With the extremely boring International week I decided that I would give my thoughts on the opening month of Arsenal’s campaign. The fact of the matter is that we have played 6 games (albeit one in September) and won 5, and should have won the other which was a draw.

Funnily enough though even with that start, everyone still thinks Arsenal have no chance in winning the Premier League.

We have played Fulham, Sparta Prague twice in Europe, Blackburn Rovers, Manchester City and Portsmouth.

That’s 6 games, 12 goals, 5 wins and a draw.

People thought we would struggle for goals with the departure of Thierry, but the goals have been scored by 6 different players; with Fabregas (4), Hleb, Rosicky & Van Persie (2), Eduardo and Adebayor.

It seems the young guns have stepped up this season and have driven on from their focused and winning pre-season tournament wins at the Emirates and in Amsterdam.

There’s a winning mentality.

Another encouraging aspect is that in those games Arsenal have only conceded three times, which in all reality were due to fluke incidents. The first was a foolish attempt at a clearance from Lehmann against Fulham, the second was THAT mistake at Blackburn Rovers and the third was a complete freak of a goal conceded against Portsmouth from the idiosyncratic Kanu.

And to so easily push aside a Portsmouth team who gave Chelsea allsorts of problems on the opening day is positive to see.

You might say this is all well and good against these teams but what about the likes of Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea?

Well if last seasons performances at Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge and White Hart Lane without Thierry Henry are anything to go by then I would say things look promising.

And our rivals?

Well people would say Manchester United have been struggling after drawing their first two games and losing against Manchester City but the fact is that they’re still only 2 points behind us (although we have a game in hand). They’ve struggled to score goals without a recognised striker but with Louis Saha back don’t be surprised if they win their next few games by comfortable margins. They have a lot of injuries to the likes of Rooney and Neville, and Ronaldo is also set to return after suspension so Manchester United will be very strong.

Chelsea have also played one more game than Arsenal but sit level on points with us on 10.

They seem to be playing this brand of ‘more attractive’ football this season that has been demanded from owner Roman Abramovich and Chelsea look more vulnerable because of it. In the 3 games they have won it has been by the single goal, and they have conceded 5 goals in 5 games which for Chelsea is poor – considering Petr Cech’s record for keeping clean sheets is excellent.

They recently lost to Aston Villa and were lucky not to lose against Liverpool after that decision by Rob Styles. It must be said though that they do look a little lost when either Terry, Lampard or Drogba are out injured. But if anything Chelsea will get stronger as the season progresses and it would be stupid to even think about writing them off.

And Liverpool. They have been impressive.

In their opening 6 games they’ve racked up 16 goals and only conceded twice – and they have yet to concede a goal from open play. The only time Reina has been beaten was from the penalty spot, to Barry on the opening day and Lampard at Anfield.

It’s a long hard season and anything can happen but this is shaping to be one of the most exciting Premiership seasons for a long time.

Okay, I lied – there is no good. Just the bad and the ugly.

By now we all know about David Dein selling his shares to Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov for around £70 million. And we also know that Dein is the chairman of a company called ‘Red & White’ – how comforting.

But am I the only one who thinks this is bad, and quite frankly I can only see it getting more and more ugly as the weeks and months pass by.

It’s hard to see what the benefits of this are, and he had this to say:

“I’ve not lost my passion for the club.

“Indeed it’s greater than ever. I’ve always had the best interests of Arsenal at heart – I’ve had a love affair with the club since I was six.

“My ambition remains to play an active role in Arsenal again. My immediate intention is to work with others to provide the financial resources necessary to turn the vision of Arsenal as the world’s No.1 club into reality.

“To provide these financial resources, Arsenal need new investors.”

But whatever you might think, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that Dein wants to come back and run Arsenal but it wouldn’t be for the selfless reasons he’s publicly told the press.

Don’t get me wrong, he has done a lot for the club but how can all this so called ‘investment’ be good for Arsenal? It’s been suggested that when Arsenal’s accounts are shown later this year it will even impress the biggest business men on how much in terms of revenue generated.

The timing of the announcement couldn’t be more selfish.

It overshadowed the Champions League draw and Dein knew that instead of concentrating on who our group opponents were and it would put Keith Edelman on the back foot as he was interviewed after the draw. Then of course although it looks certain Arsene will sign a new contract the apparent ‘uncertainty’ is a great time for Dein to ‘return’ as if he would save Arsenal all by himself.

And this is going to get even uglier.

If the Arsenal board sacked David Dein for trying to get a wealthy, and apparently shrewd American businessman Stan Kroenke to takeover the club then do you think that the board will welcome unknown and quite dodgy entities in Alisher Usmanov and Farhad Moshiri?

Will all this new ‘investment’ actually make any difference? Has Arsene suddenly changed his stubborn transfer beliefs and decided to spend money on over-priced superstars instead of unearthing young talent?

And we know where Wenger and Dein stood on the Emirates Stadium issue.

Dein just wants to be the head of Arsenal no matter what it takes.

We’ll just have to see whether or not this is good or not for Arsenal.

Arsenal were drawn in Group H of the Champions League, alongside Sevilla or AEK Athens, Steaua Bucharest and Slavia Praha.

We will meet Slavia Praha, who are the rivals of Sparta Prague who we beat 3-0 last night and 5-0 overall in the qualifying stage. If Sevilla make it past AEK Athens then they will provide tough opposition, especially winning the UEFA Cup in the last two seasons.

Looking at the group Arsenal fans should be confident of making it to the knock-out stages.

Below is the Champions League Draw in full:

Group A: Liverpool, FC Porto, Marseille & Besiktas.
Group B: Chelsea, Valencia, FC Schalke & Rosenborg.
Group C: Real Madrid, Werder Bremen, Lazio & Olympiacos.
Group D: AC Milan, Benfica, Glasgow Celtic & Shakhtar Donetsk.
Group E: Barcelona, Lyon, VfB Stuttgart & Glasgow Rangers.
Group F: Manchester United, AS Roma, Sporting Lisbon & Dynamo Kyiv.
Group G: Inter Milan, PSV Eindhoven, CSKA Moscow & Fenerbahçe.
Group H: Arsenal, Sevilla/AEK Athens, Steaua Bucharest & Slavia Praha.

There was also a Club Player of the Year Award for each position; Goalkeeper, Defender, Midfielder and Attacker. Below are the players that won the various awards, most of them unsurprisingly going to players of AC Milan who won last years competition:

Goalkeeper: Petr Cech
Defender: Paolo Maldini
Midfielder: Clarence Seedorf
Attacker: Kaka