Friday frolics + Arsecast 85

Good morning to you, another week has flown by, eh?

There's plenty of Arse action coming up this weekend as the Emirates Cup takes place with games against Juventus and Real Madrid. Certainly a good test for the squad and, with the games on TV, a chance for us to have a proper look at the likes of Vela and Nasri, and to assess the rest of the lads in terms of fitness etc.

With the manager saying he's still looking for one player he explained his signing of Amaury Bischoff, calling it a 'gamble'. He says the player is talented but will two or three months to get fully fit. Let's think about him again in two or three months then.

Jens Lehmann has warned Emmanuel Adebayor against leaving Arsenal, saying:

If you look at every player who has left Arsenal, he has not managed to shine again at his new club. I joined Stuttgart this summer — but it is different for me, because I am a goalkeeper and I am also 38 years old.

Arsene is insistent that the Togonator will be staying as well so now it's all down to the player. Work hard, score goals, don't cause any ructions, and life won't be too difficult for him at all. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what his head is like and if he's going to let the fact he made himself look like a proper chump affect him.

William Gallas has ruled out any move to PSG and says he's looking forward to the new season with Arsenal. He's also spoken about the transfer business so far this summer, saying:

At Arsenal we totally trust Arsene Wenger and even if we haven’t signed lots of players, we have enormous quality in the group, with youngsters that don’t stop improving and more experienced ones who bring their knowledge of football.

Just imagine what adding an experienced, quality player to our midfield would do then? I really do think we're very close to having a title challenging squad. I just hope we get the kind of player in who will make a difference and provide that statement of intent.

Today sees the draw for the 3rd qualifying round of the Champions League. We're in the pot, obviously, and while there's the usual mix of teams that you would expect us to beat there are potentially some tricky opponents there as well. Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray and Dinamo Kiev are ones to be avoided.

Update: It's Steve McClaren and FC Twente! 

The Online Gooner takes Ian Wright to task, and rightly so, for some rather crass comments he made in the Sun.

You'll notice a lot of stories this morning about the Rat-faced chav talking about how much he wants to play against Arsenal after his move from Blackburn to Sp*rs. He's trying to set himself up as some kind of pantomime villain and it's a measure of his ego that he thinks we'd waste our time hating someone as irrelevant as he is.

OleOle Fantasy Football - there's an Arseblog league set up under the English Premier League game. Just register for the Fantasy Football game and join the league arseblogprem, the password for which is arseblog. I should be able to add some code so we can display the league stats on the homepage here and as well as being in for the overall OleOle prizes there'll be an individual Arseblog prize too. Get cracking.

Right, Arsecast time, and on today's show I chat to the Man from East Lower about everything that's been going on in pre-season and beyond. The man in the bar has a player history, there's a tale of the unexpected, Arsene Wenger Hawkins is back and there's the usual guff too.

To subscribe to the Arsecast in iTunes simply click here, the direct feed URL is here, to download this week's arsecast directly - click here (16mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

Enjoy, see you tomorrow.