When Arsene decided not to re-enforce his midfield one of the reasons was the progress made by Arsenal's other Spanish youngster Fran Merida. Arsenal fans and coaches have been waiting for the youngster to make that final leap to the first team squad, with some coaches believing that he has the ability to be a better player than Cesc.

Emmanuel Adebayor has committed the ultimate sin. Leaving a big four club for a side with ambition to join the elite clubs in England. For this, and his actions on the pitch in Saturday's 4-2 City win at Eastlands, he must be banned for life from English football. Arsenal fans deserve justice.

The media has been castigating Arsene Wenger since he came to England over the lack of English players that have come through the Arsenal ranks during his spell at Arsenal.

In fact during this period both Ashley Cole and Kieran Gibbs have played regularly for Arsenal, in the same period there have been players coming through the ranks at Liverpool, Tottenham or Chelsea and Manchester United have Wes Brown to show for their great English academy.

Well, thanks to the fact that Sky Sports are a bunch of wankers and wanted to be able to show the goals from all the Carling Cup matches first, Arsenal fans globally were denied the chance to see the next generation dispatch West Brom (with a little help from a moment of madness from ex-Gunner Jerome Thomas - who elbowed Jack as well as slapping him - more on that later).

I feel like I should really log in here for an update of some description but there's not a whole lot to bat on about, as you are about to find out. All talk is of England's match tomorrow and as a result, the Arsenal blogs and Twitterers are all pretty quiet.

And as for England well as it's against Croatia, and it's a qualifier, it should be worth watching, but with no Arsenal involvement I always find it a bit tougher to get myself into a lather about.

With all the recent media attention on Eduardo he can expect to get an earful assuming he plays or is on the bench tonight at Wembley for Croatia against England.

Elsewhere Arsenal players are dotted around the globe playing for their various national teams in World Cup qualifiers. We can only hope that all return tomorrow and Friday unscathed and fighting fit for our visit to the City of Manchester Stadium (artfully titled "the Council House" by fans of the red half of Manchester) to play Citeh.

A message to a deluded mercenary.

Emmanuel Adebayor insists he 'can't regret' stamping on Robin van Persie because he did not intend to hurt his former Arsenal team-mate and says the abuse he received from Gunners fans forced him to reach breaking point.

The Football Association have hit Adebayorwith a three-match ban for violent conduct following an incident in Manchester City's 4-2 win over Arsenal last weekend.

Arsenal fans relationship with Adebayor was tenuous at the best of times. In his first one and half seasons most fans lambasted the Togo striker and then he struck gold. He scored goal after goal for Arsenal as we pursued the title.

At the end of the season just to prove that he had not quiet gauge the Arsenal fans, Adebayor and his agent spent the summer sending out signals that he wanted to leave for AC Milan or Barcelona.

Part IVa, My original trilogy has become rather drawn out and repeatedly rewritten because of the need to keep things current. In earlier sections I dealt with our Club, our Board and of course AW our manager. In turning to our squad, I have been forced to look at all the players available and the last instalment dealt with our prospective new Goalkeeping talents.

Too often last season Wenger deployed Bendtner as a wide player, whilst not in an orthodox left-wingers role, sufficiently wide to keep out of the penalty area. The same pattern has been repeated this season, resulting in the young Denmark striker pleading for Arsene to play him in a more central role.

I have to give Mark Hughes his due, Arsene Wenger couldn't get Adebayor to play like he did on Saturday even though he doubled his wages, as Johnny Lydon once wrote "Anger is an Energy" and it obviously motivated Ade into the best game he has ever played.
I was angry at first at his goal celebration, mainly because he should not have been on the pitch to score a goal, but now I think it is quite funny to think that us Arsenal fans caused him so much pain that he tried so hard to get one over on us.

Happy Friday one and all, hope you're well. A fair amount to get through and we'll start with the early team news ahead of tomorrow's game against Wigan.

The most likely returninantor is Robin van Persie who will shake off his knee problem while Andrei Arshavin has a 10% chance according to the boss.

Tonight sees Arsenal embark upon another Carling Cup campaign when we host West Brom at the Emirates. Injuries to key first team players mean that the likes of Bendtner will not be risked; neither will Rosicky's come back from injury be risked.

Wenger will choose a young team but included in the starting line will be players with both first-team and international experience.

The last time Arsenal faced Wigan Athletic the game will go down as the nadir for Eboue. He had a nightmare of a game and was booed by his own fans, to cap it all Wenger was forced to withdraw Eboue to save him from further torture. The Ivorian left the field in tears and was consoled by his team-mates.

Aw, sweet. Dennis Denilson and William Galgas are my favourite Arsenal players too! And Everton, you were completely DESTROYED - that's worse than being RAPED or OWNED, I understand - and your goal was tiny. [Thanks to Arseblog for...

It is International Week in the footballing world, and club matches, at least in Europe will not take place. The World Cup Qualifiers and Friendlies will take place this week. We bring you a list of Arsenal players representing their countries today (5th September):

• Cesc Fabregas (Spain) - Spain Vs Belgium (WCQ)

• Thomas Vermaelen (Belgium) - Spain Vs Belgium (WCQ)

• William Gallas, Abou Diaby, Gael Clichy, Bacary Sagna (France) - France Vs Romania (WCQ)

• Phillipe Senderos (Switzerland) - Switzerland Vs Greece (WCQ)

• Eduardo (Croatia) - Croatia Vs Belarus (WCQ)

• Tomas Rosicky (Czech Republic) - Slovakia Vs Czech Republic (WCQ)

• Robin van Persie (Netherlands) - Netherlands Vs Japan (Friendly)

• Nicklas Bendtner (Denmark) - Denmark Vs Portugal (WCQ)

• Andrei Arshavin (Russia) - Russia Vs Liechtenstein (WCQ)

• Alex Song (Cameroon) - Gabon Vs Cameroon (WCQ)

• Emmanuel Eboue (Ivory Coast) - Ivory Coast Vs Burkina Faso (WCQ)

• Wojciech Szczesny (Poland) - Poland Vs Northern Ireland (WCQ)

GO GUNNERS!

by CARL ELDRIDGE Nicklas Bendtner may well have looked pretty in pink but the most ardent Arsenalista out there must admit the great Dane didn't suit his outlandish footwear nor, indeed, did he live up such a flamboyant choice of footwear that often.

But fair play to Bendy boy, he has ditched the pink 'uns and you can buy them from him if you so desire because he is flogging them on eBay to raise cash for Danish charity.

We're yet to complete the first month of this new season, yet I believe tomorrow's game is a key one considering a defeat would see us trail the likes of Chelsea and/or Spurs by six points. I understand Manchester United and especially Liverpool are also trailing the leaders and have all the time in the world to recover, but back-to-back defeats against the two Manchester teams would be hard to recover from.

Tomorrow, when Arsenal will be facing Manchester City away from home, many will keep a close eye on Emmanuel Adebayor, an ex-Gunner who if rumours are to be believed, wanted to leave the North London club two years ago.

City manager Mark Hughes revealed the Togo International would "love" to find the net against his old club, adding Arsenal players are aware of how dangerous he can be.

By 1970's Gooner1. Heavy legs?What a pathetic performance by the Arsenal players in the first half. They could not find each other even with short passes, their free kicks and crosses rarely got past the first defender and their heavy legs never allowed them to play in a quick tempo. Cesc Fabregas was particularly guilty.

It was inevitable that the headlines this morning would be about Emmanuel Adebayor. However, while many of us thought it'd be because he scored a goal (ex-Arsenal players always score, dontcha know?), I doubt many of us thought Adebayor would sink to the depths he did yesterday.

I think the referees assessor needs to look very closely at Mark Clattenburg's performance yesterday because he allowed Adebayor to get away with an extremely nasty foul on Cesc in the first ten minutes.

by CARL ELDRIDGE As we know, Eduardo's two match ban has been overturned by Uefa and this morning's papers have plenty of coverage looking at the saga.

The Sun kicks off their report with the headline 'Ed Cases' and report that the world and his wife saw the little Crazilian make the most of it when he went down in the box against Celtic in the Champions League last month but that the Euro gaffers obviously didn't.

I went to the game on Saturday and decided to post some thoughts on the game as a travelling Gooner; there is only one place to start. Adebayor has now become the most hated figure amongst Arsenal fans, even more so than Ashley Cole. When Adebayor turned towards the Arsenal fans before his 90 yard gallop, he made himself enemy no.

Our second visit to Manchester has resulted in yet another undeserved defeat. The chances were there, the woodwork hit once again by van Persie, certain goal cleared off the line and once again another blatant penalty missed by the referee. The performances are there from the team, the chances are being created, what we are missing is that little bit of luck that is required.

Morning Insiders. Eldo71s' off to the Champions League match today for Arsenalinsider so your stuck with me again to bring you todays new round up and it's all about one person Adebayor. Comment invited below as always.

The Sun - Wenger won't let Manu off hook
ARSENE WENGER just could not get Emmanuel Adebayor out of his mind.

For more web comics on football, check out Studs Up by Chris Toy.
"Adebayor isn't done with Arsenal players yet" was originally published at Soccerlens.com - Football News.

Some people wanted a defender and a striker brought in in the summer, it looks like we got both in one Thomas Vermaelen.

Two fantastic goals, his third and fourth of the season for us pretty much secured the three points in a game where we were brilliant one minute and infuriatingly sloppy the next.

The Carling Cup game against West Brom the long awaited season debut of Carlos Vela. Vela was injured whilst away with Mexico missing most of the pre-season. Wenger obviously though that Carlos was not 100% and waited until midway through the second half before allowing the Mexican striker to make his season's bow in front of an admiring audience at the Emirates.

by CARL ELDRIDGE The majority of press coverage of the Arsenal this morning is obviously taken up by the 1-0 win at Fulham at Craven Cottage yesterday as you can imagine.

And it's young Gunners keeper Vito Mannone who gets rave reviews after an astounding performance kept Roy Hodgson's side at bay.

Arsenal fans have been crying out for a defensive midfielder ever since Vieira left this despite the fact that Vieira was not a defensive midfielder in the mould of Makelele. What Arsenal fans have really been looking for is a player to protect the defence and to dominate the midfield.

This season Wenger has realised that to give the defence the protection they need, we need to change formation, and we need to play 4-1-2-3.

Slowly, slowly Wenger is recovering his players. Rosicky came back and has played some football for us with no set-backs. Carlos Vela appeared and scored mid-week, so this give Arsene more choices up-front. Wenger has announced that both Walcott and Arshavin are back and though both may not play this week-end, the squad is looking stronger every week.

When Arsenal were drawn alongside Standard Liege, Olympiakos and AZ Alkmaar, fans could be forgiven for expecting easy qualification from Group H. Although still on course for this, the Arsenal players have been shown that they cannot assume the same complacency.

Standard Liege, although they were not a great side, showed that clubs are ready to give their all in the Champions League.