out with the old and in with the.. erm... new?

and it's back. the football season already in full swing after the first round of games in the football league and now it's time for the new premier league season. the drama, the passion and those gritty 0-0 draws in pouring rain on tuesday nights: we've missed it terribly. pre-season counts for nothing, it all starts here.

there's been a lot of transfer buzz this summer - sadly most stories involving arsenal football club have been centred around players leaving, rather than bringing the players we desperately need to end the infamous six year trophy drought. a commanding centre half should be the priority - with a reserve left back and decent goalkeeper also on most fans' wish list. we've been linked to the likes of bolton's gary cahill and blackburn's christopher samba but no such deal has materalised. earlier on in the summer we lost the last of the invincibles to manchester city - gael clcihy, a fine left back and will be sorely missed at the club, last season wasn't the best example of his sheer class and talent but trust me, city have signed a gem there. promising youngsters such as alex oxlade chamberlain and carl jenkinson have not excited the arsenal fans enough, they crave more high profile signing such as gervinho - finally signing for arsenal after a two month wait. a lack of activity in the transfer market has led to a lot of frustration amongst arsenal fans but we have to be patient. there could be a flurry of late transfers... i won't hold my breath though!
weeks of stories in the written and digital press, two players have stole the limelight. still on arsenal's books but if all the current stories are to be believed, both are on the verge of jumping ship and their names are samir nasri and cesc fabregas. the latter is constantly talked about - his love affair with his former club has left him a driving ambition to return there and he's said to be desperate to be reunited with his national team mates in la liga. even current arsenal players, bacary sagna and marouane chamakh, have said themselves that they believe fabregas will leave this summer.
last season, i would have done anything to keep cesc fabregas. i couldnt comprehend that losing our captain could benefit the club in any way but now i have matured and realised that cesc's burning desire for barcelona will never die. no matter how much he claims to love arsenal football club, this obsession with returning home to spain means his head and heart are not with us in north london. yes, his head has been turned by comments from barcelona players but at the end of the day, cesc has his own mind and most arsenal fans know this too. not even the most deluded cesc fabregas fan expects him to fufil his contract at arsenal - like he promised three years ago, declaring that he'd be happy spending his whole career at the arsenal. arsenal fans know it's time for him to move on but the main issue now is the money received for him, in order to buy a replacement - one of a similar quality to the world class fabregas. a running theme of this transfer saga is barcelona's disrespect to arsenal and this hasn't stopped this summer, offering arsenal twenty seven million pounds for the spanish superstar. in the 'real world', twenty seven million is a lot, okay more than a lot. but this is football and everything is extortionate. this offer looks even more ridiculous when compared to others this summer - for example stewart downing's twenty million pound switch to liverpool. this is a player who in my opinion is one of the most overrated players to wear an england shirt in the last ten years - so how is cesc only seven million better than him?! of course, arsenal rejected this. barcelona's seemingly endless persuit to get their man has resulted in many rejected offers along the way but if reports circulating twitter and from high profile jounralists, are correct then the figure apparently agreed by the two clubs is around £35 million. again, arsenal losing out moneywise but probably having to take the offer because of player power. contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on nowadays and are only used for players to beg more money out of their clubs - because its obviously ludicrous for these poor pampered players to live on £120,000 a week. if fabregas didn't want to play at the weekend and force his move to barcelona, i'm sure he'd do it. long have gone the days where the club had some sort of authority over these players.
another 'unsettled' arsenal player is samir nasri. allegedly, he has told arsenal that he will not sign another contract with the club and like his french team mate clichy, is desperate to satisfy his thirst for trophies. he's being linked to manchester city too, after a brief period of interest from manchester united - due to united's desire to sign dutchmen wesley sneijder, another player their manchester neighbours seem to be keen on! out of both nasri and fabregas, i personally would rather keep nasri. i know some fans agree with me and others won't - but that's okay. up until recently, i was sure that nasri would be committed to arsenal enough for one more quality season before leaving on a free next summer. it would be a shame to see such a great player leave on a free transfer but we're apparently in a great financial postition - so this aspect shouldn't be too worrying. this is a player who can change games at the click of his fingers and who knows, if he was to stay, he could end up being the most important player in a premier league winning team. however, recent comments have led me to believe that this committment won't be there next season. he seems as desperate as fabregas to leave arsenal and we don't need players like that, no matter how good they are.
if they don't want to play for arsenal football club, then here's the door. thousands of young men would give their left arm to represent this great club and wear the red and white of arsenal. yet these two have their hearts set on leaving. if this is goodbye cesc and samir, thank you for the memories x