As I sit watching FC Basel in Swiss cup beating their fierce rivals, FC Zurich, 4-1 at home it's good to see club football back on. Tomorrow I'm off to my Bundesliga game at SC Freiburg who take on Werder Bremen. Bremen are in 2nd place and Freiburg are just above the relegation scrap but we can hope. Anyway it's my favourite league with cheap tickets, standing on the terrace and drinking a beer! It also means that by the end of the weekend wenwill have had enough referee controversy to confine the Ireland game to history! Bis Bald

I do remember that we bought our own little Super Swede from an Italian club, Cremonese, but I had no idea that he actually also played for that strangest of named clubs, Young Boys of Bern. In fact, at the time of playing in Switzerland (88-89) it was a very cosmopolitan league with some half decent players, even if many had seen their best days. It was so competitive that the mighty (okay imagine it if you can) clubs like FC Basel and FC Zurich were in the second division. Ottmar Hizfeld even cut his managerial teeth here before moving on to win Champions Leagues and returning to manage the Swiss national side this year. All of this came from WSC273 - so get it for a read and ignore the normal football media during the Interlull.

At the very least it got me thinking of one of my all time favourite Arsenal goals....

Our game yesterday seemed to encapsulate much of what has been going on during most Premier League matches so far this season. Apparently the Premier League has seen the highest "goals per game" average in its entire history as well as being the highest of all the major European leagues. So as much as we have one or two concerns regarding our defensive capabilities it's good to know that this seems to be a disease affecting most, if not all, clubs including the other "big 4" teams. Combined with the fact that we have the greatest array of attacking talents that this club has ever seen then we can surely cash in this. However, if our attacking players have an off day (which we've seen before) then those are the days that we do have to defend slightly better than yesterday but it ain't going to be boring.

Watching the game against Blackburn was both enthralling (80% of the game) and quite scary (the other 20%) for a wonderful 90 minutes. I read somewhere that a reporter felt very sorry for Alexander Song because apart from the four defenders and the goalkeeper, everyone else on the team only has a desire to attack and certainly not defend. I think the reporter got that wrong since it seems Vermaelen, Clichy and Sagna seem more intent on supporting the attack at various stages too! I wonder what George Graham thinks when he watches us play now.....

The great thing about this is that whilst you can work on the team concentrating and the art of tracking back you cannot teach the technique, passing, movement and football genius that is endemic amongst Fabregas, Van Persie, Rosicky, Arshavin, Walcott and Bendtner. It's obvious we haven't quite got the balance right just yet but I'd rather be watching this team develop than any other team on the planet at the moment. Is there anyone who could possibly begrudge spending the price of an admission ticket for most of our games.

Like Arseblogger said today we have a lot of pent up articles to write on how we can improve as the two week interlull starts today. Let's just start the week with a few prayers, rabbit feet and finger corssing that all our players come back uninjured.

On the Swiss side of things Basel learnt from watching us I believe and won 5-0 too! However, this was marred by violence by Basel fans.

As the final ball was kicked in our pre-season friendly last night (nope I didn't watch it either) all of our thoughts can now be focused on our rather treacherous looking opening 6 games of the season. It's been a long time since we had such a difficult opening and, as with most seasons, it's even more difficult to pick how we might fare in all or any of them. I'm back for the Portsmouth game (the so-called easy game) and have also booked all my flights back up until Christmas (so I've managed to get back for Spurs this year). The only problem, from a personal perspective as well as a football one, is the Celtic game. Lose that and we suffer huge confidence problems as well as players not appearing in the CL and moaning to agents but, more importantly, we end up playing on Thursday nights and Sundays, buggering up my pre booked trips home! So for no other reason than that I expect nothing less than 100% in the Anglo-Scottish games. Today is the big game in Basel, the home team playing its arch rivals FC Zurich (3 years ago there was actually a riot after a FCB-FCZ game!) and I'll keep an eye on that, an eye on the Charity Shield and more eyes on my beer whilst down the pub.. Cheers!

I think that there is something seriously wrong with football being played in temperatures of 30 deg+ or when you're just settling down to watch the first test of an Ashes series. I can understand the Swiss not really being preoccupied with cricket but the Tour is only in its second week and the temperature is far too hot for football. It certainly didn't do my local team, FC Basel, any favours as they managed to lose their first game away to newly promoted St Gallen. One thing they still have out here is the good old "football special". I saw the Basel one on Sunday as I was cycling home from a ride and the fans had the beer cases, the scarves and just did not realise their first game optimism was seriously misplaced!

Meanwhile I've just seen two Man City stories, the first regarding an alleged interest in Adebayor and the second, more recent, that they have signed Tevez. If the second is confirmed then I guess the first rumour is probably false as they can't keep on buying every forward around can they? It seems a shame from one perspective as Adebayor and City are made for each other with their love of cash and lots of it.

I had been hoping that I would be back home today nice and early, ready to write a little about a certain event 20 years ago today. However, Easyjet conspired to delay my plane for three hours which whilst not the end of the world was not helped by sitting in an airport lounge with 100s of Welsh and West Country Mancs all travelling to Italy!

As a result I'm completely knackered after an exceptionally good weekend back in the UK and have little energy to blog anything of any consequence. However, I did spot one rather fanciful story in the Swiss media today (whilst checking emails) regarding a possible move of Sol Campbell to FC Basel of all places. Whether it'strue or not I think at 37 he could still play in the Swiss League!

As the league season drags its heels into the last week of an incredibly frustrating nine months there is little to inspire or interest us gooners. We want Roy Hodgson's Fulham to pip Spurs next week for the much coveted 7th place and a spot in the really, really, popular Europa League!!!! Of course, if by some chance Spurs get in it they will spend all next season moaning about how they didn't really want to be in it in the first place and Harry wants to give his U17 team a go in this prestigious competition.

Meanwhile my attention has been attracted by a) the incredibly interesting Bundesliga where 4 teams can still win the league and b) Basel's win today at Zurich that gives them a chance of retaining their title and that was something that looked highly unlikely a few weeks back.

I shall continue to have no interest in anything that Adebayor feels he needs to talk to anyone about...

I caught sight of this rather stupid statistical analysis of the world's best strikers whilst browsing around this morning. The article in the Telegraph highlighted the fact that this survey (carried out by some organisation entitled www.imscouting.com (so good a site they have an introduction from Pini Zahavi, dodgy agent) had found the best strikers int he world......

It seems that according to this study and in light of our current (interlull created) striker injury list this is the list to be perusing whilst thinking of new strikers for next season. It's bad enough that two Austrian strikers make the list but Scott Chipperfield of Basel!! He may well be a hero for the young Basel kids watching from the terraces at St Jakobs but he's 33 and I've seen him play a bit - he might, just might, get into a side like Coventry or Southampton (randomly chosen average to poor Championships sides) and not the list of top 10 strikers. Especially as he usually plays wide right midfield!

Do you think clubs or managers actually get taken in by these statistics? That's probably a rhetorical question as there are too many stupid chairmen/managers and fans who are quite willing to be gullible enough.

A few Arsenal fans have been saying (me amongst them) that Villa have had their fair share of luck in their recent performances and to a small extent that may be true but as Gary Player once said, "the more I practice the luckier I seem to get". So whatever luck they've had (or not) they are in a deserved position and leaves us (as we stand) with the intriguing possibility of a three way fight for fourth with us, Chelsea and Liverpool. As it stands none of them are in great form and it could even be that Everton sneak up as well.

What's quite odd is the media's incredulous dismissal of Aston Villa, unbeaten in ages, seven staright away wins and yet they a still have no chance of the title and only an outside chance of a top four finish. It seems they've refused to listen to the media and I for one say well played and I would, of course, much rather finish in the top 4 with one of either Liverpool or Chelsea outside.

This means, of course, that we need to win tomorrow for more than just the bragging rights and I'm not thinking it will be easy and I've not got too many good vibes about tomorrow. I just feel when there's a chance of him being found out, Harry Redknapp conjures up some luck from somewhere - I hope I'm wrong. 

Not much better for  FC Basel who staged a comeback today to get back to 2-2 after being 2-0 down to the Young Boys and then lost it in the last couple of minutes!

In those mad last few hours of the TW on Monday many rumours were heard or imagined as to why the whole saga took so long. Today we've heard that (graciously!) the other Premier League clubs think the deal was okay but what tipped the balance was when the truth came out as to the Russian's true reasons for coming to Arsenal and England in particular.

We can see below that Arshavin loves a good sing song and felt that England (in particular, London) offered great opportunities for knees up around the piano and with a plethora of Pop Idol and other such talent(less) shows he would get  plenty of chances to show us his true talent as a singer. We just hope Arsene has Simon Cowell's number..