Finishing up our "what did we miss out on?" series today:

FELIPE MELO Arsenal were probably linked with Felipe Melo this summer more than any other player. The biggest difference between Arsenal's 2007-2008 season and our 2008-2009 season, which saw the club take a large step backwards, was the absence of Mathieu Flamini.

Part II of our "What did we miss out on?" series continues today:

EDIN DZEKO Arsenal were heavily linked with the 23 year-old Bosnian striker early in the transfer window. He was coming off of a wonderful season in the Bundesliga, in which he led Wolfsburg to a surprise championship and led the league in goals, with a phenomenal 26 strikes in 29 appearances.

Did you ever do that thing where you meet a girl (or guy, if you're one of my female or nontraditional male readers), strike up a conversation, realize she's kind of into you, but then for whatever reason, you decide not to make your move? And then, a couple months or years later, you meet a guy who either is dating her or dated her for a while?

Since there's nothing else going on due to the international break, I thought I'd take the opportunity to write something a little less topical that I've been worrying about lately. I think FIFA's recent crackdown on Chelsea and other clubs could be a very bad omen indeed for Arsenal.
As you have no doubt heard, FIFA recently handed down a decision which prohibits Chelsea from making any purchases over the next 2 transfer windows.

Well, that's it. The transfer window has come and gone, not with a bang but a whimper. No signings, no sales, no loans to report on the last day. For better or for worse, this is our squad until January.

To review, we sold or released three players over the summer Amaury Bischoff, Kolo Toure, and Emmanuel Adebayor.

A little bit of news round-up from the early part of this week. First off, Cesc has been ruled out for tomorrow's clash with Celtic. But this doesn't really tell us anything. Wenger has said that it might have just been a slight tweak, in which case he could be ready to play against Manchester United on Saturday; or it could have been a pull, in which case he could be out for 3 weeks.

Sigh. More transfer rumors today. I have to say, I like it so much better when the window is closed and we don't have to deal with all this nonsense every day. But it's out there, so let's dive right in.

First, there are reports that Arsenal and Barcelona have agreed on a deal to sell Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona for a fee of €35 million.

Arsenal have apparently turned down Birmingham's bid to bring in Armand Traore on loan until the end of the season. For now. According to Alex McLeish, Wenger has said he won't make a decision on Traore until the end of the transfer window in August. I have to think that this may have something to do with Nasri's injury and Rosicky's set-back, which leaves us very thin on the left wing.

Well, the hot rumor of the day is that Arsenal has made a bid to Chelsea for Solomon Kalou. Apparently Arsenal are offering £6 million, while Chelsea are holding out for £8 million.

I have to say, I've never been all that impressed with Kalou, but he's still young, he grew up idolizing Thierry Henry, and he's basically a spare part at this point with Chelsea.

Well, that's the rumor, anyway. Some outlets are reporting Arsenal may offer Patrick Vieira a one-year, incentive-laden deal to come back to the club. It seems like Arsene Wenger hasn't really found a good option at holding midfielder, so this would give him a stopgap until next summer, when he can hopefully go out and get a long-term solution (or Alex Song might turn into the long-term solution if he continues to develop this season).

Well, it looks like Toure to Manchester City is a done deal, for a rumored £15 million. Brace yourself for the surprise of what I'm about to say, but Citeh will also reportedly close to double Toure's wages.

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Toure was really pretty poor for most of the second half of last season he's never been an overly physical defender, instead relying on pace and positioning to keep attackers away from goal.

Could Arsene Wenger really sell another player to the Eastlands? News this morning is rampant that Kolo Toure is on his way out to City for a tidy sum of £15 million. While other outlets are reporting this as a done deal, we'll have to wait and see what the clubs say.

One of the strongest reasons to believe in the validity of the rumor is that neither Toure nor the club has come out to deny the possible sale of the Ivorian to City.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. As was covered in the comments, we came away with a disappointing 2-2 draw with Barnet in Saturday's friendly. While we shouldn't ever really come away with anything less than a win against a League 2 side, this was a friendly very early in the preseason which didn't feature our first team.

Well, it's official. The Togonator is gone. It's worth taking a moment to look back on his time at the club.

Ade arrived at the club from Monaco for a mere £3 million in January 2006. He hadn't really set the world on fire there, scoring just 18 goals in 79 games. Then he showed up, a tall, skinny, clumsy, giraffe of a man, and everybody, myself included, thought Wenger had just accomplished the equivalent of flushing £3 million down the toilet.

Reports this morning are that Adebayor's move to Manchester City, which yesterday seemed to be virtually a done deal, is now on hold. Apparently Adebayor is worried about how the move might be perceived in Africa, where Arsenal is a very popular club and Manchester City is virtually unknown. He's worried his fellow Africans, with whom he is very well-liked, will think it means he doesn't care about winning and only cares about money.

Well, Adebayor has apparently passed his physical and received his work permit, so all signs seem to point to Adebayor leaving Arsenal for Manchester City. I'm sure Travis and I will have more thoughts on this in the days to come once the move is confirmed, but for now, let's jump straight over the reasoned, thoughtful retrospective of Adebayor's brief time at the club and his rise and fall in the estimation of Gunner fans, and dig right in to the wild, uninformed speculation.

So says The Guardian Online, anyway. Apparently the big man from Togo is in beautiful, scenic Manchester discussing terms, which are reportedly in the neighborhood of £150,000-170,000 a week. Can't imagine that will be a sticking point, since that's roughly twice what he's making in North London.

As Martin pointed out yesterday, new rumors have cropped up about Emmanuel Adebayor going to Manchester City. Well those rumors appear to be gaining steam, as the Daily Mail is reporting today that a fee of £25 million has been agreed upon.

At first glance, this is a puzzling move, as City rewards Adebayor for what many regard as a lackluster 2008-09 with a contract paying him £170,000 per week.

Not much going on this weekend, really, but there are a couple new rumors floating around.

First, we're reportedly interested in St. Etienne midfielder Blaise Matuidi. He's just 22, and relatively small (5′9), but is apparently a defensive midfielder, which is what we're in the market for.

Well, the Felipe Melo-to-Juventus move may be in danger, which might possibly give Arsenal a chance to swoop back in for the much-coveted Brazilian international.

Apparently the deal struck between Juve and Fiorentina was that Juve would give Fiorentina cash plus right-winger Marco Marchionni for Melo.

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Independence Day weekend.

Some of these are a bit old, but we've had three players re-up with the club over the last week or so. And they're all very promising young players. Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, and Kieran Gibbs all signed new long-term deals with the club.

To all of our USA audience, a happy fourth of July to each and every one of you. For those inhabiting other countries, have a holiday in honor of the good ol' US of A. Even with the hustle and bustle of the holiday, there's time to talk some Arsenal.

There's something of a story brewing with the Viola namely a rumored move of Felipe Melo to Arsenal, brought up by some in the previous post.

The big news this morning is that rumored Arsenal target Felipe Melo asked former Gunner Gilberto Silva about the club, and Gilberto told him he should join the club:

We heard rumours and he asked me. I said it's a fantastic club and if he's interested he should go without thinking.

First off, I know not all readers of this blog are American, and this is a site devoted to English soccer, but I've got to express my joy and amazement at the Yanks' 2-0 win over the top-ranked team in the world yesterday. Simply amazing performance by us all credit to the players for going out there with courage and confidence and standing up to Spain, and all credit to coach Bob Bradley for implementing the perfect game plan to beat the Spaniards.

Sorry it's been a few days. Frankly, there's just not much going on in the Arsenal world that really needs much in the way of commenting on.

But it looks like some big news on the horizon, as The Telegraph is reporting that Robbie is getting very close to signing a new deal with the club. This is unequivocally good news, and hopefully the source is correct.

Well, it's official. Thomas Vermaelen is a Gunner.

Arsene Wenger said Vermaelen will be an asset because of his experience with the first team at Ajax and in the UEFA Cup and Champions League. The boss said:

Thomas is primarily a left-footed centre back, but he's multi-functional and can also play at left back.

Well, it looks like Vermaelen is all but a done deal. He claims he has reported to London for his Arsenal medical. Frankly, once things get to that point, there is probably very little left to do in terms of finalizing the deal. Vermaelen seems genuinely pumped about the move, saying:

I feel so proud.

You put one right back in, you put one right back out....

There's not a great deal of transfer stuff going on today, but what speculation is going on centers around our two right-backs, Bacary Sagna and Emmanuel Eboue.

There was a great deal of speculation this morning that right back Bacary Sagna was Real Madrid's next target, and that Sagna was not against such an approach.

This isn't so much news as it is the old Saturday Night Live Chevy Chase-Garrett Morris "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" "non-news" news, but still here goes:

Gael Clichy has come out and said he is not pushing for a move to Real Madrid, saying, "I heard there is an interest from Real Madrid, but I have a contract with Arsenal which I intend to respect unless the club say otherwise.

Well, you guys, your prayers were answered Lukasz Fabianski has signed a new long-term deal with Arsenal. In all seriousness, despite being very shaky in the FA Cup semifinal loss and most other appearances against top-class competition, I still think Fabianski has a pretty bright future, and this is a good move for the club.

Well, it looks like Edin Dzeko will not be coming to Arsenal after all. He says he'll either move to Milan or stay put at Wolfsburg. But this could very well all be posturing. If you remember during the summer of 2008, Arshavin first said he was only interested in moving to Barcelona, then when they weren't interested said he'd love to play for Chelsea or Arsenal, then when they weren't interested, was practically begging to play for Spurs.

Well, the rumor mill continues to run, and the hot rumor at the moment (see here and here) is that Sebastien Bassong is headed to North London. It's not quite clear where in North London, however, since apparently both Arsenal and Tottenham are trying to pry the center back away from recently relegated Newcastle.

Good day folks. Sorry to not have joined you in awhile, but with Martin running things so smoothly and MLS in full season swing I decided to take a step back from covering the Arsenal. Do me a favor and jump over to join the conversation as I gloss over all things MLS. There's no sense in glossing over Arsenal's 2008-2009 season I'm not here to dig anything new up.

Well, that's good news. Okay, actually, the full quote was "I'm staying here. If that changes I will let you know, but don't worry about that. It's not an issue." Which is somewhat less encouraging. But honestly, at this point in the season, I think if Wenger was really thinking about going to Madrid, he wouldn't have said anything at all.

No posts for a couple of days, I know. It's mainly been because there hasn't been that much noteworthy to report. Frankly, there's still not that much noteworthy to report, but I'm bored at work and you can't stop me.

First off, Manchester United's win yesterday puts them a mere point from the title.