I've just seen the highlights of the last round of La Liga games and as it seems to be a hot bed of ex-Arsenal players at the moment and I have to blog about anything other than Eboué here are some thoughts on what I saw/heard.

At Villereal there are two old gooners, one we all know about and wish he was still at Arsenal (or had at least stayed on a while longer) and there's Pascal Cygan too. Our long lost friend Robert Pires scored an extremely strange goal (after 0.45) in a 3-3 draw after being 0-3 down. Our old and not so  missed French centre half wasn't playing and after his two mistakes last week I'm not too surprised.

Meanwhile over at the Camp Nou our top goal scorer seems to have finally made a real impact with a hat trick against Valencia for Barcelona. Henry was, of course, helped by that ex-gooner who divided (and still does) opinion whilst at Arsenal, Hleb. He did manage to show glimpses of his Arsenal form by finding himself one on one and never looking like scoring!

Oh and one other strange North London to Spain bombshell, Ramos to Real Madrid - blimey I didn't realise that they rewarded such incompetence so highly.

It would be easy to ignore International weeks as an inconvenient blip in the search for glory of your own club side and generally I'm never that impressed with either the quality or excitement provided by International sides at this stage of the season. However, sitting down on a Saturday evening in Switzerland I had the opportunity to watch SIX games live through various channels and what did I learn....

Firstly the games I could watch were: 1) England v Kazahkstan 2) Switzerland v Latvia 3) Serbia v Lithuania 4) Germany v Russia 5) Roumania v France & 6) Bulgaria v Italy and what did I witness.

Well I learnt that:

1) A football fan will watch any game at any time as long as it is interesting and/or exciting which in the case of Roumania v France it certainly was. 2-0 down after 17 minutes France managed to get a draw.

2) Italian commentary is still the best to listen to even if you have no understanding of their language

3) As much as I hate Ashley Cole from an Arsenal perspective, booing a player whose team you've come to support (and after one mistake) is wrong, very wrong

4)How did Lithuania get to the top of their group considering they lost 3-0 tonight.

5)There haven't been many better long range goals than the French equaliser from Gourcuff this evening - watch it if you can...

Oh and one extra thing, Thierry Henry looks old now, don't know why but he just does..

Oh well it was a dream that lasted all of 2 games as Basel now have to play their next two games against Barcelona having got a big great zero points in their campaign so far. Miracles can, of course, happen and maybe Messi won't play in either game as it seems, on the evidence of last night, that he is the absolute key to their season. They have a guy who plays at 14 and he looks a bit like a really good player that used to be at Arsenal. However, that's where the resemblance ends as this player would struggle to get into the Spurs side at the moment. He does seem to be blaming his poor form all on the fact he's not living in London anymore.... Well you wanted to move there and c'est la vie as they say.

In the UK I know that Sky show all eight Champions League games via their Sky Active service, allowing any viewer to switch games at will but it was always quite hard to see all games and see al the goals as they happened. What they need was commentary to interrupt a game when a goal was scored at another game. Well, here in Switzerland, I get access to the German coverage provided by Premier (called Teleclub here) and they offer all the games on individal channels PLUS this service called "The Konferenz". On this channel they go from game to game (a bit liek Radio 5 used to be with Saturday commentary) but then you suddenly hear, "Tor Madrid", and off we go to Athletico Madrid to see the goal (or penalty/red card etc). Each time the coverage switches (when there is no goal) they try to show key chances or misses. It works really well and saves me having to channel hop! Apparently they do it for their Bundesliga coverage and I wonder if Sky will try this style of coverage at some stage?

As you probably know by now it seems that Arsenal have confirmed that Adebayor has signed a new contract. Now I'm pretty sure he did that last year and then spent most of the summer saying he wanted to leave (or words to that effect) so that leaves two questions. Was it all a ruse to get a better contract and will it all start all over again next July? What I don't understand is the sub headline in the reporting of this story on the Guardian website, how can they say without having a very large tongue in their cheek, "Deal puts an end to speculation linking striker with move abroad".

Erm - yes that's about as concrete as Ronaldo's contract (oops) or, maybe, Fat Frank's new one - they are meaningless bits of paper so let's just move on.

I guess everyone out in ole ole land is getting suitably non excited by the midweek International friendlies that are taking place. I've found some Arsenal news (sort of) as France are thinking of making Thierry Henry captain with the alternative William Gallas - all I can say is that I wish them all the best with that choice! It also seems that due to injuries in the French squad that Nasri is a certainty, so there's another injury for us waiting to happen. The lad himself has some words to say of his arrival at the club on the training, stadium and his debut - he sounds a good lad.

This is not particularly meant to be a dig at Adebayor and Adebayor alone but can we make kissing a badge a red card offence. The problem is, that despite the possible good intentions behind the gesture, you know that any badge kissing is a meaningless and possibly, even offensive act that has probably been scripted before the match by player, agent and PR representative - well, maybe.

Do you remember the 1970s/80s when players stayed at clubs for a whole career, however long that may have been. In fact, because of wages at the time, if a player had been at a club for 7-8 years he would never leave because of the chance to get the lucrative testimonial you could get at 10 years service. That testimonial could give a player a nice little retirement fund, something that today's footballers really should have no need for, provided they don't waste it on bling & cars. (N.B. Villa attempted to court Barry with the promise of a Testimonial but they are taxed these days and aren't so valuable)

As a result I wonder what we can expect, in terms of player loyalty. Is staying for a period of time, say 5 years, loyalty enough or, is it, more to do with the manner of leaving (or attempting to leave) or maybe where the player goes. Of recent ex- Arsenal players, only good old Ashley Cole is really hated and it's not because of his time at Arsenal but his love of lucre (and his pathetic attempts to portray himself as hard done by) from a rather tainted blue source. Some players leave at the right time (Henry, Vieira, etc) and some are just professional players with no ties to the club who exploit the end of contract scenario - see Flamini and Edu, though strangely Edu left with fans loving him and Flamini is seen as more of a villain....

Whatever loyalty is these days some agents should really talk to their "clients" and advise against kissing badges and concentrate on being the best professional they can be - fans will respect that and, maybe, even be capable of letting you go on your terms.

Anyway, one thing is for sure, there will never be a worse or unloyal player than Frank Stapleton and, no, I won't forgive him, ever....

One of the really useful bits to the profile page provided by oleole.com is the ability to see the most recent blogs/photos etc that have been posted in relation to your team(s). It's worth having a look at some of them, you may not agree with what people say or think but, hey, this is the new world of Blog space and it can be inhabited by a wide array of opinions. If you don't like someone's views then just ignore them - it's not worth getting worked up about.

The recent blogs seem to be of the relatively sensible what will be will be(Arseblog), we have to win something this year or else (Blog, my arse), the ramblings about a club e-mail (Bastin178)and comments on new signings (the Gooner Guru). Someone has to see that you get a tiny bit of recognition...

In the media world, L'Equipe seems to think that the PSG home for the elderly will now be joined by Eidur Gudjohnsen so we just need it to move to Eastbourne I think. Apparently Thierry Henry is going to live a year rich in goals according to the French paper. The new Barcelona coach is making him the main front man even if they are searching for another striker.

Locally, tonight sees the second round of Swiss Super League games begin, with current champions, Basel, taking on Grasshoppers for their first home game of the season.