It's another very quiet morning.

There really isn't much going on at all. It's most dull. At least next week we'll get some more football so people can complain that our kids haven't won the Champions League as the senior players work on their fitness for the coming season.

Should we discuss the ludicrous claims on ANR that Arsene needs to raise £24m every summer from player sales? Only if you think discussing claims that the world is run by lizard men from Mars who have three penises and shoot fully grown baby hippos out of their arses is a good idea. I mean, it's just so fucking stupid it's untrue.

You really would have to wonder why anybody would write something that was so obviously wrong. Scaremongering? Propaganda? That anybody might suggest the club has based their strategy for the new stadium on money raised by player sales, and that banks would be ok with it, is absurd.

There's no question that we have been cutting our cloth a little bit in recent seasons. The big earners have left, often for big transfer fees, but it's hard to argue that most of those players left at the right time for us. When their star had begun to fade a little. And yes, we've replaced most of them with younger players but when you look at Arsene's record in the transfer market he's always been a bit of a spendthrift. Even before the new stadium people praised his ability to build teams for an incredibly low net spend. So it's not a new policy in that regard.

ANR's claim that Arsenal's silence on the News of the World quote attributed to Arsene must mean it's true doesn't bear much scrutiny either. We know that Arsenal very rarely make any comment with regards to transfers or finances and it flies in the face of what Arsene said officially, not in quotes in a Sunday paper which sound fabricated. And if it were true why would we have spent £13m on Nasri, £5m on Ramsey when only recouping £12m for Hleb? It's all a load of bollocks but the sad thing is I suspect a lot of fans believe it's true and it's going to be one of those self-perpetuating myths that newspapers will run with over and over again.

Some more reaction to this on Arsenal Truth.

Gilberto says Arsenal need to win something this season. I don't think there's any fan who would disagree with that. Let's not forget how close we came last season and the season before in the Carling Cup so the chances have been there. You just wonder about a team the longer it goes without winning something but I think we've got a group of young players hungry for success. We'll be there or thereabouts again, I'm sure.

Gael Clichy calls Armand Traore an 'amazing player'. I have to say I haven't seen enough yet to convince me he's ready for first team football with us but there's always one or two who seem to make a big step-up from one season to the next, perhaps he might be one. Where he's going to play though is another question. If Clichy continues to progress then he's going to find his chances very limited.

The Sun links us with a move for 17 year old Crystal Palace forward Victor Moses. Apparently we're offering £1m but Palace feel he commands a greater fee than that.

With no further news about Adebayor's dream transfer elsewhere, anywhere, Goonerholic looks back on a man who won over Arsenal fans after circumstances even more difficult than the ones Greedy faces.

And that's really about it. Sorry there's no Arsecast today. This is due to 'technical issues' which are 'beyond my control'. Apologies. It'll be back next week.

More tomorrow.

So pre-season kicked off with a 2-1 win over Barnet yesterday.

We were losing 1-0 at half-time then changed the entire team around and goals from Jay Simpson and Nacer Barazite secured the win. There really is nothing much to be read into a friendly at this stage but one or two of the younger players caught the eye apparently, Jack Wilshere in particular looking rather good.

Arsenalist has the highlights and the goals. And here's a post-match interview with the boss (thanks to Luther).

Afterwards Arsene Wenger said he expected Adebayor to return to the club on Monday for pre-season training saying, rather cryptically:

Adebayor is a player of Arsenal Football Club and I'm confident he will be here at the start of the season Adebayor is under contract, it’s a completely different position to Hleb.

Wasn't Hleb under contract too? Or is the situation completely different because nobody's actually made a bid for Adebayor. Strange all the same and I think Arsene's little smile as he spoke about Adebayor returning/staying speaks volumes. There was some reassurance though for fans who want signings. He said there'd 'certainly' be at least one signing, maybe two. You can even hear him say it on the BBC here.

I think there's still some wheeling and dealing to be done this summer. If Adebayor stays then I can't see us signing a striker but will Adebayor want to stay after what he's said and knowing he's hardly a fans favourite anymore? Songs were sung about him at Barnet yesterday and he's got a lot to do to win people around again if he does stay. When he does return he needs to be on his best behaviour too, if there's the slightest bit of agitation or bullshit to disrupt pre-season then we should come down on him like a ton of bricks.

The Times suggests he could be on his way to Milan if Milan sell Kaka to Chelsea but the Italians have said they're not willing to sell. If Chelsea were to make an official £80m bid then I think the situation would change rapidly. Who could turn down that sort of money? It's an obscene and disgusting amount.

The News of the World says Adebayor will tell the club he wants £100,000 a week. Apparently that's 'fair reward' for what he's done for Arsenal. It's so ludicrous and downright fucking stupid that it barely merits comment. What I would say is that if this is his agent's way of ensuring we're forced into selling him then he'd want to be very sure there's someone who can afford to buy him. If he wants £100,000 a week why shouldn't Arsenal ask for a transfer fee corresponding to that. He's the one making the valuation, isn't he? There are some reports in Barcelona this morning that they're still interested and Yaya Toure has been saying how Adebayor would add strength to their attack.

So there's still that uncertainty and honestly, if the chance came and the money was right I'd sell Adebayor in a flash. Some might see it as giving the player what he wants, but you don't need trouble-makers in your squad and I just get the feeling that he would be trouble if he stayed. Which is a real shame. The other concern I have is that this shit will keep going right up until August 31st and we'll be left to do a last-minute deal on deadline day just to get shot of the cunt.

As for our 'certain' signing will come in central midfield and who knows what else might happen?

The Sunday Mirror says both PSG and Barcelona want William Gallas. £5m for a 31 year old who really hasn't covered himself in glory since he arrived at Arsenal would be good business provided it was spent on a quality replacement.

The Observer talks to Theo Walcott. Leaving the dog whisperer aside he seems like a very level-headed and well grounded young man. He made good progress last season, it'd be great to see him do it again this time around.

Dennis Bergkamp has started his coaching career at Ajax. Imagine being a young player at Ajax and having Dennis as your coach. Amazing.

Right, that's about it. More tomorrow.

Good Saturday to you all.

A fair amount going on so we'll get right into it. New boy Samir Nasri says he's not the new Zidane. Well, here was us thinking we're getting the new Zidane and he spoils it straight away. He says:

I don't think it's fair to have that sort of pressure on a young player. There's only one Zidane, just as there was only one Platini. I'm me, a novice, who's trying to get better.

Which we have to admit is a far better attitude than someone who actually thinks they're the new Zidane. There's all kinds of stuff about him on the official site so go have a look. I suspect that he's going to play left hand side for us but I suppose pre-season will tell us a lot.

Meanwhile Andrei Arshavin, having said only last week that Barcelona was his dream move and that he only wanted to play for them, has changed his tune somewhat. According to his agent Yuri Bolokov:

Andrei would love to play for Arsenal. Their style of football would be perfect for him

It might well be but if Zenit are looking for £19m he might as well eat a load of cheese before bedtime because the only place he'll be playing for Arsenal is in his dreams. Funny how quickly footballers change their tune though, isn't it?

I suppose Arshavin's turnabout came when Barcelona looked like they were going to sign Hleb. The Spanish press are reporting that the deal is 'nearly' completed and Hleb could be unveiled as a Barcelona player early next week. Not much else happening in Spain though.

Adebayor - no day would be complete without some more Adebaybore stuff and our old pal Vicenzo Morabito has been centre-stage again. Talking on Italian TV he said:

We are going towards more reasonable figures that are within Milan’s reach, as they had placed a ceiling on the bid they were willing to make. It is much, much lower than the £32m initially requested. In fact, it’s a little bit more than half that figure. The signs are very positive.

Perhaps the reason for the reduction in price is the inclusion of Yoann Gourcuff in the deal but that matter is complicated by Gourcuff's loan deal with Bordeaux. The other reason for the lower price might be that Morabito is talking out of his big, fat arse. Who can say? 

The Telegraph, via the Sun, links us with a move for Gareth Barry, saying a cash + Hoyte deal could be on offer from Arsenal, although we've made no official bid as yet. We could do a lot worse, in my opinion, and Barry's defensive style would probably compliment Cesc's more attacking instincts in the same way that Flamini did. Interesting.

Charles N'Zogbia says he's been dreaming of playing for Arsenal since he was a kid. Join the fucking club, pal. 

So it's all beginning to get a bit busy now. One or two deals beginning to happen across the transfer market and once the ball gets rolling I'm sure it'll gather no moss and the stitch in time will judge a book by its cover. Oh yes.

Right, have a good Saturday. More tomorrow. 

Morning all,

it's another Adebayor focussed morning as reports from various sources (or perhaps one report repeated across various outlets) say that Barcelona have made a final 'take it or leave it' offer of £30m for Emmanuel Adebayor.

Take it! Seriously. £30m is fucking brilliant money for a guy that's had just one good season and who obviously wants to leave the club. Now, the Spanish press are really getting stuck in this morning. They say that Barcelona made a €30m offer and Arsenal said 'No, €40m' but apparently Laporta said that was totally unacceptable. But you know what's coming, don't you? Yeah, it's the patented Spanish press player agitation move. Sport says:

Adebayor must demonstrate, unequivocally, that he wants to play for Barcelona for the seasons ahead. If he does that, if he shows his committment to the 'blaugrana', there won't be any kind of doubts of his respect [for Barcelona]

Heh, they really are a hilarious bunch of bastards. Something I cover in today's Arsecast is the fact that one of the reasons Adebayor (and Hleb too) is so attractive to Barcelona is that they see him earning relatively a low salary so they won't have to pay him that much more than he's on at Arsenal. Might be a bit of a shocker if he's expecting Thierry Henry wages. Certainly the next few days are going to be interesting. Will Adebayor sit and beg like the lapdog Barcelona want him to be? Will Arsenal continue to play hardball, if that's what we're doing, over his transfer fee?

Ultimately though, if we get anything close to £30m for Adebayor it will be as canny a piece of transfer business as we've ever done. With Ken Friar and Arsene Wenger managing the deal then it's certainly not impossible. Let's wait and see.

Who comes in to replace him remains to be seen. Does it mean more time for Bendtner? Is Roque Santa Cruz the answer? All these questions, and more, wil be answered in time.

And really that's the only Arsenal story around this morning. Thank God for Adebayor turning into a silly twat this summer, I'd have had nothing to write about at all. Now though, Arsecast.

In today's Arsecast I talk to Tim Payton from the AST about Stan Kroenke, you can find out more about the Arsenal Stadium Mystery, but not the film, the book, plus there's the usual crap from the usual gadabouts and reprobates.

To subscribe to the Arsecast in iTunes simply click 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.

Right so, have a good one. More tomorrow and happy July 4th to all our American Gooners out there. 

Happy Tuesday to you all.

Let's begin with the ongoing saga of Samir Nasri. Yesterday the player seemed to confirm a 4 year move to Arsenal on his official website, prompting news sites and various copycats to go into overdrive. Nasri's official site then went down and later talk of the deal being done was played down by the player's agent, the horrible Jean-Pierre Bernes who said:

Discussions are continuing between the two clubs and the player. Nothing has been finalized, no element of the transfer has been finalized and everybody is still talking. It is premature to announce anything at all.

Now, from the information I've been given this is basically a big load of old bollocks. The deal is done but for whatever reason Marseille don't want it to be officially announced yet. The delay, such as it is, is not coming from Arsenal's side. Whatever Marseille's reasons are remain open to speculation so while it's frustrating for fans not to have that official confirmation there's no need to worry. It'll happen.

Cesc talks about how he's a man now. Which is true. He was a boy. And now he's a man. That comes with age, you see. I too was once a boy and then I also became a man. Which is far preferable to becoming a cyclops or a nervous zebra, which was a very real fear for a while. I mean zebras have a nervous existence as it is. Imagine being an especially nervous one. That's no life for a boy.

He (Cesc, not the nervous zebra) also talks about Russia ahead of the Euro 2008 semi-final, saying that Andrei Arshavin is the man to watch.

The Sun links us with a move for Valencia's David Silva. An 'Arsenal source' said:

Arsene wasn’t just in Vienna to cheer on Cesc — he was there to take a good look at Silva. He is a player who would fit well in the Arsenal set-up, especially if Hleb goes.

He's certainly a very good player, I like him a lot, but I suppose the difficulty we might have is that nobody really seems too keen on Hleb. The Barcelona link has gone very quiet, what with them having to sell their vital organs to buy anyone, there's been nothing from Bayern and only Wolfsburg have said anything remotely positive about signing the player. So for all his desire to leave Hleb might find himself with nowhere to go.

There's nothing new in the Spanish press about Adebayor. Just the same old crap from the last few days slightly re-written. A deal is 'really close' and Adebayor 'sees himself at Barca' blah blah blah shove it up your cunts blah blah. Speaking of Adebayor he came third in the player of the season poll on Arsenal.com - that means top spot has to go to either Cesc or the departed Flamini. I think it'll be Cesc.

Squad numbers for the forthcoming season have been announced. Manuel Almunia is, as expected, the new number 1, Carlos Vela gets 12, Aaron Ramsey takes 16, Vito Mannone 24 and other than that there's nothing much changing. There are still some lovely numbers waiting to be filled though.

Austrian based Gooner Kevin provides the following info regarding Arsenal fixtures on their pre-season Austrian training camp:

22/7/2008 - Arsenal vs. Szombathely in Szombathely - Hungary (just across the Austro-Hungarian border)
28/7/2008 - Arsenal vs. Burgenland Select Team in Ritzing

Now there's an exclusive for you. Cheers, Kevin. 

That's really about it, so it is. My continued summer of 'que sera, sera' is going very well, I have to say. No stress here, no RSI from frantically clicking around NewsNow just in case this might be the one time that Sportingo or Caught Offside don't print something that isn't a load of scuttery shite, no grey hairs. Well, that's a lie. Lots of grey hairs but those come from having a teenage daughter, not from Arsenal.

Till tomorrow.

Good morning from a grey miserable Dublin. The rain is teeming down and it looks like it's going to do that all day long.

So I'm loathe to start the day with anything negative. Instead let's rejoice and sing songs at the news that Gael Clichy has signed a new long term contract with the club. Good news and let's hope the young man can keep going after a fantastic season last time around. He really was the model of consistency and energy, his defending has improved considerably and if he can now add a bit more of an attacking threat to his game he's gonna be awesome.

Right, so from positive to tedious negative. The rumours about Adebayor abound. This morning's El Mundo says Marc Ingla flew to London on a 'lightning' visit to discuss both Adebayor and Hleb. They claim that Milan have a copy of a letter signed by Adebayor telling Arsenal that he wants to leave. A transfer request in which he asks to be able to speak to big clubs in Europe about a transfer. Quite a development, if it's true.

However, Marca ran a story yesterday saying that Barcelona had agreed a €27m fee with Arsenal but we've asked Barcelona not to announce it until we've found a replacement. It does strike me that perhaps the Madrid based Marca is trying to cause the deal some problems by running a story like that.

If it's true then they've blown the whole thing wide open, if it's not true and the deal doesn't happen then they make Barcelona look like chumps. As I said yesterday though there's really far too much going on around Adebayor for this to be all speculative. We've read his agent saying that he'd sign for Milan, who are playing UEFA Cup football next season. It's hard to think his agent would turn down an approach from Barcelona where Adebayor could play alongside Henry again. When he wasn't sitting on the bench watching Henry play alongside Bojan and Messi.

At the moment the facts, such as they are, is about as far as I'm willing to go with this story. Further comment or opinion can wait because we have to also accept the fact that the Spanish press are notorious shit-stirrers and putting words in players mouths or transfer requests on clubs tables is all part of the tactics. Let's wait and see.

Goodplaya has some info - and I know Goodplaya would not print this sort of thing unless there was something to it. 

Eurowatch - mad game last night, eh? No real Arsenal interest though. Tonight sees Robin van Persie's Holland take on Russia. Vague Arsenal interest in Andrei Arshavin?

Arsene Wenger talks about Euro 2008 to the BBC. Hopefully this plays for everyone. I know they're a bit funny with regions and things like that. He talks about van Persie saying he can 'do anything' and calling him 'top class'. If he can stay fit, of course.

Right, I'm off to enjoy the rain. Have a good day.

Happy Friday to you all. I have just awoken from the weirdest of dreams in which I won the Champions League for Arsenal by heading home a slice of onion from a corner. The ref looked, saw the onion in the back of the net and blew up as it was a golden goal. Weird.

Quite a bit to get through so we'll just get going. AC Milan say it's Adebayor or nothing while the speculation in Spain increases about a move to Barcelona. I know we've heard from Adebayor this summer saying he wants to stay at Arsenal but I have to say I'm a bit concerned at just how intense this speculation is. It's constant, it's not being quashed, and it goes a bit beyond the old 'Oh, we half fancy this player'.

Sport actually claims to have called up Adebayor in Togo and quotes the player as saying:

I don't want to say anything now in reference to FC Barcelona. Maybe in a little while it might be necessary but not now. It's better to wait. Thank you*

Of course he could have said "I have nothing to say about Barcelona" etc etc and it might well have been twisted to suit the story but that's what he's quoted as saying. To me it feels like there's something going on here and while I'm certainly not going to start pointing fingers yet it would be very disappointing if Adebayor were to agitate for a move now.

However, it does seem the interest from both Milan and Barcelona is very real and I don't think it can get to the stage it's at unless there's been some encouragement from the player's camp. We'll see what happens but it's all a bit scummy and murky in my opinion.

If he goes we'd need a striker though, that's for sure. Samuel Eto'o anyone? I'm not sure I believe this one but I'm also pretty sure that this story has been brought in good faith unlike some of the absolute bollocks you read elsewhere.

The Sun says we're after Obafemi Martins. Can't see it. I think his agent just uses us every single time he wants to get his player's name in the papers regarding a move away from Newcastle. Lazy cunt.

Nasri medical, holiday, sign, blah blah blah.

Some clubs want to sign Gael Clichy apparently. Well, some clubs can go suck a donkey's smeggy cock, cunts. Fuck. Off.

Eurowatch - Jens played last night for Germany as they knocked out Portugal. Sadly Ronaldo didn't cry which is a bit of a shame in fairness. It does seem that we're likely to see him do his crying for Real Madrid next season. Whatever I might think about United I can only hope that Ronaldo's signing ushers in a new era of shite for Madrid - the way they and Barcelona act over transfers really is quite disgraceful and if they pay £60m for him and he breaks his leg in the first game it'd be just what they deserve.

Tonight sees Croatia play Turkey and you can follow in the OleOle match centre - not forgetting the Eurocast as well which should be published later this morning.

The AST publish a letter they've written to Stan Kroenke after meetings with him and his team in Denver. Interesting stuff and it does look like a place on the board will be forthcoming. Hopefully I'll have a chat to them in the week to get more detail about their meeting and we can get it up on the Arsecast.

Speaking of which, after a week's holiday the Arsecast is back. In today's all-action episode there's a theme of negativity running all the way through, the Man in the Bar, a tale of the unexpected, Eboue and more.

To subscribe to the Arsecast in iTunes simply click here, to download this week's arsecast directly - click here (13mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

And that's about that, more tomorrow.

*Other websites and blogs please feel free to use this information without the slightest acknowledgement as to where you got it. I know you're all Spanish speakers too. You're great, so you are.

It really does seem like the Arsenal/Barcelona saga this summer. Much like last summer. And the summer before. And the summer before. Oh wait. Was that Real Madrid that summer?

Whatever. It just seems that each close season we have to put up with one of the big clubs in Spain trying to buy some or all of our players. As Barcelona confirm they're in talks with Arsenal about Hleb comes more on the Adebayor side of things. Sport reports this morning that the Catalans have made an offer of €29m for the Togonator. But although the newspaper says Adebayor is exactly the player they're looking for they won't be offering a penny more.

Although Arsenal say they won't sell him at any price they say that Adebayor wants to join, using quotes from the El Mundo interview I linked to yesterday. What can you say? I think I speak for most of us when I say:

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

What a pack of tedious cunts they are. Sports departments filled with fiction writers - and while there's probably some truth in what they say the fact that it reads as if it were written by a failed Dan Brown impersonator almost makes me feel sorry for them. Almost. Instead I'd like to burn them alive just to save the world from this shite. Sadly, the thing is if you kill one two more grow back in its place. This is going to be a long summer.

The BBC says Samir Nasri has 'agreed' his Arsenal contract but the BBC should try and tell us something we don't already know.

Kolo Toure, meanwhile, says he'd like to stay at Arsenal for life. And I for one welcome that. A player who knows what he wants and doesn't need a scumbag agent to tell him.

Speaking of scumbags and agents we move to Cuntley Cunt's inclusion at number 25 in the 50 greatest Arsenal players of all time. What a joke. Sansom, Nelson, Winterburn, McLintock and Merson all behind this odious little cunt? Frankly anyone who voted for him should be locked in a room with an angry dragon who has cancer teeth and can breathe fiery AIDS at them. I do love the way that Arsenal.com made sure we knew it was the 'fans' who picked the players but they should know better than this.

Cuntley Cunt is the biggest cunt ever to play for Arsenal football club. What he did before being a cunt is irrelevant. If this list was the top 50 cunts to ever play for Arsenal he should be in all 50 positions, the little cunt. What a load of rubbish and frankly it's an insult to the great players who really did great things for our football club instead of running off like a greedy, lying cuntbox.

Raul Albiol's agent says Arsenal have not been in touch with him about the player. Ok then.

Robin van Persie reckons something beautiful is about to happen with Holland in Euro 2008. He's certainly giving van Basten something to think about with his goals in the tournament so far and I wouldn't be surprised to see him start the quarter final against Russia. I think van Basten sees something of himself in van Persie, great talent but slightly brittle. That particular quarter final promises to be an excellent game though after the Russians win over Sweden last night proved they're a team to be taken seriously.

According to reader Dylan, Arsene was on French TV talking about how the prices for Russia's players, in particular Arshavin, would be likely to increase on the back of that performance for anyone that might be interested in buying them. The Mirror says we're ready with a £10m bid for Arshavin.

Tonight sees Portugal v Germany with Jens Lehmann in action for the Germanians. Can their defence keep out the attacking threat of Portugal? Will Klose or Gomez actually score a goal? It's gonna be a good one, I think. I fancy the Germans to nick it as well.

Right so, that's about the size of it. More tomorrow.

Morning all,

it was a real struggle getting out of bed this morning. I was dreaming I was living in Barcelona again and I was sitting outside a bar close to where my apartment was drinking lovely cold bottles of beer in the summer heat. Nothing weird or bizarre happened either. Apart from all the cars were doing that hip-hop dancing car thing as they went along the road but you see that in Barcelona all the time. Honest.

Aaron Ramsey said it was a 'gut feeling' that made his mind up to sign for Arsenal. The young Welshman said:

It is an honour to be wanted by massive clubs like Arsenal, Manchester United and Everton. In the end I had to make the decision I felt was right for my future. I have come a fair way since then, but there is still a lot of hard work ahead.

Also, United's representative was some mouthy little cunt who can't even grow a proper moustache. How can I be expected to sign for a club when the bloke's facial hair looks like a teenagers pubes glued to his upper lip?

No doubt the young man will get some playing time in pre-season so it'll be interesting to see what he's made of.

Some interesting quotes have emerged from Arsene Wenger. He was talking about Vincent Company Ltd, the Belgian defender, and saying that while he has been aware of the player for some time he wouldn't be signing him, because:

I have decided that defenders are no longer necessarily needed for next season. Therefore, he will not come.

I suspect these comments might well cause a bit of a stir but they come completely un-sourced. Perhaps it was a comment made during his stint as a commentator for Euro2008 for French TV but they sound quite untypical. It would be most unlike the boss to let all and sundry know his transfer plans so really, until we have a better idea of where and when he said this it'd be best not to get too stressed.

I think most fans agree the centre of our defence is somewhere we can improve next season, but while AW certainly identified our inability to defend long balls as a problem he didn't necessarily say he was going to buy a defender. Anyway, we'll wait and see.

This is London suggest we're going to stun United again with a move for Blackburn's Roque Santa Cruz. I'd link to it but that's really all the article says and the picture they use is frankly disgusting so you're better off without it.

The latest from Spain is that Arsenal are apparently playing hard ball with Barcelona over the price of Hleb and are using the interest from Bayern Munich to drive the price up. Apparently we know fine well that Hleb wants to leave but the player himself is happy for things to go nice and slowly because the agreement between himself and Barcelona is complete. The other main headline is the €40m price tag that Valencia have put on David Villa. Can't we give them Hleb and Eboue and Gallas and a few quid and a voucher for Hamleys? Can't we?!

Arsenal.com are currently counting down the top 50 Arsenal players of all time. At 36 and 35 are two of our greatest left backs, Kenny Sansom and Sammy Nelson (which is quite the tongue twister if you try and say that rapidly over and over again). I mention this only because Cuntley Cunt was in the list of nominated players and if Cuntley Cunt is higher up the list than either of those two then whoever is in charge of that list should be stripped naked, tarred, feathered and made run around the pitch pre-game with a sign saying 'I am so sorry, I am a cunt but not as big a cunt as Cuntley Cunt'. Just saying, like...

Gary Lewin confirms Eduardo could return in pre-season but says there are no time limits on his recovery. Best to err on the side of caution with this one, I feel. He also says Tomas Rosicky will be flying by pre-season. I've got to take my hat off to the Arsenal medical team. What do you do when you can't fix a player's hamstrings? Simple - attach a Jet-pack.

Eurowatch - it's all over for Philippe Senderos and the Swiss. Undone in the rain last night in the last minute of injury time with a deflected goal. Harsh, I thought, they deserved more from that game.

In the other game Portugal beat the Czech Republic 3-1 and it was then announced that Scolari would be the new Chelsea manager from July 1st. I hope he's just as successful with Chelsea as he has been with Portugal.

Arsenal interest in today's games is restricted to Jens Lehmann in goal for Germany as they take on Croatia in what is certainly the tastiest fixture of the day. Austria v Poland later this evening doesn't quite have the same appeal.

And that's that. More, and possibly an Arsecast, tomorrow. The Arsecast is doubtful with a thigh strain but it's just a precaution that we've taken it off the agenda.

*cough*

Well, anyone expecting a signing anytime soon looks set to be disappointed.

We've heard the name Samir Nasri so often in the last couple of weeks it's begun to stop making sense. Like if you say a word over and over again and it begins to sound ridiculous. The situation seemed to be that Nasri was pretty much a done deal, it was just a case of him putting pen to paper. However, Arsene Wenger, speaking to the French media, claimed that no deal would be done before the end of Euro2008 and hinted that money might be the issue. He said:

I hope I will do it after the Euros. It is more complicated now because the wage differences are not as big as they used to be.

Maybe Nasri and his people are thinking that a good showing at Euro2008 will increase his value and enable them to ask for higher wages from Arsenal. Or from other clubs. I'm not sure what the wages they pay in France has to do with anything though. The other complication surrounding this deal is the presence of Jean Pierre-Bernes, Nasri's agent. He was involved in the corruption surrounding Bernard Tapie's Marseille in the early 90s - at the time when Wenger was manager of Monaco. We know what AW thought of that, he's been quite outspoken about it and it wouldn't be a stretch to suggest there are some personal grievances there, for sure.

Would it be possible that Bernes would be so petty as to put the deal in jeopardy because of this? Frankly a football agent is capable of anything. Killing their own mum, devouring their young moments after being born, listening to Phil Collins music, anything. So this is well within the realms of possibility.

So, for the time being it looks like this one is on the back burner. I'm maintaining my transfer chill-out zone though, it's still way too early in the summer to get stressed about something like this.

Update: I have just been reliably informed that Arsene's comments about money were in relation to a separate question asked by journalists about how easy it was to buy players in France these days. It had nothing whatsoever to do with Nasri, and the hold up with the deal is not money related. It has more to do with some legal mumbo-jumbo. So there you go.

Meanwhile reports in Spain say Alexander Hleb, the one we thought Nasri would be replacing, is moving ever closer to a move to Barcelona, althoug there's nothing really new to report.

Ahead of Euro2008 Holland are waiting on the fitness of Robin van Persie. Now it's a whole nation rather than just Arsenal fans. I suspect they'll be waiting.

Yesterday's barely coherent report in the Telegraph about Arsene Wenger going to PSG was dismissed by the man himself. It wasn't supposed to happen until 2011 anyway so I don't know what all the fuss was about.

Right, at this early stage that's about it. It's another glorious day here, a bank holiday too. Till tomorrow.