The long interview in The Independent by Arsene Wenger really does underline his approach at Arsenal. Even if you recognise the fact that he did, originally, often buy players at significant fees you always knew that he was more comfortable when developing talent rather than buying it. There are many out there, who we read on blogs or forums, that disagree and feel that we should spend,spend ,spend in order to be sure of challenging at the highest level. I don't think there is an actual right answer in that neither path is guaranteed to bring success - there are too many other variables. Look at Chelsea last year - how much have they spent and yet they didn't win a bean, though they came close.

The most significant part of the interview is the use of the word, "values", as it highlights what is more important than short term success or trophies or anything else to do with the club. If you don't stand for something more than just a football club then you will always view each season in a black and white manner - it's a success or a failure. I guess many season ticket holders, and yes I do have one, often feel that the large amount of money they have invested each year almost "demands" success. However, it doesn't work like that and we can dislike it or disagree with it (and feel free to express that opinion) but I still feel you have to give your support to those who are entrusted with the club.

To put the world of sport and football, in particular, in perspective it was saddening to read this morning that two Olympique Marseilles supporters were killed this morning whilst travelling by coach. Our thoughts go out to all their friends and family.

Having been busy with visitors this week has enabled me to miss all the dull action from the midweek games though the 2 young sons of my guests will probably want to watch some football at some point. However, waking up and quickly looking at the world it seems Arsenal have gone and bought a Manchester United player. Wow - I didn't see that one coming and I'm sure many fans will be wondering if this is Arsene's ONE signing that he has been going on about. Certainly doesn't fit the bill of a central midfielder but what do I know.

Anyway, it seems that Nasri managed to pull a "Ryan Giggs" and get himself withdrawn from the French team last night - about time we started doing this though, in all probability, he is actually injured and will unavailable for Rosicky length periods of time all season!

Unsurprisingly the French/Swiss papers are concentrating on either Olympics or last night's friendl games. France certainly had more joy than England with a 3-2 win in Sweden and the Swiss enjoyed a comfortable 4-1 win over the mighty Cyprus.

Anyway that's those games out of the way for at least 2 weeks then. Maybe we can talk about the more important matches for the rest of the week.

But I can't help but get fascinated by the golf majors, especially when the European players are doing so well and it takes your mind off the fact Arsenal seem to need to get George Graham, Liam Brady & Michael Thomas out of retirement for our weakened midfield.

It seems this topic (as always) is covered by the inimitable Arseblog but none of us really know what Arsene is planning or perhaps, more worringly (to some), what is behind the thought process. No one really knows if we have financial constraints (due to credit crunch, Highbury flat sales or is it a just a long term strategy) or if Arsene is planning to follow up the invincibles with the toddlers - a team so young that goes on to win the quadruple in nappies.

I don't know and though I care about the team I can't change any of these things and Monsieur Wenger has brought far too much pleasure to my watching of football that I'm not going to get all uppity or worried by it all.

The supposed "soon to be announced" transfer of the Swiss player (UK tabloid/broadsheet story) still has no wild headlines in the local press, despite the fact that any Swiss player going to a Premier League club is headline news.

Not much in the European press but I saw this just a minute a go - Ivan Campo to Ipswich which seems a strange ending to a career

Strangely last season when watching the FA Cup Final in a bar in Basel I ended up supporting Portsmouth purely for the services to Arsenal football club of Kanu, Campbell & Lauren (Diarra doesn't count - he's a pure c###). It now seems that Sunderland are attempting to be a low grade Portsmouth by taking the rejects from Tottenham - they've bought 2 and are still looking at others. I'm not sure what this says about Roy Keane's ambition for the wearside club! It will be interesting to see if these players can help stave off relegation battles this season.

The main story in the swiss press is the potential transfer of Philippe Senderos from us to Newcastle (for £7M can you believe), though it seems much ado about nothing if you see that the main source is the English press who've nothing better to do than start more "Arsenal in Crisis" stories. The main reason for running the story seems to be to ensure there is a rift between Wenger and the board where none exists - David Dein, for example, wouldn't want this to happen now, would he???

In Swiss football, Grasshoppers have made it into the second qualification round of the UEFA cup via the intertoto cup and Basel completed a comfortable third win out of three last night with an easy 2-0 home win over Bellinzona.

As many people who live far away from home know, it's relatively easy to catch up with football matches and news through a variety of different media. So living in Switzerland doesn't stop me getting coverage of the Premiership, for example, along with a lot of other football coverage from the various European TV broadcasters. International & Champions League games can be found on Swiss, French, German, Austrian and Italian TV here in Basel though you need to pay for PL games (either with the exported Sky box - no good for me due to a f##king huge tree behind my apartment, or cable/phone line services). However, one of the things I really miss is radio coverage - the BBC decree that their 5 live coverage of football (and many other sports) is limited to a UK audience only. The only exception is the TMS (Test Match Special for you non cricket lovers) broadcast which is still available world wide.

As a result of living abroad and loving radio broadcasts you get to search around for podcasts that give you a daily fix (and hopefully keep you amused) during the season. So here are my top 5 football related podcasts (not in a 1-5 order as I just can distinguish between them).....

• Fighting Talk - quiz show/comedy from 5 Live on a Saturday morning for most of the football season. 60 minutes of enjoyable fun each week.
• Arsecast - one from the distinguished Arseblogger, amusing features ("I Am Eboueeeeeee") and strong language (you may hear the c-word rather more than a sensitice soul would like) all about Arsenal.
• Guardian Football Weekly - if you are of the generation that remembers Channel 4's coverage of Italian football and can only think of James Richardson sitting outside a cafe with coffee and ice cream, this is for you
• 5 Live Football Daily - more newsy but gives a synopsis of the day's football news in a light 15-20 minute podcast...
• The Week in Football - another oleole podcast but with a broader European feel

Of course, there are countless other podcasts, some last a few weeks, some a few years and some, like Baker & Kelly, are excellent but disappear....

Make your own minds up and tell me of any others worth listening too...

that L'Equipe is convinced that Makele is leaving Chelsea (who are spending £80M on Kaka - so how's Kenyon's "we're going to break even by 2010 theory doing now then) to join PSG, who seem to be attempting to become a home for ageing ex-French internationals. Depending on his heart problem then they may even get Lilian Thuram as well. The biggest surprise of these stories is that it pushed the Tour De France of the front page and, therefore, denying Mark Cavendish yet another headline photograph!

Ex-Arsenal loanee Baptista is apparently not staying fro much longer at Real Madrid and is off to sunny Rome to join Roma. It's not that good for another old Arsenal player at Rennes, Sylvain Wiltord - who is not flavour of the month with his coach.

Meanwhile, here in Switzerland, the Super League kicked off last night with a 2-1 victory for last season's champions, FC Basel, over the runners up, Young Boys. Basel came from behind to start the season perfectly.

Those of you following your Premier League (or other major European league) teams will be thinking, possibly, of some pre-season friendly or just ignoring the transfer rumours emanating from around the globe. However, here in Switzerland, tonight sees the first game of the Axpo Super League season with a game between the top two from last season (and actually the title deciding last game of last year as well). FC Basel take on Young Boys in the televised (on free TV no less!!) Friday night opener. All of this just a mere 19 days (!!) after the Euro 2008 final. It won't be the first competitive game though as Bellinzona played in the first round of the UEFA Cup qualifiying competition last night, winning 1-0.

Meanwhile back in the land of transfer bollocks, L'Equipe leads with the probable transfer of Ludovic Giuly to PSG from Roma. They also mention the possibility (seriously!!) of Arshavin now being courted by Tottenham, maybe using money from the sale of Robbie Keane, can you really believe Liverpool want to pay £20M? You get the feeling old Arshavin will be staying in St Petersburg, having said he loves every club in Europe at some time or other.

Oh and the temporary railway station story, during Euro 2008 Swiss Railways (SBB) actually built a new train station to allow fans from the Pratteln Fan Campclose access to a train station. They put on extra trains as well to make all the guests feel comfortable too. Anyway, the station at Salina Raurica is now being demolished - only the Swiss would build and then demolish a train station I think.

Whilst writing this blog I'm acutely aware of the lack of time I'm leaving myself to buy my wife's birthday present. So if any mishap should befell my marriage I hope you all will be sympathetic to my plight.

The daily rumours from L'Equipe are the normal rubbish,  mentioning Ronaldinho's 72 hours to decide his future, that ill-fated USA teen sensation Freddy Adu could go to Monaco and some back tracking by Arshavin's agent about how his client loves Arsenal (that being the same love he had only for Barcelona last week - tsh!!).

The local paper, 20 Minuten, has stories regarding Beckenbauer having a strong belief in the World Cup takin gplace in South Africa in 2010 despite various scare stories.With the Swiss League due to start later this month ex-Nati goalkeeper, Jorg Steil, gives his opinions on the managers of the Axpo Super League teams and sees Christian Gross unsurpsrisingly as the best in the league.

Yep - just back from the Dentist and am sitting down trying to ignore the pain whilst watching the Tour. Dentists obviously have the same enjoyment of giving pain as journalists do with making bollocks up every day. Yesterday it was more Hleb and Adebayor rubbish - I refer you to the right honourable Arseblogger for a sane viewpoint.

There was also mention, yesterday, of the sad and inevitable demise of Ooh Aah Ray Parlour. One of my Season Ticket mates at Arsenal was his biggest fan and I believe he is now holding a week's mourning in honour of the "Romford Pele". Most people remember him for this goal against Chelsea but he was the symbol of the hard worker who can play with the greatly talented.

There's a BBC programme called "Click", it's a weekly tech show and only lasts around 20 minutes but can be interesting some weeks. Last week's show introduced a great little website animoto.com which allows you to create short 30 second long videos from photographs. Unfortunately, I can't seem to embed the javascript info to enable the video to be seen here directly, so here's a link to the video on YouTube.

(N.B. update - Here's the video embedded!)

Hope you liked it. Anyway , news from around these parts is quiet - you just don't get the millions of rumours (though L'Equipe likes to summarise them) that the English press seem to thrive on. L'Equipe reports on the ending of the saga of the transfer of Ben Arfa from Lyon to Marseilles. Whether this will actually result in official confirmation of the Nasri deal to Arsenal is still unclear.

Mind you 20 Minuten keeps on putting up little montages of images from Euro 2008, here's another good one, including this great and completely mandatory cow photo from Switzerland.

They also report the fact that, as of Monday, ex-World footballer of the year, Ronaldo, is now unemployed.