Morning all, no shortage of material despite the fact the season has ended, so let's crack on into it.

Yesterday, Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis said the club had sufficient funds to invest this summer, qualifying that with the usual:

As always we'll only do this on our timescale, on the basis of our manager's assessments and not those of the media.

Parties involved in rumoured Cesc Fabregas transfer:

FC Barcelona, Arsenal FC, Cesc Fabregas

Look, this is one big game to Barcelona... they unsettle the player through the media and then swoop what better way to unsettle a transfer target than get their dad's comments widely reported in the press?

This is the rumour I saw this morning....

Gourcuff is supposedly going to sign for us on Monday morning for £21.8M, he will be followed by Subotic and Koscienly. It's even suggested that Diego Alves will also be joining us before the end of the transfer window.

Coquelin (loan) and Traore are suggested to be part of the Koscienly deal and I just hope Denilson is part of the Subotic deal or even the Alves deal, maybe Almería would like to swap Brazilians?

The Guardian has reported plans for the Premier League to create a play off system to determine who wins the fourth Champions League spot.

The plan is for the teams position between fourth and seventh place will take part in a play off, similar to the Football League promotion play offs, that are clearly very unfair, but are undoubtedly exciting.

All football fans, across the planet, love a player in their team who does nothing but terrorise the opposition, literally bully the life out them.

Harass the opponent, chase him down, force a mistake... and if all else fails, smash him to the ground.

In 18-year-old Frimpong, we have a cast iron certainty of a future fans favourite, the kid is 100% assured to be the dominant midfielder in our team for years to come.

Arsenal are building up some momentum. A hard fought win against Birmingham was followed by an emphatic one against Shakhtar. Subsequently, a massive win over City has put us in the second spot in the League and the vibes that were highly negative at the time of the last international break just after the defeat against Chelsea, are certainly quite positive.

After having him on loan in December 2008 and with the scouts monitoring him on a regular basis, Brazilian under17 International Wellington Silva has recently completed his move to The Gunners in a £3.5million deal. The player however will not arrive at the Emirates until January 2011, as rules state the player must stay at his club until he his 18.

It simply doesn't need repeating or emphasising, today's game is huge. Arsene reckons whoever he selects in goal today will be our no 1 for the season, so if it's Fabianski then I will be f*cking furious, I just hope and pray we see anyone else in goal other than the hapless Pole. Apparently the keeper will be selected based on pre season form, therefore if Arsene selects Fabianski on this

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Ever since Chamakh signed for Arsenal there has been a question, how will the Moroccan play with Van Persie in the same team. Arsene has in the past mentioned that he will look at various options including a change in formation, something that many fans have been demanding.

Intriguingly enough, we saw Van Persie in a deeper role against Wigan in the Carling Cup.

History tells us Wenger never gives up on his man.

Rosicky was monitored for a number of years, we missed signing him when he left Sparta Prague, in the Summer of 2001, for Germany.

AW finally cashed in on the Czech international during the Summer of 2006.

Felipe Melo is a player I personally rate very highly, he is obviously a player the manager also rates as he had a bid rejected by Fiorentina last Summer, before he moved to Juventus for close to £25M.

Far, far away from the land where torturous plastic blowing horns, also called vuvuzelas unleash a new form of mass destruction(United States, are you listening? Or does South Africa not have enough resources for you to plunder? Or was it just Bush?), in a sleepy village in Germany, BFZ times have uncovered an operation bigger than anything Manchester Shitty have tried to date.

The good news for Gooners is a deal has been ratified by all parties concerned, as predicted by yours truly earlier this Summer, for Cesc to join his beloved Barcelona in June 2011.

Fabregras will complete his last season as a player and captain of Arsenal Football Club this forthcoming term.

By Red Arse.

Here we are, at the beginning of a brand new season and Arsenal are already screwed!

What do you mean, you two-toed tosser? It's the beginning of the new season, isn't it? It's wonderful! It's fabulous! It's stupendously knee wobblingly fantastic for goodness sake!

As fans of a team that plays some amazing football, we are used to our players being kicked on the pitch and picking up all kinds of injuries. But the surprise I got today was of the worst kind. I was looking forward to watching Fabregas in action against Birmingham but Arsene has all but ruled it out.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger believes nerves was a factor on Saturday as his players faced Birmingham with no wins in their last three games. The Gunners produced a below-par performance but still managed to take all ...

It's Saturday but we'll have to wait another day for Arsenal's game. I'm planning to do the review only tomorrow, so today will be a non Manchester City related post. Let's look at what has been said in the past day.

What happened with Manchester United and Wayne Rooney showed just how well we did when one of our own was tempted to leave.

I'm not sure what many people understood from yesterday's article. So many felt that I was trying to claim Arsenal are far superior to Barcelona. Some tried to comment that almost every Barca player is better than his Arsenal counterpart.

Le Boss conveyed my thoughts with the perfect words in his press conference,

I do not deny their quality, because Barcelona have an exceptional team but we are an exceptional team as well.

There have been reports in the media since Wednesday's game claiming that Cesc's leg was broken by Craig Gardner against Birmingham, the weekend before the Barca game. Arsene has now come out to deny these claims that Cesc's leg was broken before the Barca game. I have to say that in my opinion Arsene is likely to be wrong and it is highly probable that the media rumours are right.

After watching this game, which was in some ways a reflection on the whole season, I feel there is a big market for a couple of books – Defending for Dummies & Refereeing for Dummies. I know some of you think there is just cause to throw in a free copy of Football Management for Dummies as well, but I'll resist that temptation.

The customary Cesc rumours have been gaining weight this week and reached a crescendo over the last 24 hours as a Guillem Balague article in the Spanish daily AS has been reported by all and sundry. Balague is supposedly one of the better journalists around but he hasn't explicitly mentioned his sources.

This has been one of my internet, blog world, pet hates for a while.

So now, with all this "Joe Cole is a Gooner" or "Joey the Gooner" baloney over the blog world, it's time to set something straight.

I totally respect all the newcomers to the World of Arsenal FC, the internet has done wonders for our following across the globe.

Emirates boss given chance to snap up top quality Dutch international.

Think Argentina will lift the World Cup? Bet with Betfair and get £25 free!

Quality CaughtOffside T-Shirts Available

Arsenal have reportedly been offered Dutch midfielder Rafael Van der Vaart.

Afternoon,

so with every minute ticking by we are getting closer and closer to Eduardo Da Silva being officially unveiled as a Shakhtar Donetsk player, the fee is agreed and the personal terms are the same as they currently are at Arsenal, he was in Colney yesterday undergoing a medical with four members of the Shakhtar medical team and there is a lot of noise suggesting that everything was fine and he passed with no problems at all.

Catalan C*nts

"..I do however have some interesting facts for you, which for some reason oblivious to me; have been hidden from the public domain. These facts include the following.."

Over the past month or so, we Gooners, have been at utter loss of words given the very nature of scathing verbose showered at Cesc, courtesy the courtesy-less Catalans (read: C*nts).

A quick post this morning, yours truly will be off within the hour, heading to the Emirates, to watch his beloved Arsenal take on the Italians from Milan.

The A.C variety of Milan is on the menu today, and the most fascinating weekend of pre-season football EVER to be seen at The Home of Football.

By now you must have read the most important statement of the summer, probably more than once. In case you haven't, it's available on the official website. I don't want to repeat the whole statement again so will just share the thoughts I had after reading the statement.

Firstly, I have to say I was really looking forward to what Cesc says.

Before the Blackburn game Fat Sam was trying to create some controversy by raising a 'British V Foreign' issue. I don't know how the topic of sharing a drink after the game came up but this is what the master of the primitive arts said,

He's [Wenger's] never been the type of man to do that and neither have most foreign coaches that have been here.

Exaggerate them, make them seem worse than they are, really stretch out the time it will take for the player to come back.

Why?

Is it not obvious?

This new Walcott injury and the manager's comments on the official website seem not quite fitting to me, on one hand the injury is not as bad as expected as the scan is clear, but then he says it will be up to 6 weeks till we see him again in an Arsenal shirt.

In the years gone by I'd have talked about Bolton with a degree of contempt in a manner similar to what I use for Stoke or Blackburn. This has changed somewhat since the appointment of Owen Coyle, one of the few English managers that I respect. Even then, and with due respect, I don't expect Bolton to be any different from the other mid-table teams that come to the Emirates.

In his press conference after the Braga game Arsene was asked if he expected Wilshere to play a central role so early in the season. In his usual forthright manner Arsene shared his wisdom,

Honestly, no. But football teaches you one thing be open-minded and never have a definite opinion.

Receiving an embarrassing defeat against West Brom at Emirates stadium last Saturday, Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, still try to keep the pressure away from his personnels as the coach refused to blame one or two players insisting that it's the whole team's mistakes.

Answering some critics that were being addressed to his keeper, Manuel Almunia, Wenger stated that he doesn't think that their defeat was caused only by Almunia's error but more of every part of the team that didn't play well.

The huge gulf in class between the two teams was eventually exposed as Arsenal won the game convincingly, albeit with a few hiccups along the way. For a while it looked much closer than it should have been, mainly due to the endeavour of the hosts, good goalkeeping, and profligacy of the Arsenal attackers.

The self-styled Special One has been mouthing off on Spanish TV, ahead of Sunday's all important London Derby between the Chavs of Pikesville and the Regal Reds of London N5.

He just cannot help himself can he?

Bitterness is a hard pill to swallow, so they say, and ever since Maureeno was booted out of London by the KGB back in September 2007, he has had it in for Wenger.

When Chelsea scored their second against Arsenal on Sunday, I squealed with excitement and jumped so high that I almost stuck my hand in the ceiling fan. Unadulterated delight. After such a feverish encounter, my eyes were blood shot and teary. Delight, but equally, conjunctivitis.

After a long time, it seems, a vast majority of Gooners actually want a Keeper to stay at Arsenal. Many believed in young Wojciech largely based on glowing reports and rave reviews but his performance against Newcastle clearly showed he has the potential to be a future great.

Obviously, everyone is concerned about his contract situation as it expires at the end of this season.

UEFA website says Song and Arshavin have not travelled to Ukraine. We already knew Cesc was going to miss this game and none of those who were unavailable before the West Ham derby are back. According to John Cross even Denilson has not travelled.

It will be very interesting to see the team Arsene puts out.

Firstly, let me just say congratulations to Braga for believing in themselves, playing with a plan, and taking their chances. It was an excellent display of disciplined defending and counter-attacking football by the home side that fully deserves the three points.

Secondly, I'm a bit concerned that refereeing in Europe is slowly going the English way in terms of tolerating dangerous physical play.

The Arsenal and Wales midfielder Aaron Ramsey may have spent nine months recovering from the broken leg sustained by that famous challenge by Ryan Shawcross, but he now believes that his rehabilitation is nearly complete. Arsene Wenger surprisingly allowed him to go out on loan to Championship side Nottingham Forest after playing just 45 minutes for [.