Well, not in so many words, but the Spuds manager talked about the problems he has been facing on the club's tour of America and we can pretty much see it's not a good idea.

Speaking about the training sessions he said,

I would be a liar if I said it was the perfect way to prepare for the new season, because it is not.

Man Utd recently published a summary of their 2009 financial statements. I thought it will be interesting to look at how the clubs compare financially. Since their summary is only a two page document it's not possible to do a detailed analysis but we can definitely compare the incomes of the two clubs.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we will need a positive contribution from Denilson at some stage in the title race and the young Brazilian will have to raise his game. Song's suspension and Fabregas' injury gave him the opportunity sooner than I'd expected.

So, how has Denilson done in the last couple of weeks?

This day will probably go down as one of the most sensational in World Cup history. In any other domain apart from sport heaping such agony and heartbreak on a country/continent would probably be considered a criminal or terrorist act.

Netherlands beating Brazil was an upset of sorts but it can't be called a shocker.

I hope Ramsey recovers soon and his injury won't be as serious as that of Eduardo or RvP. There isn't much I can do for him so I'll just pray and hope. The injury was really bad so I don't want to dwell on it too much right now.

The team responded brilliantly and the spirit was phenomenal. Hats off to each and every one of them.

Three weeks ago I wrote, Inter do to Chelsea, what the Blues do to us! I could easily repeat the headline for this game as well. That would be pointless though, what's the use of repeating the obvious.

I do have a few other observations and it's better to run through them. Before I do that, let me preface this article with the fact that I'm truly delighted Chelsea have been dumped out of the Champions League and this article is not an attempt to defend a Russian billionaire's plaything.

The World Cup is finally coming to life. I was hoping for an exciting game between Argentina and Korea and Maradona's team didn't disappoint. South Korea tried to follow the Switzerland blueprint but Messi taught his Barca teammates a lesson or two in breaking resolute defences.

In fairness, the Koreans weren't as well organized as Hitzfeld's team and the own goal didn't help their cause.

As per the new regulations all the clubs have now announced their 25 player squads along with a long list of U-21 players who've been registered so that they are eligible to play in the Premier League just in case. You can see complete details of the squad lists and junior players of all the 20 clubs on the official site.

I've been enjoying the stories coming out of Manchester United in the last couple of days. Right from the start of the season we could sense that something was not right at Old Trafford and now we're getting a good idea why.

First it was Fergie who came out with some very harsh comments about Rooney.

I was bemused when I read the news that Robin van Persie has been called up to the Dutch national squad. I'm not even sure he is in full training yet and can't see the reason for this inclusion.

It seems Holland manager Bert van Marwijk has done a Jekyll and Hyde act here. I really liked the fact that De Jong has not been called up, in some ways it's an extension of the ban voluntarily imposed on him by his national manager.

England were booed off once again after another uninspiring performance. I don't really care for the English football team so never feel strongly enough but they do get really boring at times.

I'm not sure if this is down to the manager or the general approach to football in England. I'd love to know what Capello truly thinks about English football.

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.

Rafa Benitez is a very good manager. He's won the Champions League, UEFA Cup, La Liga, FA Cup, and probably a number of other less significant titles. If my memory serves me right the Spaniard also had the upper hand in his battles with the Dark Lord of Anti-Football when the Portuguese was at Chelsea.

The season is over and after a roller coaster journey with some highs and just as many lows we've come to a full stop at third place. It's better than 17 other teams in the League yet two short of where we really want to be. Arsene told us we should judge him in May and that's just what we are going to do.

Arsenal players put in good performances at the World Cup today. Van Persie picked up an assist, Bendtner scored a nice goal and should have had an assist (don't know why he isn't credited with one) and Song worked hard in midfield and deserved more from the game.

The day started with Holland taking on Japan.

I was waiting for the announcement of the Koscielny signing before writing this piece. But given our recent trend I'm not sure how long this is going to take so it's better to discuss this topic with the assumption that we will be signing Koscielny.

Gallas, Campbell, Silvestre and Senderos are all on their way out.

I'm delighted Spain won the World Cup. As I've often said in the past, along with Argentina, they are the team I most like to watch. And for once there can be no arguments the best team won the championship.

I can understand that people find the behaviour of Barcelona players and management to be despicable.

Normally, I don't have the time to watch the games of other teams. It was only when I saw this post on Another Arsenal Blog that I discovered Ben Arfa was the latest to join the list of broken legs. Nigel De Jong of the Kung-Fu kick on Alonso in the World Cup final fame being the culprit.

You can see the tackle in the following videos from youtube.

While Gooners disagree on many issues, I think our weakness of conceding counter-attacks, often from good attacking positions, is something many agree on.

Since this international break is boring the life out of me, I thought it will be worthwhile discussing why we are so vulnerable to the counter.

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.

I was looking at some statistics and the passing stats interested me. I think Arsenal games can be classified based on these numbers. It's more of a post game classification rather than a pre-game one, although it wont be difficult to predict in many cases.

First up are the games we dominate

(c) DesiGunner

Amongst our recent games, the wins over Portsmouth, Hull and Stoke are in this category.

I guess most of us were worried about losing Song to the Africa Cup of Nations. Now that he is back and I am assuming he will play against United, it is worthwhile taking a look at just how badly did we miss the Cameroon hard-man.

Song left for Angola after helping us win the Cup tie at West Ham.

On a weekend when the best games on TV are Bolton V Tottenham and Napoli V Inter, I just have to find other ways of amusing myself. As regular readers will know one of these ways is playing with numbers. So here I am at it again.

Did you know that Chelsea have conceded first in 8 or their 26 games while Arsenal have conceded in 9 and United in 10?

It's been two days now. The Ramsey injury has taken the spotlight away from a humiliating loss for the Chelsea Boys against the Men from Citeh. It has also taken some heat off JT and his sleazy teammates. Unfortunately, most people writing in the media have completely missed the point.

A young man has lost one year of his life and will probably never be the same again.

I'm probably a week late with this article, but so much has been going on that there just wasn't time to squeeze it in. This isn't directly relevant to Arsenal and thanks to Arsene I don't think we will ever be in such a situation at least during my life time. Portsmouth though, might still have a say in the title race when they host Chelsea.

I didn't think I'll get over the Birmingham sadness so soon. Yet, after a good night's sleep, I'm quite positive about the first leg of the quarter-final at the Emirates. Fabregas' injury worry does dampen the spirit but I'm sure he'll play if he can walk.

Part of my happiness is down to the position for position analysis that I did for this game.

Aaron Ramsey has finally come out in public with his opinion about the Shawcross tackle. Here is what the young Welshman said,

I remember it all, I don't believe he [Shawcross] wanted to break my leg, but I think he wanted to go through both the ball and me to take me out and make sure I felt the tackle.

When I did the position for position analysis before the Quater-Final first leg some people jumped on me simply because they had a different opinion. Probably the most controversial comparison was when I said Cesc was a better player than Xavi.

Now before I proceed further I would like to put it on record that I love watching Xavi and that he is an excellent player.

Let's forget the Barcelona games for the time being. Even if we focus on our league games before that in which we've had a good run of six wins and a draw, do you truly believe we have been anywhere close to our best?

I've a feeling that our attacking play has been rusty for quite some time now.

Bacary Sagna touched upon a topic that could be described as Wenger's Achilles' Heel. Here is what the French full back said,

Sometimes I think we play too much, We just want to do that and do not think about what is good for us sometimes we just need to cut out the football, stop playing for a bit and just consider what will help us achieve what we want.

I hate the self styled Special One. I've often called him the Dark Lord of anti-football, a man capable of taking all joy out of the beautiful game. Irrespective of how one might feel about him, no one can deny the tactical genius of the manager who must not be named.

I had mixed feelings about this semi-final.

The PFA Player of the Year awards are coming up. The shortlist is quite predictable. Cesc is up against Shrek, Drogba and Tevez and I believe El Capitan is by far the best player in that group.

No doubt all three strikers have been in great form and are the best players in top quality teams.

I never like the idea of missing an Arsenal game but somehow my luck has been more than favourable. Last year I missed the 0-0 at Old Trafford and this game turned out to be another borefest with the team from Manchester intent on getting a draw.

There's no point in going into the details of such a game but I'll mention a few observations

• City, who scored 3 at Old Trafford and 4 at Stamford Bridge, managed only 3 shots on goal in the whole game.

From a footballing point of view there isn't much left to look forward to as far as Arsenal fans are concerned . The couple of games left are mostly academic in nature. The season-end autopsy and transfer madness will get into top gear only after these games and that puts us in a state of limbo.

At such a time this Champions League semi-final clash comes as a respite.

The Home-Grown rule and the squad quota have come under the spotlight in recent times even though the initial announcements were made early in September 2009. The salient aspects of the new rules are as follows

• Teams will have to register squads of 25 players at the end of both transfer windows
• Eight of this 25 will have to be home grown i.

Sometime after the Blackburn loss Arsene was talking about our midfield,

I believe the midfield was not a problem this year because we created so many chances from midfield and we dominated nearly all the games in midfield. I don't think we had a big problem in there. I believe we had a problem of efficiency defensively.

We've scored 15 goals more than last season. Considering that and the fact that we were without our main striker for over 5 months and the first choice backup for over 4 months there would be a case that our attack was good and there aren't many problems or weaknesses.

However, I feel our attack could have been much better and in some ways could have helped our defence a lot more.

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.

I consider myself a die-hard football fan, yet I'm not sure if I want to take time out for this Champions League final. In my book it's the most important game on the planet and at the moment I don't feel any excitement or have any hopes that it will be a spectacle.

If you've been reading this blog on a regular basis you know my opinion about the Dark Lord and his tactics.

First of all, apologies for the vanishing act. The madness around the Cesc transfer got to me and I decided to limit my internet time for a few days.

For those who have been in England or who have been following the transfer stories regularly over the years the Cesc saga will be nothing new.