Lassana Diarra signs for Arsenal!!

The official Arsenal FC website, Arsenal.com, has released an article which officially states that Arsene Wenger has signed Lassana Diarra from Chelsea for an undisclosed fee. This comes as a surprise deadline day signing after Arsene Wenger earlier claimed that he would not sign any new players. Wenger, however, does have a reputation not only for making signings on the last day of transfer windows, but also for conducting business in secret.

This secret was not as well kept as some of his others though, and I in fact wrote an article about the possibility of Lassana Diarra coming to Arsenal not too long ago. The 22 year-old Frenchman will be a welcome addition at the Emirates as he can play both in the midfield and in defense. We now have plenty of cover at right back, and even a replacement for Gilberto if necessary, as Diarra is a fairly competent defensive midfielder - although he prefers to be played as an attacking midfielder (where we already have enough options).

Lassana Diarra is a great new signing, and I am very happy to hear that Arsene went forwards with this signing, as I was worried about the thin cover of our backline, and especially about an injury to Gilberto. Diarra should be far better as a defensive midfielder than Mathieu Flamini was. I hope to see great things from him in a few years time.

Who was Arsenal's greatest signing this summer?

Are Arsenal really going to miss Henry this season?

There is no doubt that Thierry Henry was one of the most beloved and influential players ever to grace Highbury (and Ashburton Grove for a few games last season). His pace, creativity, and clinical finishing made him the best striker ever to play for Arsenal - and for many, the best striker in the world. While many doubted his leadership skills, there were none who could doubt his incredible talent. However, after spending a good part of last season injured and scoring only 10 goals, Henry's departure to Barcelona came as no surprise.

It was a huge blow to Arsenal, and many people claimed that Arsenal's spot in the top 4 would come to an end without our talismanic striker. Others fooled themselves claimed that our strikers would do better without the pressure on Robin van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor. It was clear to me though, that our front line would struggle, despite the incredible class of Robin van Persie. Without Henry to take penalties and free kicks, we were sure to score less off of our set pieces, and there would be no Henry to conjure up magnificent goals out of nothing.

However, van Persie has been doing an excellent job at filling his shoes, both this season and last. His strong left foot makes him a huge danger on free kicks, and his tendency to score from long range is reminiscent of his departed partner. I even think that van Persie has a good chance at taking the golden boot from Chelsea's Didier Drogba this season. However, it is unlikely that he will be as prolific a striker this season as Henry was in his seasons with Arsenal.

Who, then, will pick up his mantle? Not new signing Eduardo, but rather our midfielders. While I was initially disheartened by Henry's departure, my hopes for our team were lifted up by our pre-season friendlies and our first three matches of the season. In the first three games of the premiership we have scored 4 goals - 2 from van Persie, one from Hleb and one from Fabregas. In our Champion's League qualifier away against Sparta Prague, Hleb and Fabregas scored the only goals in a 2-0 win. In the return leg, Fabregas struck again as did Tomasz Rosicky. This newly found striking power in our midfield comes as a relief after next season in which Hleb and Rosicky scored only 3 league goals each and Fabregas scored only 2. Fabregas is currently our top goalscorer! Who ever thought we would be saying that?

I will have confidence in our ability to become champions if our midfield continues scoring goals. After all, our invincibles season saw a large amount of our goals come from Pires and Ljunberg.

Poll Results: Arsene Wenger is indeed the right manager for Arsenal

Well, today marks the end of the first poll that this blog has been posted (the blog itself has only been up for a week). Thanks to you guys I've had almost 500 visitors from all over the world view my blog during that week, and I hope to have more in the coming months. I especially want to thank those of you who either voted in the poll or commented on an article. I would like to do my best to write articles that you, the readers, find informative and entertaining, so any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Note the word constructive there, by the way, and try and refrain from destructive criticism.

The results of the poll were overwhelmingly in favor of Arsene Wenger as our coach with 92% of the 68 people who voted saying he is the right manager, while only 5 people thought he was not. I was glad to see that my first article was agreed with, and I will be putting up a new poll soon.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for your participation with my blog, and I hope to see more of you guys in the future!!

David Dein sells his shares of Arsenal to Red and White

David Dein, the former vice-chairman of Arsenal, today held a press conference in which he stated that he had sold his 14.58% stake in the club to Red and White. Red and White, jointly owned by Russian businessman Aliser Ushmanov and London-based investor Farhad Moshiri, purchased the shares for £75million, and instated Dein as its chairman. Dein has reported that there is no "current intention" to mount a takeover bid, but there have reportedly been funds set aside by Red and White to purchase more shares of the club.

Dein, who had been an important figure at Arsenal prior to leaving the club, has said that this move does not mean that he is losing interest in the club.

"I have not lost my passion for the club; indeed, it is greater than ever. 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 number one club into reality."

Arsenal managing director Keith Edelman has stated that the board of directors (which together controls a 45% stake in the club) will hold firm to its earlier agreement that no stocks will be sold for a year after Dein's departure, and is confident that their share is enough to hold off any attempted takeover bid.

However, it is speculated that Red and White could team up with American billionaire Stan Kroenke who controls around 30% of the club. If they were to join together they would control a total almost equal to the 45% that the board shares. This would let them make some major decisions in the club, even though it would not be enough to launch a takeover.

I think that this move is a good one on Dein's part. First of all it will encourage Arsene Wenger to re-sign, as one of the major reasons for the rumors of his departure was the fact that Dein had left the club. If Dein and Kroenke (and Red and White) were to purchase Arsenal, it would be under foreign control, following the suit of many other major Premiership teams, including Manchester United and of course Chelsea. This would inject a large amount of cash into the clubs coffers and most definitely allow for some high-profile signings, although with Arsene at the helm, we are unlikely to buy anyone overpriced. I think overall, having David Dein back would make any takeover a good move for Arsenal.

Arsene Wenger wants Walcott as a central striker and Eduardo as a winger

In his post-match conference after yesterday's 3-0 drubbing of Sparta Prague Arsene Wenger discussed how he would be using Theo Walcott and new signing Eduardo da Silva in the future. Wenger has stated that he wants to use Eduardo as the goalscoring left-winger that Arsenal have been missing, while he hopes to convert Walcott from a winger to a central striker.

I think it would be great to use Eduardo as a left-winger. He played some of the Sparta Prague game out on the left flank, and while he did not cross the ball like an out and out winger, he often cut in, took on a defender, and then cut a pass back into the center of the penalty area - it was in fact a move just like this which set up Cesc Fabregas' goal. Eduardo would do well as a winger who pops into the box for to score his own goals as well, as he is obviously an excellent striker as well. I feel that this would be the ideal position for him. As Wenger said, "I found him more at ease on the left flank, where he had tricks of a winger, and then through the middle. He's a great striker, you know, and you could see that." A combination of a striker/winger would serve Arsenal very well.

Eduardo was not the only one who showed promise in the Sparta Prague game - Theo Walcott also showed some of the quality that got him called up for England's 2006 World Cup squad. His blistering pace was reminiscent of the recently departed Henry, and although he is young, his runs caused the Sparta defense a whole lot of problems. It was a cut back from Walcott that set up Rosicky's goal in the 8th minute, and Walcott supplied many chances for others as well. Wenger would like to try some of his magic on Theo, by converting him to a central striker as he did to Henry.

"In the future he'll be used more as a central striker. He can make a difference for England because there are not many strikers in this country who have his qualities or pace.

"If a defender is one yard behind him Theo will never get caught. He makes good runs along the line of the defence and he will be able to use that more when he plays through the middle.

"But it's good for him to learn the job on the flanks."

I haven't seen much of Walcott in a central striker position, but with all of his talent, I'm sure that he will be able to function well in any attacking spot on the pitch. I just hope that Arsene can do with him what he did with Henry. At 18 years old, Walcott still has quite a future ahead of him...

Why Arsene Wenger Loaned out Johan Djourou

I was very unhappy when I heard that Arsene Wenger had loaned Johan Djourou to Birmingham. As an Arsenal fan, I really like to see the Arsenal youth develop at Arsenal, the club which probably has the brightest young prospects in world football. I was not the only one who was shocked and disappointed when Djourou was loaned out. Djourou is one of the most promising young central defenders in the Premiership (alongside Micah Richards of course) and as such I was hoping to see him get some games this season.

However Wenger defended the decision yesterday, saying "I knew when Djourou left that Alex Song can play in there and Gilberto has played in there already,” said Wenger. “I wanted him to be experienced. I know Kolo will go in January [to the African Nations Cup] and I want Johan to play."

It is good to see that Wenger has him in the plans for the time that Kolo Toure is gone, although I suspect that we may see a lot of Gallas and Senderos if neither of them is injured. What worries me is the talk of Song and Gilberto in the central defensive position. Alex Song should be nowhere near the field until he gets some more experience, as he is not at all up to Arsenal's high standards. For some reason Wenger has faith in him, so I feel he deserves a chance, but that chance should not be in the heart of our defense - a defense which gave up more goals by far than any of the other top four last season. Gilberto on the other hand is a hard tackler, and would make a good defender. However, we have nobody who can effectively replace him in the defensive midfield role, where he shields our defenders better than anybody else. For this reason, I think that Djourou should have remained in our squad - not to mention his height: at 6 ft 4 in he would be very useful in defending set pieces and crosses.

While nobody could have foreseen the injury of William Gallas (despite his injury proneness last season), I still think that it was foolish to let Djourou go. He may get more experience at Birmingham, but as he is one of our brightest prospects for the future, I would like to see him fashioning a partnership with Gallas and Toure, and maybe even Senderos.

I just can't wait until I get to see Djourou play in Arsenal colors in January (not that I want Toure to go or anything - he's a quality defender)

Now that we've qualified: The Champions League Draw Possibilities

Now that we've qualified (after cruising over Sparta Prague) I think it's about time to discuss the possible draws that we could face in the Champions League group stages. The way this works is that UEFA randomly draws one team from each pot into each group, so you get a team from pot 1, a team from pot 2, a team from pot 3, and a team from pot 4 in each group. Here are what the pots look like.

Pot 1:
AC Milan
Barcelona
Liverpool
Inter Milan
Arsenal
Real Madrid
Manchester United
Chelsea

Pot 2:
Valencia
Lyon
Porto
Sevilla/AEK Athens
PSV Eindhoven
Roma
Benfica
Werder Bremen

Pot 3:
Celtic
Schalke 04
Stuttgart
Steaua Bucharesti
CSKA Moscow
Sporting Lisbon
Lazio
Marseille

Pot 4:
Rangers
Shakhtar Donetsk
Beşiktaş
Olympiacos
Dynamo Kiev
Fenerbahçe
Slavia Prague
Rosenborg

Even the teams in pots 3 and 4 are quite competitive, so it would be possible to be drawn a horrible group like Arsenal, Sevilla, Celtic, and Fenerbaçe. However, we could also end up with AEK Athens, Steaua Bucharesti, and Rosenborg, a fairly easy challenge.

Personally, I would like to see a draw of 1 fairly difficult teams and 2 "easy" teams. The reason that I don't want all of our challengers to be "easy" teams is that we never seem to do our best against sub-par opponents. Take last season for example, in which we won the double against the Champions, drew Chelsea home and away, and beat Liverpool 3 times across the course of the season (although we lost to them once); while we lost to teams that were closer to relegation than to European spots.

I think the ideal draw would be something like PSV Eindhoven (for revenge), Steaua Bucharesti, and Rosenborg. That way we would be pretty sure of getting through to the next round, but we would be kept on our toes by PSV, and we would be able to get our revenge. I guess we'll have to wait and see how it goes tomorrow...

What do you think would be the ideal draw? PSV for revenge, or AEK for a (hopefully) easy way through? Post your comments here.