Well it is very, very quiet this morning with practically no news whatsoever. The run off from the Henry story has now disappeared and we wait for the emergence of Arsene Wenger.

Fresh from his holidays the Arsenal manager will return with his golden staff of power and he shall scour the world for reinforcements for his squad. They shall be inducted in the way of the Arsenal with a secret two day training camp in which they will be shown images of fancy passing and intricate one-twos around the box and they shall have their testicles zapped with electric current. They shall be shown videos of people shooting and scoring goals and their penii shall be rubbed with gossamer feathers by super-hot models.

Liverpool’s upcoming signing of Torres may have an effect on us too. If Atletico get £27m from Liverpool for Torres then they might be inclined to spend a bit more cash on José Antonio Reyes instead of offering us £10.99 and an IKEA voucher (which does include assembly for any product bought, in fairness). The Spanish press today say that Real Madrid wouldn’t mind keeping for a fee of €7m but Arsenal are holding out for something in the region of €14m which seems fair enough to me.

Other than that there’s nothing going on which as regular summertime readers will know means one of two things. Either we’re doing everything top secretly or there’s nothing going on. Experience has taught us that it’s generally the second option and we have to amuse ourselves by, in our minds, spending the increasing amounts of money we think we have.

I started a game of Football Manager 07 the other day and then I couldn’t be arsed. Fucking footballers, always getting pissed off because you fine them for no reason, put them on the transfer list and stick them in the reserves. You won’t break me, Gallas, no matter how many of your teammates think you should be treated more fairly. It’s a shame there’s no ‘Bring to the middle of a dark woods and drive off’ option. Something for them to think about for the next game, if you ask me.

As the Man from East Lower points out this morning there’s still lots of time to make signings and if Gilles Grimandi is made ‘Director of Football’ he’s not just going to want to sit around and discuss new contracts with existing players. He’s going to want shiny new players to slide-tackle up and down the corridors of the Grove before they submit, weepingly accepting of the contract which pays them far less than they initially wanted and in absolute terror of ever giving anything less than 175544375666% when they go on the pitch.

Zen-like calm, everyone. Have a good Saturday. More tomorrow.

We should start this morning with the story that broke last night on BBC London who claimed that Arsene Wenger was set to stay with Arsenal and that a board meeting had been called to ratify the promotion of ‘Director of Football’. It does look as if it was a little premature but the general feeling is that Gilles will be appointed some time soon and the idea of Wenger leaving after making such an appointment is not really his style.

We did hear earlier in the week that the boss was taking a little holiday and he could still be enjoying the many and varied delights of Butlins so we’ll probably have to wait a bit, but my thinking on the whole thing is that Gilles will move up to that position and that Arsene will extend his contract. Some people were a bit worried yesterday when Capello was sacked thinking AW would be a target but I don’t think that’s an issue at all.

Sam Allardyce has been fretting about the release clauses his two main strikers have. £13m for Martins and £9m for Owen. They’re not very good at this negotiating contracts thing up there, are they? This morning’s Sun says United are after Michael Owen which might mean their interesting in Nicholas Anelka has cooled.

Bakary Sagna appears larger and larger on the radar even though he’s nominally a right back and we already have two of them (three if you count Gilbert) and both of them have extended their contracts recently. We know the boss has turned midfielders into defenders and defenders into midfielders. Perhaps he sees this guy as a right sided midfielder rather than a full back?

Carlos Tevez, a player Arsene has admired publicly, has turned down Inter Milan. He’d be a good addition to the squad, I think, but as mentioned previously his situation is complicated. The bloke who owns him is an Arsenal fan though.

£16.5m for Darren Bent? Ludicrous, ridiculous and hilarious at the same time. And people wonder why Arsene rarely buys English.

Now, to the Arsecast.

This week in the Arsecast, brought to as always by OleOle.com (who have lots of Copa America coverage if you’re looking for a football fix), features a blogchat with Amy Lawrence in which we talk about Thierry Henry, the Man in the Bar has a player history, there’s a new educational feature and an old friend returns.

To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes – click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here (15mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

And that’s your lot my Arseloving friends. Until tomorrow.

A reasonably quiet one this morning. The main story appears to be the Independent’s claim that we’re going to pay £13m for Obafemi Martins. He’s got a buy out clause in his contract which Newcastle can’t do anything about.

The allegedly 22 year old had a good season last time around in the North East and Arsenal fans will remember him during Inter’s 3-0 win at Highbury. However, there are complications. Just last week Martins alleged that somebody tried to kill him when he was at home in Nigeria and I was listening to the radio here last night and they had what I can only assume was a Nigerian football expert on the show. His life and behaviour all sounds a little bit crazy, I have to say. He’s obviously got some talent but this signing would make me rather uneasy, at least until he proved himself not to be a complete lunatic. Didn’t he fail to turn up for one of Newcastle’s final games last season? That’s a bit cunty.

Also on the radio last night was French journalist Xavier Rivoire (thanks to Haz for the spelling and Richard for the info) who claimed to have spoken to Arsene Wenger in the last couple of days. His take on the whole situation was that Wenger would stay long term and sign a new deal, Anelka is a definite target but Manchester United are after him too, and most curious of all was the claim that Samuel Eto’o is open to a move to London to either Arsenal or Chelsea but the price will determine Arsenal’s interest. Reports in Spain say Milan are after Drogba in which case Chelsea will buy Eto’o. Or something. Chelsea have also made a bit for Malouda, which is good.

More on Henry’s orange-fuelled move to Barcelona, if you’re interested.

Freddie Ljungberg’s agent has again insisted the player intends to stay at Arsenal. That’s twice in a couple of weeks now. I suppose the natural progression is for him to sign for Barcelona and say that since the old janitor left the place hasn’t been the same and Arsenal has changed and if only the janitor had stayed everything would have been so different.

And that’s about it really. I’m off to record a farewell tribute to Thierry Arsecast which will feature The Man in the Bar sobbing for three minutes, sixteen seconds, me bawling for 20 minutes, Adebayor weeping like a gentle guitar and other tear related activities all based around a Leonard Cohen soundtrack.

We’ll start this morning with the Chairman who, after dismissing what Thierry Henry said about Arsene’s future as an ‘excuse’ (something most people would agree with), revealed he’s hopeful but not certain of the manager’s intentions. He says:

I am really hopeful Arsene will extend, but at this moment I am only in a position of hoping. I’ve no reason to think he won’t – but at the same time I have no reason to believe he will say yes. We would like to see him sign a new contract and have made no secret about that. I am very relaxed.

No doubt this will spark another series of ‘crisis’ stories but there’s really not more to it, is there? They want him to stay, haven’t yet had a chance to speak to him and the rest of the board about it and that’s about it. We know from past experience that Arsene generally waits until his contract is almost up before he renews so there’s no real drama but this time around perhaps the circumstances are a little bit different. There’s the whole Dein situation and the fact we’ve just lost Thierry Henry. As well as that, as I’ve mentioned before, it might affect the chances of bringing in players this summer if they’re unsure of the manager’s position.

In the Sun’s version of this story they quote a ‘life long’ friend of Wenger, Max Hild, who says:

Arsene has always told me he would finish his career with Arsenal. The only way he’d leave would be if Arsenal wanted him to and that can’t be imagined.

However, we just have to wait for Arsene and the board to sit down over a cup of tea and a plate of custard cremes and thrash the whole thing out to everyone’s satisfaction. Certainly, in my opinion, he’s not behaving any way which does anything but make you think his long term future is at Arsenal.

Frank McLintock and Bob Wilson give their reactions to Thierry’s departure in the Guardian. Interesting.

Also interesting is a snippet from El Pais, a well regarded Spanish newspaper, who reported:

One afternoon in April, Ferran Soriano, vice-president of Barcelona, received a phone call. It was Darren Dein, son of the ex Arsenal vice-chairman and Thierry Henry’s personal advisor. “Are you still interested in Henry? I believe there’s still a possibility…”, he said.

Lovely. Make of that what you will.

In other news Ryan Babel says he’s going to stay at Ajax for one more year before he joins Arsenal. He’s a confident little fucker, isn’t he? We’re also keeping tabs on a Nigerian fella playing in Norway called Chinedu Ogbuke. He had trials at Portsmouth or something.

Another Frenchman on the way out of Arsenal is Mathieu Flamini with Birmingham said to be interested. His advisor says:

Mathieu is in talks with several clubs and will soon be making his decision.

We wait with bated breath, so we do. While I do understand his reasons for leaving I have to say I’ve always quite liked him and would much prefer to have him in the squad that Alex Song.

Arsenal Shorts claims to have Wenger’s shopping list. They seem to have forgotten the custard cremes though. You can’t forget the custard cremes. You lose all credibility that way. Tevez, check. Obscure winger, check. Custard cremes, check.

Now, time for breakfast. Yes, you’ve guessed it a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich.