Arsene Wenger will be busy this summer in the transfer market, but when looks at bringing players in he has to negotiate carefully as there is a small army of Arsenal players who were scattered throughout Europe.

Of the players plying their trade, Pedro Botelho is the most likely player to make the Arsenal first team squad this season.

Arsene Wenger will be busy this summer in the transfer market, but when looks at bringing players in he has to negotiate carefully as there is a small army of Arsenal players who were scattered throughout Europe.

Of the players plying their trade, Pedro Botelho is the most likely player to make the Arsenal first team squad this season.

As the transfer rumour season gets under way, the press is busy slaughtering us for our lack of activity.
Well let's look at what has happened so far.

Liverpool have spent £20M on an England u-21 international, a player who is not as good as either Wilshere or Ramsey, so what did they expect us to do, spend money for the sake of spending money?

Gael Clichy is the first Arsenal player to leave the Emirates this summer, but he certainly will not be the last.

Clichy has signed a four-year deal with Premier League rivals Manchester City for a reported fee of £7m.

The defender, who joined the Gunners from French club Cannes in 2003, is City boss Roberto Mancini's first signing of the summer.

Every summer, there seem to be more and more quality players offloaded from the big spending clubs. As these big money clubs are constantly trying to make a splash in the transfer market, some really good players are often pushed out the door. I think this is happening more often now than ever, due to clubs like Man City, Chelsea, and the Spanish giants.

By Chris Wright

In which resident Arsenal japester Johan Djourou presents his teammates with a succession of various 'end of season' awards.

Things we learnt from the video:

1. Jack Wilshere is, indeed, a tiny human.

2. Wojciech Szczesny is a one-man comedy roadshow.

Fun fact: There are different types of pressing.

It could possibly seem common sense that the quicker the tempo the opposition attempts to play the ball around, the quicker opposition should press. Which usually can work quite well, except that Barcelona are far, far too good at keeping the ball, and exploiting the space left.

I spend much time discussing football with fans of other teams. Inevitably we play the "but he would never play in our team "game, and this could be the first of "How many Arsenal players would get in ......... first team"?

Let us look at the current leaders of the PL, Man Utd, taking what I believe to be Mr Wenger's first choice 11 v Aaron's view of the SAF's first choice.

He is talented but hugely unlikeable and not just because of his stint at Arsenal. I couldn't understand a word that came out his mouth during the World Cup when he was helping diversify the BBC's panel of pundits. He puts in 110% for a few games a season but is largely lazy. I think that pretty much sums up Emmanuel Adebayor.

Arsenal fans are gearing themselves for an influx of players, we are waiting with baited breath. We are also aware that the exodus from the Emirates will be a big one this summer. Players who have not made the grade, others who have not had the opportunity and some who think the grass is greener on the other side of the tracks.

The one signing Arsenal fans are waiting to hear happen is Samir Nasri signing a new contract.

In an interview with the club magazine, we do not know when this was done, Nasri certainly gave some strong hints that he will sign a new contract.

Nasri spoke about showing people that last season was not a one off, whilst this might be taken as a determination to prove himself to Arsenal fans, it can also be taken as he can perform well at another club.

Whilst Wenger is rightly pursuing additional centre-backs, there is one player on our books who is could do a job for us either this season failing that definitely next season (2012/13), that player is Kyle Bartley.

Bartley is a tall, strong, ball-playing, commanding centre half. He is 20 years old and 6ft 3" and English.

It's not time to panic, the transfer window does not officially open until 1st July, the season only finished 4 weeks ago, however, signs of a busy summer as stated by both Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis, we not seen.

Matters started well with Arsenal rumoured to have agreed a deal for Argentine winger Ricardo Alvarez.

3PM Extra: Watch Arsenal's brilliant Xmas ad, Ronaldinho showboating and an MLS fan almost lose her head

Presenting quality football videos from the interweb, daily at 3pm. Here's today's collection: 1) Not only have Arsenal players rediscovered their form on the pitch, but the marketing department is also going great guns off of it.

Arsenal striker Robin van Persie confessed the Arsenal players spoke about last season's disappointing 2-2 draw at Upton Park during last Saturday's half-time. The Dutchman was on target when the two teams faced each other in ...

I woke up this morning after another miserable sleep (my entire family has been sick all week) and patiently waited for the alarm to sound at 0530 hours. I then proceeded into my methodical habits for early morning Arsenal matches of slipping on whatever clothing was lying around, and immediately making a strong pot of coffee.

Arsene Wenger has talked a lot about tackling. Invariably the discussion gets hijacked by clueless hacks and pundits who convert that into an Arsenal V Rest of the League debate and take pride in highlighting one or two poor tackles by Arsenal players.

According to a number of morons who have the privilege of influencing public opinion, Arsenal are just as bad as any other team when it comes to tackling.

"It's a disgrace, it's a f***ing disgrace, those bloody foreign Arsenal players are a disgrace to the game of football".

Oh dear, twitter went a little bit crazy yesterday. Twitter always goes crazy whenever an Arsenal game is televised, particularly on ESPN, which seems to be an anti-Arsenal propaganda machine (not that I'm paranoid or anything).

Dare to speak up

Jack Wilshere has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the aftermath of the Arsenal-Newcastle game on Saturday. If you do not know yet, Wilshere tweeted after the game about how the referee was not consistent in his actions during the game. Pointing particularly to the incident in which Kevin Nolan grabbed the neck of Wojciech Szczesny but received no card whereas Abou Diaby saw red when he did the same to Joey Barton.

Click here to watch Arsenal v Barcelona Live!

As we build up to Wednesday's massive Arsenal v Barcelona match, here's a look at the some of the head 2 head stats between Barcelona and Arsenal players.

Robin van Persie v Lionel Messi

In Robin Van Persie, Arsenal have a striker in the form of his career, with the Dutchman netting a fantastic 10 goals in the league in 2011 so far.

After our loss at Manchester United, I found myself harbouring murderous thoughts towards Abou Diaby.

He was our worst player by quite a stretch (despite stiff competition from Gibbs and, later, Rosicky).

Every time the ball went to him he either killed the momentum of an Arsenal attack or lost the ball.

The scene was the ill-named lap of appreciation after Arsenal's last home game of the season against Aston Villa; a scene made far more modest than usual by the fact that large sections of the crowd felt it best to shower whatever appreciation necessary from the comfort of the tube station, parking garages or homes.

The media made a big fuss when Liverpool secured the signing of Jordan Henderson for a fee in the region of £20M from Sunderland. Some people even questioned whether Arsenal had been left behind in this deal. Arsenal fans remained silent, not out of shock at missing out on a good player, but because we all knew we had at least three British players on our books better than Henderson.

The annual Fabregas to Barcelona saga is full swing, but there is a difference. Barcelona are not prepared to pay anything near Cesc's true value.

Barcelona kicked off the Cesc transfer with a plea of poverty; they only have £45M to spend on all transfer activities. This was directed at the Arsenal board, because whilst the Catalan outfit pleased poverty to Arsenal, they were busy trying to sign Rossi from Villarreal for £40M, Alexis Sanchez from Udinese for £35M and now David Luiz from Chelsea for £25M.

Some transfer rumours are pure fabrication, some are speculation and a very few have genuine substance having said that, it is unwise to dismiss all the current stories surrounding Arsenal players when they stall over signing new contracts and are a year away from leaving on a free.

Make no mistake, Cesc wants to go to Barca and Clichy and Nasri are looking elsewhere for big money (and possibly the notion that they may be more likely to win trophies).

Being a Manchester United fan has obvious benefits. There's the trophies, the youth system, the stadium, the nice kit, the fact that you'll never struggle to see a game on television, and the lack of managerial turmoil. And the more of this you have, the easier it gets to take it all for granted even those who lived through the barren years will say silly things after a defeat at Anfield or a home draw against relegation fodder.

Saturday morning brings about more transfer rumours, speculation and heart-ache for Arsenal fans.

Samir Nasri is reported to have rejected Arsenal's new offer of £115K a week. This is on the back of some newspaper reports stating that Nasri's representatives having agreed a deal withManchesterCity.

Tears of joy from the masses

It's easy to predict Liverpool running all over Arsenal, what with all the Reds' new signings and the Gunners' injuries, suspensions, and defections. Both teams will be cautious as they try to gel and avoid slipping further behind Manchester Red and Manchester Blue.

Arsenal slip again as Wenger obsesses over wantaway players - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

As Arsenal players struggled to convince Scousers that losing is part of being a trendy North Londoner this weekend, you'd be forgiven for asking exactly where all the adversity came from. A team carrying Robin Van Persie, Andrei Arshavin and Thomas Vermaelen shouldn't struggle very often, yet it couldn't pull away from a team containing Charlie Adam.

Ok, before getting into the match analysis I just want to congratulate Blackburn Rovers and Steve Kean. They worked hard, took whatever came their way, and fully deserve to move up from the bottom of the table.

Now let's get on with Arsenal. What does one say after a performance like that?

Another day at Manchester City's training ground, another bust up. Former Arsenal players, Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor, had to be dragged apart by their team mates, with another former Goon, Patrick Vieira, giving Adebayor a talking to.

But this is totally normal, k? This happens on training grounds up and down the country every day, alright?

Not quite the game I wanted to see and certainly not the result.

Leeds United came with a plan and stuck to it. In some ways it was similar to what Newcastle did at the Emirates. The visitors went tight on each man and reduced the passing options. They pressed well and in coordination. The Arsenal players were able to move the ball at the back but weren't able to penetrate the lines with any sort of consistency.

For anyone who might have missed it, Theo Walcott had this to say after Arsenal's FA Cup third round match against Leeds:

"I want to apologise to the managers because I actually dived. I was trying to win the penalty.

"I had a little joke with the referee afterwards saying ‘that was my first dive, can you tell?

A couple of items today:

First, Cesc Fabregas has withdrawn from Spain's midweek international match with a virus. Robin van Persie has withdrawn from Holland's midweek match with the flu, and Gibbs has withdrawn from the England match with an unspecified "minor injury." I hope everyone is okay and they all get lots of rest ahead of next week's league match against Wolves.

The recent comments by Theo Walcott that he actually benefited from missing the World Cup last summer show how much pressure Arsenal players are under. Many of Arsenal's top players are regulars for their country and have to fit in international matches in between their already busy club schedule.

How will the Arsenal players bounce back from Tuesday's disappointing Champions League exit? Will we respond positively by producing a top-class performance at Old Trafford? We will soon find out. As always, please find below links ...

Do we have to consider of adding a new centre back every time we concede a goal from set-pieces? Arsene must sort this problem out before next season starts or there will be no more trophies for Arsenal. Every time we sign new players, still the problem occurs. We now do have aerial winners at front but our crosses are mostly poor.

Do we have to consider of adding a new centre back every time we concede a goal from set-pieces? Arsene must sort this problem out before next season starts or there will be no more trophies for Arsenal. Every time we sign new players, still the problem occurs. We now do have aerial winners at front but our crosses are mostly poor.

It's been interesting reading some of the recent transfer stuff in the last few weeks, not because I believe anything I read in some of the so called 'news' papers, but because so much of it has been either completely contradictory or completely made up. One of the worst things about all this guff is that some rather angry fans have been launching into attacking certain Arsenal players for no

Another transfer window means will Cesc go or will he stay. This is become repetitive and tedious. Many Arsenal fans are sick and tired of the annual Barcelona attempt to poach our captain for nothing!

Last summer was the summer we all thought Cesc would leave, he even asked to leave and told Arsene to his face he wanted to leave, or so the stories go.