Shall we start the morning with fact before we head into the realms of fiction? Probably a good idea.

The only such fact this morning is that Jack Wilshere has signed professional terms with the club. He's just turned 17 and we're all hoping he has a very good year. In the official announcement Arsene Wenger said:

We are delighted that Jack has signed a professional contract with us. Jack is a player with great potential, with an ability to find the final ball and also score goals. We have already seen Jack’s qualities in both his first team performances and in training on a regular basis, and we look forward to Jack being an important part of our first team for years to come

He's certainly the most exciting English prospect that the club has produced for a long time. Yes, we've brought through young players like Cesc and Clichy but we did a bit of pinching with them. Jack is 100% Arsenal having joined the club at 9 years of age.

I don't need to tell you how impressive he's been in the games we've seen him play. It's just a shame that the Carling Cup is over for this year because we probably won't see that much of him. All the same, he's been fairly regular on the bench as a 16 year old trainee. Perhaps that's a combination of his talent and our lack of resources but maybe now that he's turned pro will see the boss more willing to use him. Anyway, congrats to Jack and may he have a long and successful career at The Arsenal.

Right, now that the transfer window is well and truly upon us the rumours are flying around the place. The Sun this morning claims we're after Portsmouth's Niko Kranjcar. At the rate players are leaving, or rumoured to be leaving, Portsmouth poor old Tony will have to come out of retirement to make up the XI on a Saturday. It seems a reasonable if rather unimaginative story.

Now, here's some rumour provided by me. Well, provided by somebody else who is giving it in good faith but  I can't say this is stone-cold fact. This person has been told that we have our eye on two players from Premier League clubs.

Firstly, Fulham's Jimmy Bullard. If I'm not mistaken we were linked with him last January but nothing happened. Currently he's in the middle of a contract 'dispute' with the Cottagers, having asked for a very, very large salary to stay at the club. Is it a tactic to price himself out of Fulham knowing there's someone else willing to take him on? We'll see.

Secondly, the centre-half we're looking at is Aston Villa's Martin Laursen. This could be a bit of a merry-go-around, actually. Rumours of our interest in Matthew Upson are wide of the mark, it seems he could be on his way to Villa freeing up Laursen to move our way. However, it would surprise me, considering the league table, if Villa were to sell to us. He's been a hugely important player for them in recent times. He had a horrendous injury record when he first joined but I thought I heard a commentator say he had been ever-present for something like 16 months. Until he missed the game against us through injury.

Anyway, those are, I have to stress, just rumours. As I said, given to me in good faith and I pass along the information to you in the same way. The reality is that Arsenal, perhaps more than any other club in the history of football, play their cards incredibly close to their chest when it comes to transfers so you might find that bits of information that are leaked out are designed to throw you off the scent altogether. 

Anyway, we'll see what happens. I just thought it was interesting. Beyond that there appears to be be nothing new in terms of Andrei Arshavin (beyond some (t)wit re-using last summer's picture of Arsene have his arse shaved) and rumours that Kolo Toure has cleared out his locker and said his goodbyes remain unsubstantiated at this point.

So that's that. We'll possibly have some more fact and probably a lot more fiction tomorrow. Until then.

Right, well that's the festivities, drawn out as they might have been, over for another year. 2009 begins in earnest now.

The teacakes are all eaten, I never even had a Christmas pudding so I can't throw out the dried out chunk of it that's left over, and the tree has to come down today. I might just set it on fire out the back to bring some warmth to the local neighbourhood - it's freezing again this morning and one little pine tree burning in the garden is hardly going to make a dent in the environment. 

Now the serious business of winning football matches and trying to win a trophy can get going again. We're through to the 4th round of the FA Cup - an away tie against Cardiff the reward for the win against Plymouth. It could be an interesting day for Aaron Ramsey who could face the club he left in the summertime. That game takes place on the weekend of the 24th/25th January. 

Robin van Persie is a man on a mission. He won the FA Cup in his first full season with the club, scoring one of the penalties in the shoot-out with Manchester United, but has won nothing since. He says:

When I arrived at Arsenal they were winning trophies for fun. They were champions when I arrived and in my first season I won the FA Cup. I was expecting that to carry on but it hasn't really happened like that. But it's not a reason for me to give up, it's a bigger challenge to do it this time. We need to win a trophy as soon as possible. We've been very unlucky with injuries so we want to do something for the club and the fans.

A piece of silverware would go a long, long way at this stage. I know there are those who don't consider the FA Cup a competition of much importance anymore, and perhaps in the era of Champions League its stature has dwindled somewhat, but for me it represents our best chance at winning something this season.

Whatever you might think of the FA Cup itself the confidence it would bring to the team if we won it would be immeasurable. They'd go from being nearly men to men who have won something and it does make a difference.

Anyway, the focus has to go back onto the league right now and the battle for fourth is well and truly on. We've got Bolton at home this Saturday while above us we have to hope that a Villa side which, seems to be getting all the dodgy decisions going their way, finds West Brom more of a struggle than most. Perhaps their UEFA Cup campaign will be a distraction - well, more of a distraction than our Champions League games.

There's nothing new regarding transfers this morning. Arshavin is back on the agenda at £20m, apparently, but there's so much smoke regarding this one it's hard to see if there's any fire. I'm sure we'd be willing to do business but not at that price. You're buying a player from the Russian league, not from one of the top leagues in Europe, and as we've mentioned over the last couple of weeks I think the era of crazy transfer fees is well and truly over for most clubs.

The spectre of Webster looms large over the whole thing as well. At some point a high profile club and a high profile player are going to decide that it's worth all the hassle to push through a move based on the Webster ruling. This means that players can, after a certain protected period, buy out their own contracts and move to another club for the cost of that contract.

I know for a fact that Hleb was considering doing it last summer but for whatever reason it did not transpire. I think at the moment clubs are unwilling to upset other clubs, clubs they may want to do other business with, to make these transfers happen. Players too have to give notice to their current team and I'm sure it's awkward. You need to have some balls to do it. But at some point it's going to happen and after that the floodgates will open, in my opinion. The transfer market will change dramatically.

Still, we've got to operate in the market that exists at this moment in time and if we want players we're going to have to deal with the fact that buying someone like Arshavin is going to be costly. If we buy him, even for £10m, give him a three or four year contract with decent wages, it adds up to a lot of money for a player who will have little or no resale value.

However, you have to add that up against what he, or any other player, might bring to the team. Would signing him and paying all that money be worth it to assure Champions League qualification? Of course it would. No matter what the club might say about not factoring in the CL money it represents somewhere in the region of 12.5% of Arsenal's football revenue (cheers Paul M), so going without would be a massive blow, both financially and footballistically, to use an Arseneism.  

Of course there's no guarantee that signing Arshavin would assure CL qualification, frankly I think there are other areas of the pitch that need more work, and I'm sure the boss is aware of that too. I suspect there'll be some wheeling and dealing this January, not just from Arsenal, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a flurry of activity late in the month when clubs who are desperate to sell now become even more so.

Not much else to tell you, I'm off to burn my tree. More tomorrow. 

So a fairly routine win over Plymouth sees us into the 4th round of the FA Cup.

A goalless first half wasn't much to look at - it was brightened up a bit watching a stream with commentary from a lunatic Spaniard who sounded like a serial killer crossed with a kiddie fiddler crossed with Gollum. Still, we had some chances, the best of which fell to Eboue after a great run by Aaron Ramsey.

There were other saves too, some shots wide but it was 0-0 at half-time. The second half began with a flurry of goals. Firstly Robin van Persie, captain for the day, headed home a Nasri corner, then nice play in and around the box saw van Persie's cross put into his own net by David Gray who deserved it for that fucking Babylon song. Amazingly Nicklas Bendtner wheeled away trying to claim the goal, heh, cheeky.

But Arsenal are nothing if not generous at the back this season and when some Plymouth bloke pulled back a nice cross the defence was static, Fabianski was nowhere and the onrushing Duguid got ahead of van Persie to poke it home.

To be fair they didn't really threaten any further. We brought on Carlos Vela on the left and this allowed Nasri a bit more freedom. The Frenchman had a fine last 30 minutes and was at the heart of all our good play. It was his lobbed ball over the top that brought about the third. Robin's first attempt was saved by the keeper but he made no mistake with the follow up, smashing it home off the bar with his chocolate leg.

So overall a decent win. The performance wasn't much to write home about but credit to Plymouth who made life very difficult for us. Afterwards Arsene Wenger said:

We have done the job in a serious way. If we weren’t completely focussed and up for it we would not have gone through today. I give credit to my team for doing the job seriously with good focus and I give credit to Plymouth who had a great game as well.

As usual the cup brought about some unexpected and somewhat hilarious results. Big spending Man City are out having been beaten 3-0 at home by Nottingham Forest while Chelsea were held 1-1 by Southend. It really is a measure of how very poor our form and performance was against City in the league though - they took us apart that day and they're poo. Anyway, I'm sure Kolo will be looking at results like that and thinking life is probably better at Arsenal, despite what might be on offer in terms of money.

Elsewhere there's all kinds of misery and doom going on. The Daily Mail is reporting that there's a rift between the board and the manager over the signing of Andrei Arshavin. The spectre of Wenger going to Real Madrid looms over the whole situation apparently, despite the fact that Wenger himself categorically denied it during the week.

Meanwhile the News of the World reports that Theo Walcott is growing restless, having not yet been offered a new deal by the club. He could leave on a free next summer so it's strange that nothing is stirring. They quote the ubiquitous 'source close to ....' as saying:

There is no doubt Theo is frustrated at the lack of action over a new deal. The club said talks would start in October because they wanted to see how Theo started the season. The fact is, he feels as if he’s being taken for granted at the moment, as if people simply expect him to sign a contract.

Given the current structure of the club you would expect Arsene Wenger to be closely involved in the whole contract situation. Surely he's the one who decides who he wants to keep, who should be offered what, etc. Perhaps the arrival of Gazidis on the scene will mean all these things are sorted out but Theo is someone I'd like to see sign a new deal with the club. We've invested too much in him to see him walk away out of contract.

Anyway, they throw up the whole Real Madrid thing as well which, as we know, is bollocks. They also say Robin van Persie is awaiting news on a new deal for him but I don't think it's unfair, after his injury record, to wait for him to complete an untroubled season before offering a new contract.

Also in the News of the World is the story that our top transfer target is Man City's Steven Ireland. That's because Arshavin is no longer our top target. Or Inler. Or Arteta. Or ... you get the picture. He's a very good player, fits the bill in terms of what we need, but he's also as mad as box of banshees. Still, no doubt he'd add something to our team if this story wasn't complete and utter fiction.

The Sunday Mirror reports that we could do a deal with West Ham which would see Matthew Upson return to Arsenal and Nicklas Bendnter go the other way. It'd be an interesting swap, you have to say. Upson would certainly bring something to the defence while Bendtner's form this season has been very, very poor. He's been unable to build on a decent showing last season and just doesn't seem to be improving at all. It would leave us a striker short, of course, but with Eduardo coming back, Vela itching to play, and a possible wide player coming in to allow Theo play up front on his return maybe it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.

Speculation in Italy links us with Torino's Alessandro Rosina. I don't know much about him to be honest. He's a versatile player apparently which probably gives a little more credibility to the rumour. He can play wide midfield or behind the strikers so no doubt AW sees him as the man to shore up our defence.

And there you go. Plenty to mull over this freezing cold Sunday. I've still got my stupid cold that the stupid Blogette brought home and gave to everyone in the house. Even the Arseblog basset hound has it. He's downstairs drinking hot whiskey as we speak.

Till tomorrow, Arsers.

Mordig all,

ad you may hab gaddered I'b god a bery bad head cold. Stubid cold.

It's Plymouth Argyle today in the FA Cup and the team news is that Fabianski will play in goal and will do so throughout the competition. The manager is promising a strong team for today, well as strong as possible under the circumstances, and claims this is 'major priority' this season.

It's certainly different from last season when one of the most awful displays of Wenger's Arsenal reign saw us get spanked at Old Trafford. We sacrificed the cup last season in pursuit of larger glory, that's not something we can afford to do this time around. Realistically it's our best chance of silverware this season and we have to give it a good shot.

With Denilson out and Alex Song suspended it means our central midfield is likely to be Abou Diaby and Aaron Ramsey, which should be interesting. Diaby gets another go in his preferred position and we get another chance to see what the Welshling can do. We don't have another league game for a week so there's no need to rest the strike force although it would be nice to see Carlos Vela get a run out.

Plymouth lie 15th in the Championship and will bring close to 10,000 supporters to the Grove today. It's a big day out for them, they'll certainly come and have a go, but this is a game we should win. We've had them watched in every game they've played since the draw was made, according to the boss, so we'll have a good idea of what they're about.

I do love the FA Cup, I have to say. It might not be as prestigious as it once was but some of my fondest Arsenal memories have come in this competition. We've had some shocks down the years as well though. Fingers crossed nothing like that happens today.

The boss had plenty to say yesterday in his press conference yesterday. He denied making any bid for Mikel Arteta or for Shay Given and said there was 'no progress' in relation to Andrei Arshavin. I wouldn't read anything into that though. He was asked if there was any progress, he said 'no progress'. I don't think he was implying that negotiations were ongoing.

He also said he was glad to see the back of 2008, sentiments which I'm sure many Arsenal fans will agree with, and denied that he was off to Real Madrid in the summer. The reporter asked the question a couple of times asking, 'So are you saying you've never had contact with Madrid?', which he denied, then she got all crafty and said 'And Madrid have at no time been in contact with any of your representatives?', which got a pause and another denial with him smiling 'No, because I represent myself'.

He admitted there's money to spend but not as much as some of the figures bandied about in newspapers. Which is fair enough, it wouldn't be unlike a newspaper to exaggerate or anything, but he did admit he's looking to spend, saying:

But we will try to use it wisely and well if we can. We live in a naturally healthy situation - we do not depend on one person, we do not depend on the banks because we make our profit. We respect our balanced budget, so I believe that we will not be in trouble.

I mentioned West Ham yesterday and the dire financial situation they find themselves in. There are other clubs in the Premier League whose finances are coming under intense scrutiny, including one very, very high profile club who are struggling in a big way to keep the weight of their debt from collapsing the whole place. The manager's insistence at throwing money around like water and some foolish owners mean things could get really bad up there.

As much as I want Arsenal to spend and improve the squad I'd rather not be in that kind of position financially. But then I don't think any of us have ever advocated the manager going out and blowing £7m on a left back who turns out to be the worst defender in history and the other hit and hope kind of deals that have gone on. We know Arsene can spend money well, look at the signings of Sagna and Eduardo for example, and while he's had some duffers along the way all we've ever wanted is for him to spend the money he has. There's never been anyone who wanted him to go to Fat Tony and get a loan to buy players. Anyway, we'll see what happens.

The Kolo Toure situation is sorted out apparently. According to the boss:

We spoke about it with him and I think he has changed his mind. I am happy with players who are committed and Kolo is a big example for that. There was a minor incident that you could multiply by 20. It happens every day in every club and is sorted out now. Kolo is happy here.

Which is all very vague. The fact is that Kolo demanded a transfer using his relationship with William Gallas as an excuse. Much as I love Kolo that was disappointing. Anyway, despite what the manager says all this situation has served to do is alert other clubs that Toure is willing to leave Arsenal. The manager says he's staying but then he's said that before about many players and we've seen them sold. Man City appear to be still interested.

I know Kolo is only 27 but the manager, stats freak that he is, won't have missed the decline. If he feels Kolo can return to the level he was at before then he'll probably keep him, if he doesn't he might well be inclined to sell him while his stock is still high.

It was interesting to hear Arsene talk about his partnership with Gallas, saying:

It’s not a question of Kolo Toure or William Gallas. It is that the two together are a bit short in the air. We needed to add some size centrally.

It took him long enough, eh? Djourou looks set to play today and continue his emergence into the first team. He could establish himself properly between now and May and come next August who knows if either Gallas or Toure will be giving Wenger any kind of selection headache?

Right, that's about it. Here's to a good game this afternoon and the first step on the road to some silverware this season.

Till tomorrow.

Strange things happen in the world sometimes. We might get a nice, warm summer's day in Ireland, for instance. Robin van Persie might spend most of the season on the pitch instead of the treatment room. Or Garth Crooks might go three minutes without being an absolute cunt.

Ok, well the last one is taking things too far but the point remains. Another example might be the Daily Star getting a story absolutely right. Naturally I was somewhat skeptical of their story the other day about how Kolo Toure had asked for a transfer because of the breakdown of his relationship with William Gallas. But whaddya know? Turns out they were spot on.

Yesterday, Chairman PHW confirmed the fact that Kolo had made a transfer request, saying:

I know about it but we are not going to accept it. We are not looking to let any of our players go and he is under contract - and we expect him to honour it.

So there's the transfer request and I am told, from an impeccable source, that he did indeed cite the breakdown of his relationship with William Gallas the reason behind it. Now, this is most odd for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, not getting along with a fellow player is no reason to leave a football club. If you have no relationship with the manager, or a senior figure on the coaching staff, then it might be in your best interests to leave a club. But a player? It doesn't make sense to me. All through the years there have been clashes of personality at football clubs. Nobody's asking Kolo Toure to be best friends with William Gallas. He just has to play football with him.

Secondly, why would Kolo make a transfer request when pretty much everyone is aware that Gallas's time at the club is limited? If he doesn't move this January then he's pretty much nailed on to leave in the summer. So all Kolo has to do is wait and the problem resolves itself. The Chairman went on to say about Kolo's request:

They seem to get unhappy rather quickly for odd reasons.

And there's the thing - I don't think it's that odd. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that Kolo's head has been turned by a certain club who have found themselves with plenty of cash to throw around. Assurances of a first team place and a hefty, hefty pay rise at Manchester City are more likely to be behind this transfer request than any beef he might have with William Gallas.

He's been a fantastic servant to the club down the years and he's one of the last players I'd have thought would look to leave the club - especially while Arsene is still boss. We paid £250,000 for Kolo Toure all those years ago and for a time he was a truly brilliant centre-half. He worked best alongside the big stopper, like Sol Campbell or Philippe Senderos, his recovery pace was fantastic, some of the last ditch tackling was inspired and his enthusiasm for the game and the club was refreshing.

However, there are those that would suggest we've seen the best of Kolo. His form has suffered, for me a major factor in that is the fact that he has been playing alongside Gallas. That's not a criticism of Gallas, by the way, but I've long held the opinion that the two are far too similar and we get the best out of neither when they play together. He's played a lot of football too and since his bout of malaria, picked up on ACN duty, he's looked a shadow of the player he once was.

The pace is gone, the stamina is gone, his confidence and form also gone. He's found himself down the pecking order with the emergence of Johan Djourou and how must he have felt earlier in the season to find himself dropped after witnessing Gallas make costly mistake after costly mistake? Perhaps the ignominy of being benched for Sylvester against Portsmouth might have been the final straw.

So what to do? He's obviously unhappy at the club and Wenger has never sought to keep unhappy players. The Chairman might say we don't want him to leave but if you really want to keep a player you don't tell the world he's handed in a transfer request.

If the right offer comes from City this month I think we'll sell. There's been talk of £10m. As long as the bulk of that money is spent on another centre-half then it's probably good business. It's all quite sad, I have to say. I would have expected more of Kolo.

Even if the City thing isn't the reason (and that's a big if in my opinion) surely he's got more balls than to put in a transfer request over a clash of personality with another player? Where's the fight and the determination to win his place back? The answer to that is probably sitting somewhere on his agent's desk (remember, his agent is our old pal Jonathan Barnett) - the offer to play and get paid elswhere.

The manager's willingness to sell Kolo for the kind of money City might be offering may be well tied in with the amount of money he has to spend this January. We have heard a lot from the board about how there's money for Arsene to use in the transfer market but according to the Chairman:

We have got money, but I am not sure we are going to spend it. We've got to continue to run the business in a sensible way. It may sound boring, but we are not going to rush out and spend fortunes on people who won't help us achieve anything better than where we are at the moment.

Arsene has a lot of young, talented players at the club and I think he will probably give a chance to one or two of them.

This is a road well travelled and I don't think I need to say any more about why we need to buy players. However, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that it wouldn't take a fortune to buy some players who are better and more experienced than some of the ones we have.

And running the business in a sensible way is most admirable but the business starts on the pitch. Unless we have a team that can achieve a minimum of Champions League qualification each season then other parts of the business are going to suffer too. We've always been fairly tight spenders, we know about Wenger's net spend down the years, so nobody's expecting us to lash out millions and millions, but when you consider what there is to lose if we don't finish in the top 4 then we've got to speculate a bit this month.

I'll stand to be corrected on this but the Champions League must be worth around £20m-30m a season to us in terms of TV money, gate money, sponsorship, advertising, prize money etc. Spending some of that on a couple of players to help maintain that income doesn't seem like unsafe business practice to me. Of course we have to be mindful of the bigger picture and the current financial climate, it would be foolish to ignore that, just as it would be foolish not to improve the squad.

So while there's money to spend, limited as it might be, selling in order to buy might well be part of the equation. £10m for Kolo would be money the manager could easily find another centre-half with. Let's remember as well that Arsenal won't be the only club affected by the financial situation, there are clubs in England and across Europe stretched the limit who will find themselves unable to command the kind of transfer fees they might have been able to even 6-12 months previously.

There's a fire sale going on at West Ham, everyone is for sale and everyone knows West Ham are desperate for money. I believe there's something similar going on at Valencia this January too - and there's a perfect illustration of how one season out of the Champions League can affect a club. They used that money to keep themselves afloat - without it they're facing the prospect of selling their best players for prices well below the top of the market.

It's a balancing act, no doubt about it, but there's the opportunity to play the game a bit here. There's the chance to take advantage of the woes of others, it might not be nice but that's business. You can be quite sure we'd be the carrion to the rest of the vultures if we found ourselves in that position so there's no reason why we shouldn't at least try.

Anyway, it promises to be an interesting month. Tomorrow we've got the FA Cup, in my opinion our most realistic chance of a trophy this season, so we'll preview that then.

Have a good one.

All is quiet.

Hope you had a good night last night. I had some pints with Mrs Blogs, the Blogfather and the Mugsmasher, then came home and drank me some rum. Havana 7 is so delicious it'd make you want to be a sailor. I know there are other aspects of sailor life that would appeal more to some of you but for me it's all about the rum, honest.

So, a new year and with it comes new stuff like ... erm ... hope, optimism and possibly players. At the moment though there's nothing stirring. Only some loan deals for younger players. Younger than the young ones we have in our first team, I mean.

Gavin Hoyte will join Watford on loan for the rest of the season, Jay Simpson will play for West Brom for the rest of the season and Nacer Barazite has extended his loan at Derby for the same period. Good luck to them all - and I'm very interested to see how Simpson gets on in the Premier League. He's just signed a new deal so is obviously well thought of. A good spell at WBA will either increase his chances with us or increase his value when we sell him in the summer!

Transfer window madness part 1 - The Sun, in the first paragraph of this story, says William Gallas could be on his way to AC Milan. However, by the end the former captain is facing the terrible prospect of having to see out the season at Arsenal. How quickly things change in football, eh?

Johan Djourou has been talking about stuff. Mostly about how much he's learned from William Gallas and Kolo Toure. Which is how to fight like tinkers. I heard from a very good source that the issue between Gallas and Toure is that Kolo set up a fight club and Gallas broke the first rule by going around and telling everyone about it. There's certainly no chance of a reconciliation. I mean, it was the first rule. Is there no end to the bigness of Gallas's mouth?

The Mirror says Arsene Wenger is considering leaving Arsenal to go and manage Real Madrid because he's upset that fans have been critical of his team this season. Of course he'll be taking Cesc with him and ... erm ... well, just Cesc. And possibly the training ground. And Doris the tealady. Then our tea-making line-up will be hugely inexperienced unless we go out and pay top dollar for a Mrs Doyle style replacement.

Beyond that not a thing happening so I may now try and make some kind of breakfast which should, but sadly won't, contain morphine.

Happy new year everyone.

Hello and welcome to the final blog of 2008.

We'll start with transfer news and both the Guardian and the Sun are linking us with a move for Everton's Mikel Arteta. How much truth there is in this story is anybody's guess but for me he would be the perfect player to replace the injurd Fabregas and he has enough quality to maintain a place in the team when the captain returns.

There'd be no settling in period as there would be with a foreign player, he's good with set pieces, he scores goals and he's got loads of experience. There's no doubt he'd improve our squad and more importantly our team right away.

It would obviously take a serious bid for Everton to sell but I think in the current financial climate most clubs will sell, however reluctantly. I'm keeping my fingers well and truly crossed for this one.

Meanwhile Andrei Arshavin's agent has said his client is aware of the financial doom that's sweeping the planet and would be amenable to reassessing his salary demands in order to facilitate a move. In other words the daft cunt completely priced himself and the player out of a couple of feasible transfers in the summer and is now willing to do what it takes to get the fuck out of St Petersburg.

With the transfer window set to open tomorrow I expect the speculation regarding players linked with us to increase by a factor of at least 843,466,120.475. This is a scientific fact and it cannot be disputed. 31 days of pure madness lie ahead, in the middle of which are some football matches, but we'll gloss over them as you would expect a quality blog to do.

Meanwhile Gael Clichy has said the boss has said that the players need to communicate more. Or betterer. Or something. There's no question in my mind that the defence lacks proper organisation, we saw that with the Villa equaliser the other night. They're too damn quiet. And unless they improve there's only one solution ... cocaine. People taking cocaine just don't shut the fuck up, they love the sound of their own voice, so each game one of the players has to do a few dirty great lines before kick-off and then we'll have that talker in defence that we need so badly. A little thinking outside the box is all that's required, you know.

Kolo on his way because he hates William Gallas? That's the news coming from a 'source' who told the Daily Star. You know, if I were one of those sources I think I would choose a more august publication that the Daily Star to tell my story to. If you want credibility why would you go to a newspaper whose readers can only count to two and that's in tits? 

So, 2008 is over and it has, all things considered, been a particularly frustrating year for the Arsenal. It started so well, we were playing great football, winning games, flying high in the league and then it seems to have just been one poxbottle of a disaster after another.

Injuries to key players which cost us dearly at the tail-end of last season. Eduardo, Sagna, Flamini, all injured and had they stayed fit I'm convinced we'd have won the title. The heartbreaking exit in the Champions League, seeing the league slip away from us, a summer in which players left and weren't replaced really makes our position at the moment not too much of a surprise.

But the reality is the Arsenal team we see at the moment seems miles away from the one we saw just 12 months ago, in terms of quality, confidence and ability. It's amazing how quickly things change in football. Which is why, despite Arsene's bizarre and somewhat ludicrous statement about us being 1% or 2% away from 'dominating' the Premier League, it probably wouldn't take too much to improve us considerably.

Some new faces, competition for places in the team, a bit of extra confidence, some slivers of luck along the way and an improvement in attitude and application from the team as a whole and who knows what might happen?

I know it's easy to be pessimistic but when you're about to turn the page on a new year I'd rather hope, pray, wish and sacrifice things/animals/people I don't like for a positive future.

So on that note let me wish you and yours a very happy, peaceful and prosperous 2009 - and I'm sure all of us, no matter what our opinion on the state of play at the Arsenal, want nothing but the best for the club for the next 12 months too.

Until next year then. Have a good one.

Morning all,

there's a veritable William Gallas love-in going on this morning. Both Manuel Almunia and Abou Diaby have been praising the former captain.

Almunia reckons that not being the captain any more is doing good things for Gallas, saying:

I think he is playing better than before. I spoke to him last week and he told me that now he is playing better because he is not losing too much energy because he is not worried about other things and other players or other circumstances off the pitch.

Now he can focus 100% on himself without recrimination! I kid, I kid. Sort of. The challenge on Agbonlahor the other day was awfully careless and undid the good work he did previously in the Villa game but then he pops up and scores the winner against Portsmouth. And while we can't ignore his attacking contribution we have to accept that he has been a central figure in the worst Arsenal defence for quite some time, both as captain and not.

Almunia is filling in as captain in Cesc's absence and he feels that what this Arsenal side lacks is the character of previous sides, saying:

We have shown good character, but we still have a little more to go to find the real Arsenal. The main thing is to look for our identity, our way, our character that gave this club all their titles and trophies. We need to re-find our spirit and our desire to win games.

The 'real Arsenal', there's a thing. It's not the first time a senior player has been critical of the attitude of the side. Clichy said it, Sagna said it, Gallas, in a hugely misguided blunderbussing of his own team said it, and now Almunia has said it. There is something fundamentally wrong with the attitude of this Arsenal team.

It's incredible when you think about it and ultimately it has to come down to the manager. He is responsible for this squad, for the team selections and their state of mind. There are those who think this group of players have had it too easy. That Arsene's backing of them, all the time, has allowed them to think they're better than they are. That the lack of criticism, his unwavering faith in the face of evidence to the contrary, the mollycoddling, has been instrumental in bringing about the kinds of performances we've seen this season.

The belief that they just had to turn up to beat the likes of Hull or Fulham or Stoke. Defeats which came about because the team simply went through the motions. There's probably more to it. We spoke previously about a lack of leadership, there's a very obvious lack of competition for places which is evident when someone like Alex Song becomes a first team regular at a club like Arsenal, but essentially there's a serious flaw in the attitude of this group of players at times.

Look at what Tony Adams has to say:

I always remember playing in front of the North Bank, and you had to earn your spurs. That’s a wrong statement, sorry; you have to earn respect, you really do.

It comes from playing, from commitment, from honesty and loyalty and a sense of duty and passion, of turning up, of being on time, simple things.

And he's bang on there. We saw fans frustration with the team and certain players boil over at times this season but for me it was because of the lack of fight and effort, not lack of ability. We've had poor players at Arsenal before and we will again but fans can accept the limitations of any player so long as he gives 100% when he's out on the pitch. When they don't, well, we've seen what happened.

Is it a case of too much too young? Are they being paid too much without having earned it? Do they think they're better than they are? Are they too assured of their places in the squad? Legitimate questions, in my opinion.

It will be very interesting to see how some movement in the transfer window affects certain players. Will they raise their game and fight for their places? Or will they take off and move somewhere more comfortable because that's the easiest thing to do. There's a quote somewhere about success in football being 10% talent and 90% application. I'm sure we've all played with very talented footballers who were lazy cunts simply because they had that talent. And we've all played with guys who made up for their lack of technical ability with pure effort. And it's the latter guy who got into the team every week and who the rest of the lads wanted with them when the going got tough.

Anyway, this is all very rambling but perhaps the introduction of some experienced quality into the squad will help in more than just the obvious way. Perhaps it will bring out more from some of the younger players who have definite ability but maybe aren't quite ready to play week in, week out just yet.

And speaking of transfer business the agent of Andrei Arshavin has been speaking about our apparent interest in the player. He says:

We know that Arsene Wenger likes the look of Arshavin. But I like the look of Angelina Jolie and it doesn't always mean you get what you want.

Haha, there does appear to be plenty of smoke around the Arshavin stories, time will tell if there's fire.

Young striker Jay Simpson has signed a new deal with the club. He scored twice against Wigan in the Carling Cup and will go on loan to WBA in January. That's a tough gig but it should give us a better idea of whether or not he's got what it takes after a decent loan spell at Milwall last season.

Not much else happening so until tomorrow's New Year's Eve blogmanay, have a good day.

So Tony's return was met with that most classic of scorelines: 1-0 to the Arsenal.

It wasn't easy watching, we struggled at times against a resilient Portsmouth side, but the important thing yesterday was the result, not the performance. Frankly, there's little point in dissecting how we played because this is a team whose limitations we know already. 

Let's look instead at the positives. Firstly, the result and the fact that the team kept plugging away. David James had been a bit flappy throughout and when in the 80th minute Denilson curled in a lovely free kick he came, flapped and allowed William Gallas to head home the only goal of the game. It was a simple enough header but fair play to Gallas, he was in the right place at the right time.

And despite how well Portsmouth defended we did have other chances. Adebayor was put clean through by Diaby and only some fantastic last minute defending from Distin prevented us scoring in the first half. Then, after another James flap, Adebayor was unmarked at the back post but thwacked his shot wide. It was an awful miss but then perhaps there's something about Portsmouth, he has quite a history of awful misses against them.

Nicklas Bendtner played in Samir Nasri in the second half but his shot was easily saved by David James. So we did have other chances and at the other end I don't remember Almunia having a save to make although Crouch hit the post with a header in the first half.

So the unbeaten run stretches to 6 and afterwards the manager said:

It was important to get the three points today. We were intelligent, mature and we didn’t make mistakes. In the end we won the game against a Portsmouth side who defended very deep and very well. I believe that, in the end, it was difficult to create chances but we had one or two good chances that got us the win.

And while we'd all have loved to see some typically Arsenal flowing football I think we have to be a bit more realistic with our expectations in terms of performance. We've got lots of players missing and when you're playing Bendtner on the left then pace and trickery down the flanks is hardly likely to be the order of the day. The important thing was that we didn't give up and that's the way I'm going to look at it. 

If you look at the league this season you can see all the so-called big teams have days like this. United have recently beaten Stoke and Sunderland with goals coming right at the death so we're not alone in that regard.

So we go back into the top four, for the moment at least, as Villa play at Hull on Tuesday night and we'll all be hoping O'Neill's men find themselves mauled by the Tigers who will be determined to perform at home after their atrocious showing the other day. Fingers crossed.

With the next league game not until next year (a home game against Bolton) and the FA Cup game against Plymouth next on the horizon on January 3rd all the talk is going to be of the transfer window. Already names are being bandied around like nobody's business with everybody trying to out exclusive everyone else without having the first clue who we might buy.

In yesterday's match programme (which I was trying to find without success on the official site - can anyone help me out there?) the manager spoke about transfers, saying:

If we do buy I think what we need is maybe someone with a bit of experience. We already have many young players so, if we buy, it will be somebody who is ready to play straight away.

He hinted at a need for a creative midfielder with the absences of Cesc, Theo and Rosicky and Andrei Arshavin is someone who is obviously on the agenda. However, while I fully understand the need to replace the creative element of the team I hope he's looking at other players too. A central midfielder with a more defensive mindset and hopefully a central defender too. We know from this summer, as Alex Fynn revealed  on the Arsecast a few weeks ago, this was an area the manager was particularly concerned about and judging by performances this season he still should be. 

Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see. January is like a little summer, months of frenzied speculation and Newsnow refreshing in just 31 fun-packed days. It's obviously a hugely important transfer window for the manager and for the club but it's too early at the moment to get that worried about it. When you see stories like yesterday's in the News of the World (linking us to Given, Taylor and N'Zogbia at Newcastle) you know the tabloids have got their creative writing teams going full blast already.

Right, until tomorrow. 

An extremely quick one this morning as I am decidedly unwell. I think I got poisoned last night or something, and not by drink. Honest.

Suffice to say my entire body feels like it's been given a good working over with truncheons and iron bars. Not pleasant at all. I've just about managed to drag myself out of bed to do the blog.

Today sees the return of Tony Adams to the Arsenal in his role as manager of Portsmouth. He's had a strange relationship with the club since his retirement. On the one hand he's made it no secret that his ambition is to become manager one day, on the other he was notably absent from various events such as the farewell to Highbury. Still, he talks with great fondness about the club and while I'd love to see him make a success of his new job I'd love us to turn Portsmouth over even more.

It's slightly ironic that a man who was part of that famous defence comes back at a time when we're bemoaning our current crop. He doesn't seem to have done much for the Portsmouth back four with talk of Distin leaving, a public spat with Sol Campbell and a recent hammering by Zola's West Ham.

For our part we'll have Emmanuel Adebayor back and Gael Clichy looks set to come back into the team. There's no word on Johan Djourou's fitness, he injured himself in the warm-up at Villa Park, while Alex Song misses out.

We're currently on our longest unbeaten run of the league season, we've gone 5 games without defeat, so amidst all the gloom perhaps that's something we should cling to. It goes without saying how important a win today is so fingers crossed we can put the Villa game behind us and get back on track.

Right, I can't even type my shoulders and neck are so painful so we'll leave it there.

More tomorrow.