad but with one good purchase the Norwegian could certainly be the man to back up the back up. You have to hope they're working hard behind the scenes because time marches on. Still there are whispers about Mertesacker while this morning's Sun links us with another Germanian, Serdar Tasci, who currently plays for Stuttgart. I realise transfers are complicated things but even though Djourou's injury was described as 'little' by Arsene Wenger we have to ensure our squad is complete and new players have time to settle in.

Already it looks as if some players might miss the opening game of the season. Arsene is doubtful about the involvement of Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie who apparently only return to training on August 5th. He thinks they might be short for the opener against Liverpool which, despite their recent difficulties, is never an easy game. They'll want to put the horror of last season behind them and with a new manager you can be sure they'll be right up for it. Going there without two of our best players isn't ideal.

As well as that Nicklas Bendtner will miss the start of the season with his groin injury, which is another World Cup hangover. He came back from South Africa and said he thought it was bad, Arsene Wenger said it wasn't big. Already there's confusion and misinformation about our injury situation and while he's not everybody's cup of tea I'd rather we had as many fit and healthy players at the start of the season as possible.

So at the moment Bendtner's out for the start, Cesc and van Persie could well be short, there's been no sighting of the lesser-spotted Denilson in pre-season at all, Rosicky picked up knock before the game the other night and wasn't risked (and there are rumours that his withdrawal was so as not exacerbate any problems for a player we're willing to sell), and there's no sign of Diaby yet either. You do wonder if a 25 man squad is going to be enough, perhaps we should lobby for special dispensation to double that. It would be only fair.

Quick Spanish press update? They haven't stopped talking about Cesc, making more noise I guess you'd call it. Apparently a load of the Barcelona officials have taken, or will take, a plane to London today (Easyjet, I hope, don't want to weaken the finances any further, chaps) to talk to Arsenal. I hope we sit them down in a conference room and every time they try and say something Ivan Gazidis makes a noise like a startled giraffe gnu with a sore throat. And keeps doing it until they go away.

Fulham have appointed a new manager which might, ordinarily, give you some hope that a deal could be done over Mark Schwarzer. However, Fulham have appointed Mark Hughes, a man with the manners and touchline deportment of a coked-up gibbon with whom Arsene Wenger really has no relationship whatsoever. Whether this affects a potential transfer or not remains to be seen but I wouldn't be surprised at all. I sincerely hope we've got other targets than the Australian. There are still whispers about the Italian, Marchetti, but it would surprise me if we were serious about him.

And that's it from a news point of view. Time to give you the winners of the Emirates Cup competition.

Thank you for all your entries and the RNG has selected the following lucky winners: Dave Ricklesford and Steve Adams. Well done to you both. You get 2 tickets for each day of the Emirates Cup as well as an exclusive stadium tour on one of those days. I'll be in touch this morning to get your details. 

Thanks again to Emirates for the prizes, commiserations to those who didn't win, better luck next time.

Emirates currently operates 14 daily flights from 6 UK airports via Dubai to over 100 destinations on six continents.

Emirates is pleased to offer Arsenal members very special fares worldwide. For more information and to book, visit www.emirates.com/arsenalmembers  

And that's about that. I'm off to ensure Amazon have enough peat to keep their servers going for the full day. Till tomorrow.

So yesterday evening's 4-0 win over SC Strudel's collection of postmen, trainee architects and bus drivers really didn't tell us a great deal we didn't already know.

Stand out players on the evening for me were Nasri, who's contuining a fine pre-season, Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs at left back in the first half. Two two Emmanuel's looked good in parts. Frimpong looks to have the makings of a tenacious defensive midfielder with solid distribution. Jay Emmanuel-Thomas got a goal, might have had a couple more, might have set up a couple (but they're linked to the couple of might have had), and showed some nice touches.

I can't help thinking that a season out on loan would be the best thing for both. Frimpong can get a season's competitive football under his belt, JET can go and learn that the game is about doing the simple things first. Too often he looks for the trick or the showboat and if he cuts most of that out of his game, because it won't work at the highest level, he'll make rapid progress.

Theo Walcott got a goal, Marouane Chamakh scored a penalty, Don Vito saved one, and we got our first look at some of the World Cup players as Vela (who got a goal), Eboue, Sagna and Clichy all got a run in the second half.

Manuel Almunia started the game in goal and as captain, he's been thawed having been so thoroughly frozen out last week. The only slight worry was the fact that John Djourou came off after about half an hour. His ability to withstand injury is always going to be a concern and while we don't have any news on how serious it might be it's still most untimely. It looks as if Sol Campbell has decided to go and join Newcastle and good luck to him up there but it means our defensive options are running very thin.

There's talk this morning of a move for Per Mertesacker but I don't know how much truth there is in it. A photo was circulated of him yesterday, supposedly in a North London pub, but a quick look at the photo's EXIF data showed it was taken in 2009, not yesterday. Sure, the camera's clock could be wrong but I suspect shenanigans and I hope it's not the basis of any of today's stories. Signing an experienced German international who is 6'4 or whatever he is sounds rather too good to be true. Maybe I've just lowered my expectations.

Whatever about that though, the fact is we need at least one centre-half and we need him asap. Hopefully Djourou's withdrawal was precautionary but the precarious nature of his fitness really illustrates the need for a top class player who can come in and play first team football straight away. Unusually there was no interview post-game with Arsene, and no quotes either, so what exactly is going on is anybody's guess. The squad will now return to London to continue pre-season training and for the Emirates Cup, more on which anon.

Now, yesterday further financial revelations regarding Barcelona showed the Catalan club lost €77m last year, amazing when you think how successful they've been on the pitch. Remembering as well they had to borrow €150m last week just to keep going it makes their pursuit of Cesc Fabregas all the more ludicrous. It is quite beyond me how any accountants, bankers, financial advisors and even club officials can believe spending another €50m, at least, for a player they don't really need is good business. Arsene Wenger says:

There are still noises from Barcelona, but that is all it is.

Clearly dismissing their ability to do a deal that would even come close to what Arsenal would require to sell a player like Cesc. And that's assuming we'd even talk to them. Which, at the moment, we wont. Barcelona's assistant sporting-director's lover's personal secretary, Toni Freixa, says:

Arsenal don't want to sit down and negotiate with us. It's not a problem with the wishes of Cesc or of Barca - they simply don't want to negotiate.

It seems, at last, the message might be getting through. Will it stop their constant blather? I doubt it. Talk is all they've got left and making so much 'noise', as Arsene puts it, takes the focus away from the fact they're footballing hobos, out with the begging bowl just to stay afloat. More than a club? Not for long unless they sort their money issues out. They need to go to Ocean Finance and consolidate all their loans into one, simple, easy to manage payment. The cunts.

In case you missed it yesterday I posted an interview with former Gunner Edu. The lads from Arsenal Brasil very kindly offered me the English translation as an exclusive and a tip of the hat to all the Arsenal sites and blogs who have linked to it.

However, once again the despicable fuckers at goal.com, who I refuse to link to, have done what they do best, and that is steal other people's content. They took a part of what Edu said, made it into a story, and 'credited' it as follows:

Now, I know the chaps at 101 Great Goals somewhat, not 101 Goals, and they're always very careful to give proper credit and links when they use content from other blogs. In this case, however, goal.com has simply taken the content Arsenal Brasil worked hard to produce, between getting the interview, the editing, the sub-titling etc, and ripped it off. And they don't even have the decency to provide a link to them or to Arseblog, from where they ripped it off. And I know this because they've embedded the video at the bottom of their story.

So, just another illustration of why goal.com is one of the worst football websites in the world. Ever. If you're tired of seeing other bloggers, writers, journalists and media outlets stories passed off as their own, simply go to NewsNow, click on the name of the site and choose 'hide publication'. They are purveyors of baseless rumours, bottom feeding, hit-whoring click parasites of the worst kind. Don't give them what they want. Just ignore. In no other industry is it acceptable to so blatantly profit off the work of others, I don't know why it's deemed acceptable on the web.

Moving on and to the Arseblog Mailing List. It looks as if Gmail have done something to their spam filters which has meant a lot of people haven't had their daily edition. If you've noticed a lack of Arseblog in your box, log into Gmail via the web (even if you're using it in a client like Outlook or Apple Mail), click in the spam folder and highlight the Arseblog emails. Then, at the top, click 'not spam' and that should sort the problem out. Gmail will remember that from now on. To be doubly sure, add Arseblog as a contact in Gmail - thanks to @engkiat for that.

Finally for now, today is your last chance to win tickets to the Emirates Cup as well as that exclusive stadium tour, with thanks to Emirates Airline. Just click here for the competition, answer the question and you're in the draw which will take place tomorrow.

And that's just about that for today. Watch out for further Emirates Cup based competitions later in the week. 

Till tomorrow.

My good old chums at Arsenal Brasil were lucky enough to track down former Gunner Edu to ask him some questions about his Arsenal career.

On the agenda were his arrival at Arsenal, his favourite players, the Invincibles why he left, his thoughts on Arsene Wenger and much more.

They've kindly added the English subtitles exclusively for Arseblog. Happy viewing.

Edu interview - Arsenal Brasil from arseblog on Vimeo.

Note: The 'Marcos' referred to in the interview is the former Brazilian goalkeeper - Guardian story here.

We know the Spanish press are, at the best of times, transfer crazy. Especially in the summer. There are four newspapers dedicated to sport, the majority of the pages are filled with football stories, and there really are no stones left unturned for them to fill copy.

For example. In El Mundo today they talk about a 'secret deal' between Arsenal and Barcelona, confirmed to them by officials of both clubs, that will see Cesc move to Barcelona before Friday for a fee of no more than €45m. I mean, really.

Meanwhile, Sport says Arsenal won't negotiate and Cesc feels 'deceived' by Arsene Wenger, amongst many other tedious and semi-fictitious things.

So, having seen more than a few Manuel Almunia to Osasuna stories this morning I thought I'd check out all four Spanish sports papers. None of them are running this story because, I assume, it's just been made up by the English press. As I pointed out the other day Osasuna officially denied the story to a local newspaper (eng translation), on the back of the initial story in the Metro. So, I really don't think there's anything to this.

I'm not doubting our willingness to let him go, by the way, but the major obstacle to any move is the money that Almunia is on at Arsenal. It's not exactly a huge salary compared to other players at the club but it's a long, long way ahead of your average goalkeeper's salary for a mid-table Spanish club. Arsenal, if they really want to move Almunia on, may find themselves having to contribute to his departure with more than a handshake and a gold carriage clock.

As players like William Gallas, Jimmy Bullard and even Sol Cambpell are finding out this summer, clubs just don't have the kind of cash they used to. Chucking £80,000 a week at a player in final throes of his career is, at last, being seen as rather a silly idea. The lucrative Bosman is no longer assured. So when a club with fewer resources is looking for a player from the Premier League it's proving very difficult for any deals to be done - and that's assuming there's anybody interested in Almunia in the first place.

In some ways Arsenal have made a rod for their own back in this regard. There are players on contracts which are some way away from reality. The policy of rewarding potential is most assuredly a gamble. If it pays off Arsenal have a player with excellent future, secure on a long deal. If it doesn't, Arsenal have a player on a salary which is way above his level and which he's going to find extremely difficult to match elsewhere. It means that should we decide to try and move on one or two of these players it becomes almost impossible. Potential suitors are put off by the salary demands and the player who will go somewhere else to earn less money is a rare beast.

So while we wait for players to come in we ought to mindful of how difficult it's going to be to move some out, and I'm told that behind the scenes that's exactly what we're trying to do. It does make the enormous squad at Man City quite amusing though. It's one thing trying to sell a player whose wages are a bit high, imagine how difficult City are finding it to get anyone to pay close to what they paid for Adebayor as well as matching what they're paying him every week. Ooops and har har. Maybe they need a brochure.

Anyway, back to the real world, and Ajax defender Jan Vertonghen says he'd like to join Arsenal to play with former teammate and international colleague Thomas Vermaelen. He then sells himself wonderfully by saying he's never played alongside him at centre-half. He's nearly 6'3 though, way too tall for us.

There's some vague, second half reporting of our interest in Italian keeper Federico Marchetti. Cagliari's president reckons we're after him but you know how these things go. 

Kieran Gibbs:

My foot is all fine at the moment and I'm all ready for the new season. I feel good. My foot's not causing me any problems and there has not been a lot of reaction to the metalwork I had in there. 

Which just goes to show you the damage that was done when he picked up the injury. I've got high hopes for Gibbs. At the very least he should provide proper competition to Gael Clichy whose performances, particularly in the second half of the season, had the stench of complacency to them. When there's nobody pushing you for your place that can happen and it'd be great to see Gibbs give him a real run for his money this season. I discount Armand Traore from this as he is to defending what Harry Redknapp is to poker faces.

Tonight's game against Austrian part-timers SC Neusiedl 1919 kicks off at 6pm, coverage via the official site.

And finally for today, if you fancy the Emirates Cup this weekend, check out the competition which gives you a chance to win tickets for both days as well as an exclusive stadium tour. The competition is brought to you in association with Emirates Airline who offer special fares to Arsenal Members.

Winners will be announced on Thursday, you've got till Wednesday midnight to get your answers in. Right, that'll do. More tomorrow.