Morning, and we'll start with CEO Ivan Gazidis who says Arsenal must ... oh, wait. No need.

Let's move instead to Felipe Melo who, it seems, has signed for Juventus. This comes after yet more waffle from Fiorentina who spoke again of our interest and the deal seemingly on offer. Pantalones Calzone, the Fiorentina Sporting and Folded Over Pizza director, said:

Wenger wants to talk to me. I have no objection also because Eboue seems a valid swap.

Which all seemed very promising, particularly as he said no meetings with Juventus were planned at all. But obviously the stripy bastards got on the phone, did a deal and now it looks as if Melo will be announced officially there today. 

Oh well. I mean, if he wants to ignore Gilberto Silva and sign for a tiny club with no history who play in front of a half dozen people each weekend then there's not much we can do about that, is there? I suppose we'll wait for the official announcement from them but it looks like the game is up.

There were a lot of rumours yesterday about St Etienne's Blaise Matuidi being in town and discussing a move to us but rumours is all they are at this stage.

And in this crazy, topsy-turvy summer there was more confusion regarding Andrei Arshavin's relationship with agent Dennis Lachter. Arshavin apparently fired Lachter the other week but the agent has other ideas, saying:

We have a contract; this contract will be finished in one and a half years. Until then, I am the manager of Andrey Arshavin.

He sent me a letter, absolutely. Listen, it’s like entering a contract with Arsenal or anybody else; there are obligations. If you think that you can just cancel this formal relationship between two parties only because of a newborn baby it’s…what can you say…well you can’t do it. That’s it. I’m his agent.

He went on to say:

Arshavin for sale! Arshavin for sale! Get your Arshavin! Only £20m! Barcelona? That you? Fancy an Arshavin? Go on, you know you want to.

Strikes me agents are like ticks. I remember years ago, as young chap, playing gleefully in bails on hay one summer. You know the big huge ones rolled into massive wheels. Climb up. Jump off. Climb up. Jump off. Climb up. Jump off. Life was much more simple back then.

Of course the farmer was none too happy when his perfectly crafted wheel looked more like ... erm ... a load of hay scattered all over his field, but the point is when I got home, happy as anything after a good day's playing, I discovered ticks. Eating me. Bleurgh. And when you have ticks you have to get the whole lot of it out, if you just burst the bit full of blood and leave the head in it will keep chomping away at you. Especially the one positioned rather too close to one's vagi  .. I mean Johnson. 

Lachter is the tick still scoffing away at Arshavin. A letter merely removes the bloody sac but the head is still there. He needs a burning match to scorch the arse out of it. Metaphorically speaking of course. Erm, that all went a bit weird, but I'm sure you know what I mean. 

Anyway, Andrei was back in training yesterday, running about the place, stretching out with giant rubbers and playing with large balls. Seriously. You can check out the pictures of pre-season training on Arsenal.com

Notable appearances include Philippe Senderos, back from his loan spell at Milan, as well as Tomas Rosicky and Eduardo who we all hope can stay fit and make a real impact in the season ahead. It also looks as if some of the players, Adebayor, van Persie, Clichy, Sagna, Toure, Eboue and others have been given extended holidays, probably because of their involvement in end of season internationals.

Also, new boy Thomas Vermaelen looks tough, doesn't he? He definitely has the cold dead eyes of an assassin. I like it. 

Expect some more Cesc related crap to hit the wires later as El Mundo are running a big story this morning about how Barcelona's are going to sign either him or Ribery. They talk about how certain sources close to Arsenal say we'd be willing to let him go for €46m but Barcelona only want to pay €40m. Well, in that case they can go take a jump. Anyway, forewarned is forearmed and all that.

Beyond that not much happening so we'll leave it there for today. Till tomorrow.

In a summer when clubs and players have acted fairly appallingly to engineer transfers I find it rather heart-warming that we have a manager who not only doesn't engage in the same kind of tactics but who is brave enough to speak out against it.

I know that after three years without a trophy and almost over a week without making a signing himself Arsene has his critics amongst Arsenal fans but to man Arsenal fans should be right behind him when he says that big clubs need to act better. He says:

If you don't show respect to other clubs I think that football is moving in the wrong way. You cannot come out like Ramon Calderon has done at Real Madrid with Manchester United and tell them you cannot stop a player leaving.

You can destabilise any player in the world — that is irresponsible. Big clubs should set an example.

And it's not just Real Madrid, it's Barcelona that have done similar to Adebayor and Hleb while AC Milan used Vincenzo Morabito to mess with Adebayor's head. Now, I'm not foolish enough to think that Arsenal are whiter than white, but we do not engage in the same kind of media-led pursuits of players the way these clubs do.

The way Madrid have acted this summer over Ronaldo has been dreadful. It's been so bad that as an Arsenal fan I have sympathy for Man United. Of course the clubs like Arsenal and United aren't helped by the players and their agents who lose sight of the fact that they're already earning a fortune and everything they do is motivated entirely by greed. It's a sad situation really but unfortunately I don't see it changing any time soon. 

Wherever there is big money there are shysters and scum-sucking bottom-feeding cuntblisters like agents and an agent's job is to make his client money. It's not to say 'Well, you're actually earning good money here and for the sake of your football career I'd advise you to stay'. As long as agents are tolerated then things will never change. Ban all agents, that's what I say. If a player is too stupid to enter in wage negotiations, like every other person on the planet has to do themselves, then fuck them. 

One man who has certainly had his head turned by agents is Emmanuel Adebayor. The Guardian reports that in discussions yesterday he refused to commit to Arsenal, holding out for three times his current £35,000 a week salary. If that's really the case then fuck him. Absolutely fuck him. I'm tired of shit like this, just because you've scored a few goals one season does not mean you're a fucking superstar.

And to me it's obvious that Adebayor and his people have never been interested primarily in a wage rise at Arsenal. If he'd really wanted some more money they'd have gone and said 'Do you think that we could negotiate an improved contract for Adebayor based on his last season?' and there's every chance the club would have done that. When you walk in, just as the season is over, and blunderbuss a demand for £80,000+, knowing that the club has a wage structure, then it's just another way of making a transfer request. The worst thing is that no player will ever say they want to leave directly in case they lose their 'loyalty bonus' written into their contracts. Imagine. Loyalty bonus. It'd make you fucking cry.

So Adebayor's objective was never to get more money from Arsenal. It was to get a move to Barcelona or AC Milan. If Arsenal had capitulated and given him the cash then he'd have stayed, I think, because he probably likes it at Arsenal. He's a big personality, well liked by the other players and the staff, so either way is win-win for him. Now though, with interest from other clubs having cooled, perhaps the cast-iron guarantees his agent got from them not so cast-iron after all, he's stuck in a kind of limbo.

In one way I hope no move happens at all. It'd be sweet justice and hopefully it'd teach other players a valuable lesson. Watching Adebayor squirm as fans tell him what they think would be most enjoyable. On the other hand I'm loathe to keep someone who has acted in such a way and if the money came in and we had a decent replacement I'd flog him in a second. How he's fucked it up though. Well on his way to being a real fans favourite, still with work to do though, now he's just another cunt in a game full of them.

Bacary Sagna talks about his return and says his ankle is improving all the time. It's good to see him back as we really missed him at the tail-end of the last season.

The squad play a friendly against Hungarian side Szombathelyi this evening and the pre-season begins in earnest at the Austrian training camp. No doubt we'll get picture specials of them being put through their paces.

Other than that it's all quiet so I'll leave it there. More 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.