Yeah forgot about Gilberto.
Eboue has been a bit up and down in the pre-season.
DB - what do u think of Myles Palmer's ramblings - how close is he to the club ?
Sample from 2 aug ---
Arsene reconfigures his Arsenal team
By Myles Palmer
What I've been hearing this week is unprintable.
And that's a shame.
But all of it makes me more optimistic about Arsenal's immediate prospects.
There's stuff I can't write for legal reasons and stuff I've promised not to publish.There is also stuff I could spill about upcoming transfer deals but since there's a slight possibility that spilling that news might jeopardise those deals, I'd better stay silent for the next few days and see what happens. If I rate the players involved, as I do in this case, I always shut up and wait.
The capture of Eduardo showed me that Arsene was thinking along the same lines as I was. He is the striker who will make Hleb, Fabregas and Rosicky look good.
Will Eduardo get his work permit today? I hope so. It will be a farce if he doesn't.
Tonight's Lazio game in Amsterdam is interesting because the team is now in the post-Thierry era after a very long pre-season which started on March 8, the day that Arsene said Henry would not play again last season. He wanted to see the training without Henry, to see the group evolve without Henry, to play games without Henry.
The future is going to be a more collective and abrasive future, a more democratic future, less of a one-man show where everybody waited for the virtuouso to turn on a bit of magic.
Five months down the line, Arsene is reconfiguring his team and one of the most crucial new components is the powerhouse on the right flank.
Eboue was a loose cannon as a right back because he has as much positional sense as a clockwork mouse. But he is a thrilling raider who can provide width on a broad pitch, destroy defences, and lift fans off their seats in Row Z.
Arsene Wenger loves power and he knows that his team was under-powered last season. Too many small footballers making short passes. To finish higher than fourth his new Arsenal needs to be more aggressive, more solid and more powerful. He loves the raw power of Eboue, so he's bought the steady Sagna to play behind him. That makes a lot of sense and it will make even more sense in the upcoming months.
In other words, he's found a new way of using Eboue. And, with Arsene, that par for the course. He turned Overmars into a striker, and he turned Petit into a midfielder, and he turned Lauren, a midfielder, into a right back, because he needed a reliable passer in his back four.
When the African Cup of Nations comes round in January, he will lose a striker, a centreback and a right winger. He won't lose two of his back four - he'll only lose one. He needs a stable defence, so he doesn't want to lose half his back four for over a month. He has options. He's already shown us that he is willing to play Gilberto at centreback, a ploy that divides opinion, to put it mildly.
He has assembled a talented squad with plenty of fire and energy and skill. We are about to find out whether they are organised enough and mentally tough enough to win games consistently, go on long unbeaten runs, and win the home games that finished 1-1 last season.
Last season, when some of my most discerning friends were saying, "This season is one in the bank" I was dubious. But I've been slowly coming round to that point of view. Yes, the Arsenal players have plenty of faults but I'm not gonna list them today - there will be plenty of time for that.
If this team plays as it can do and should do, they will beat Lazio and Ajax.
But, of course, you never know in football.
Last night I thought Manchester United would annihilate Inter Milan and almost backed them to win.Then, at the last minute, I went for more than 2.5 goals. United started at an awesome tempo, Rooney scored a fine goal, and then, suddenly, it was a train crash: three goals conceded in 15 minutes in front of 73,738 people, a record crowd for a pre-season friendly. A fanzine spell : one nil up, three one down.
Bloody hell ! Inter's first goal, from a ball into the box that any Manchester United defence should deal with, fell to David Suazo, the hot Honduran whose header rocketed in at the Emirates, and he made it 1-1.
OK, it's only a friendly. But I'm surprised when Inter beat Manchester United 3-2 at Old Trafford. Maybe it was jet-lag. Maybe Italian football is on the way back. They did win the World Cup and the Champions League, after all.
How good are Lazio?
We'll find out tonight.
Either way, expect the next five days to be exciting.
http://www.arsenalnewsreview.co.uk/...cleid=687&cntnt01origid=30&cntnt01returnid=42