Okay, I understand Adebayor leaving. He’s an idiot, has no desire to play for Arsenal and attacking-wise, it is not our weakest area. Although unfortunately, the injury which will keep out Nasri until Xmas is a big setback. Yes, I know the official word is that he will be back in 2/3 months but to recover from a broken leg and get up to full fitness and form is asking a lot from the boy. Especially with our luck with injuries.

Anyway, after weeks of speculation there finally seems to be solid reports that Kolo is going to join Manchester City, for around £15 million.

I haven’t even mentioned it because to be honest, I didn’t think it would happen.

I just don’t get it.

Adebayor isn’t that much of a loss, although it is a loss. We’ve made one of our potential rivals stronger, and not replaced him. As I’ve mentioned, we’ve got Van Persie, Eduardo, Arshavin and even Theo who can play up top so it’s not the worst situation.

But selling Kolo to City seems like a big mistake to me.

With their 50 strikers, one area they are now looking to strengthen is defence, and why are we helping them?!

It doesn’t make any sense.

We’ve made £25 million from Adebayor, so are we desperate for the money? If we do make £15 million and essentially make £30 million (after taking the £10 million for Thomas Vermaelen) then Arsene seriously needs to re-invest that into the squad.

But I can see that money not being spent, and now I’m worried.

Before, I was optimistic – we had a very strong central defence with Toure, Gallas, Vermaelen, Djourou and possibly Senderos, although we’ll probably sell him as well. And don’t even get me started about Silvestre.

But it’s the same thing over and over again. Arsene doesn’t like to upset his first eleven. He wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving first team players on the bench. He is content on having a great starting line-up and then ‘adequate’ backup. To win anything you need strength and depth, and by selling our senior players we’ll never get there.

After the criticism of Arsene at the end of last season, he has said judge him on this coming season. With that, you would think he would go for broke and get his squad ready to win the major honours. Instead, he seems to be content selling experienced players, and not replace them.

I’ve never been one to urge the manager to buy players.

Look through my archives, and you will see I’m not one of those Arsenal fans that wants to bring in superstars for stupid money. I generally only talk about transfers when they happen.

But now, I’m in the camp that says we need to bring in players.

Hopefully this is another of Arsene’s ‘secret transfer dealings’ and we’ll see a couple of new players come in before the season starts.

But there isn’t long left until we kick off the campaign against Everton so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

There have been rumblings that Arsenal are after Lee Cattermole.

And the usual crap on News Now comes up, but there seems to be new levels of idiocy on the Arsenal blogs these days. I actually read on one blog that ‘Lee Cattermole is just what Arsenal need’. Along with that post, there is one video of him dribbling and taking a shot (which is saved) and then another showing a fight he was involved in.

Now I honestly don’t know if this is an attempt at satire or actually serious.

But if it is real, it is the most retarded thing I have read this summer.

Lee Cattermole! He is just a thug who, if I remember correctly, loves the kind of tackles which break your leg. Just the thought of him training with our squad would give me sleepless nights. We have injury problems in training as it is, so why we would want someone who could take out our entire team beggars belief.

That’s all I’m going to say about that ‘rumour’.

Vieira’s Return

I’ve tried to ignore it as part of the summers silly season, but it does look like there is a possibility of Vieira returning to the Premier League, to join our rivals Spurs.

Harry Redknapp seems to think that Vieira might return to North London, and that the former Arsenal captain wants to join Spurs.

There are a lot of people saying that if Vieira did join Tottenham that he’d taint his legend at the club, but personally I don’t think it matters one bit. Patrick Vieira was and will always be an Arsenal great and he truly is a one of our greatest ever captains, and one of the most successful.

And that’s how I will always remember him.

The fact is Arsene let him go because he didn’t think he could do the job anymore. What Paddy decides to do with his career after that is entirely up to him. Obviously Vieira isn’t going to be the same player he was at Arsenal, so while he will probably improve Spurs they will still be a mid-table club.

And he’s been away from Arsenal for the last 4 seasons. I could see the uproar if he joined them from us, like Sol Campbell did, but he isn’t. And while rubber face Redknapp compares the possible signing to Sol’s move across the divide the fact is it isn’t the same.

Sol Campbell moved at the peak of his career to win honours (and you can’t blame him leaving Spurs can you?) while Vieira is in the twilight of his. If he wants to continue playing and Spurs are his only option then good luck to him I say, and you’d have to say at Tottenham he’s going to need it.

Alex Ferguson and Adebayor, Again

Again Fergie has talked about Manchester City and all their strikers, and he said about Adebayor:

“When someone offers you that kind of money, it is a big attraction.

“That is the reason they have gone there.

“At the last minute, from what I can gather, either Emmanuel Adebayor or his agent phoned us after they had agreed a deal with City and then did the same with Chelsea. He was desperate to get to either Chelsea or us.”

What a classy guy.

I love how he said he joined Citeh not for the money, and then it turns out he was pimping himself out to teams like Chelsea and Manchester United.

And what I love even more is how they weren’t even interested in him.

Fergie also talked about how Manchester City were a small club, but instead of being accused of having a hate campaign against them you can just read about it yourself.

I’ve always said that looking forward to the new season only started once Adebayor left Arsenal, and last night it was finally confirmed.

Thank God for that.

Looking back the whole Adebayor situation was a strange one.

When he arrived in January 2006 we didn’t really expect much of him. Thierry was the main man, we had Reyes would could play up top and Robin Van Persie was starting to break into the first team. Plus the 2005/2006 season will largely be remembered by Arsenal fans for the Champions League run to the final which he wasn’t apart of anyway, since he was cup tied with Monaco.

The next season was up and down, the highlight of which was grabbing the winner at Old Trafford against Manchester United. It wasn’t really a settled season with Adebayor, Baptista and Robin Van Persie all fighting to play alongside Thierry Henry.

But the 2007/2008 season was the one where the Togan would come into his own. With Baptista and Henry going to Spain, Adebayor was now first choice and didn’t he relish it? He racked up 30 goals in 48 games and scored some wonder goals to boot – and his cracker against Spurs was voted the Goal of the Season. He brought us to the brink of the Premier League title and we all thought he was one for the future.

But unfortunately after just one good season the guy thought he was as good as Thierry Henry.

He was offering himself to clubs like AC Milan and Barcelona and seemed disappointed when he didn’t engineer a move away from The Emirates. I suppose seeing players like Hleb and Flamini leave for those teams and realising no-one actually wanted him got the better of Adebayor.

And to last season.

He still scored 16 goals but the effort, desire and work-rate which made him so popular wasn’t there anymore. He made excuses and started spouting a lot of crap to the press and media. The fans aren’t stupid and he got really defensive in that infamous BBC interview with Garth Crooks.

I don’t think as Arsenal fans we’ve been so fed up and sick of a single player before.

So for that Emmanuel Adebayor, well done.

It would be silly to think he’ll be a flop at Manchester City. They have a huge array of attacking talent now and teams should be worried about what they can produce next season. The biggest job Mark Hughes will have is keeping all of those forwards happy. They now have Adebayor, Tevez, Santa Cruz, Robinho, Elano, Bellamy, Benjani, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Bojinov all fighting for places in attack.

You can say what you like about mercenaries only interested in money but these guys are still professional athletes. Manchester City will be a force in the league next season, especially with no Champions League football to distract them from the Premier League.

But I’m also very excited about Arsenal in this coming campaign.

Tomas Rosicky and Eduardo should be back and when those two players are fully fit and on form they are top class players. I am especially excited to see what Eduardo can do as Arsenal’s first choice striker and hopefully get a full season under his belt. We’ve all seen glimpses of magic he is capable of and he could be the key next season. Remember, he only needs one chance to score, not five or six.

I truly believe in most areas of the pitch we are very strong. Attacking-wise we are right up there (injuries and fitness permitting) and in defence we seem to be well covered (although I’d like to know what the situation with Senderos actually is?). The only position I think we struggle is providing a partner for Cesc in central midfield. For me, the current situation isn’t good enough and our defence is exposed far too much. Denilson and Song, although they have improved, are not the answer. Diaby is frustrating too. And God forbid Cesc Fabregas were to get injured – then we’d really struggle.

Ibrahimovic & Eto’o

I know it has nothing to do with Arsenal but I just have to bring this up.

Even with obscene sums of money being thrown around for players such as Ronaldo and Kaka surely this deal is the most ridiculous?

Barcelona are offering Samuel Eto’o, £35 million and Hleb on loan in exchange for possibly the world’s most overrated player. And I’m not exaggerating. In Europe he’s done nothing. He might do well in Serie A but let’s be honest, that league is probably on the same level as the Dutch league.

At Juventus, he played against Arsenal twice in the Champions League. Toure and Senderos not only kept two clean sheets but had relatively easy games. That’s right, Phillippe Senderos! He has also drawn blanks against Liverpool four times and Manchester United twice in recent seasons. I would take Eto’o over Ibrahimovic every single day of the week. At least he’s won the Spanish League and Champions League several times.

I heard recently that he is the highest paid footballer in the world along with Kaka, and if that’s true then the mind boggles. This joker is no where near the same level as Kaka or Ronaldo.

Well still no news on Andrei Arshavin.

At least today ends all the tedious speculation on the Russian. No-one knows if he’ll end up at Arsenal and according to the BBC officials are saying that they might extend the transfer window because of the snowy conditions.

That’s all we need!

I’d rather just know if he was coming or not.

Do I think he’ll come to Arsenal? God knows. I’ve tried not to read too much about the whole saga but I’ve read (as I’m sure you have) that there seems to be disputes among Arshavin’s agent and Zenit over money. It wouldn’t surprise me if Wenger and Arsenal left it last minute to force their hand and seal the deal at the 11th hour.

But we’ll have to wait and see.

In my last post I wrote that I hope we don’t see any signings in the transfer window, but now I hope I’m wrong. Over the last couple of months it’s obvious this group of players need a boost to kick start their season.

Because 4th spot is in serious doubt.

Anyway, I’ll update with news here if I hear anything from the various news channels, but don’t expect too much.