Arsenal Exodus Continues As Yaya Sanogo Signs

With the transfer window open less than a week Arsenal have already managed to offload five players from their first team squad. As each player goes there's more space for new players to come in and that's what the fans want and the squad needs. The rumours of possible arrivals continue daily, but Yaya Sanogo is still the only signing to be officially announced.

The 20 year old French man was signed on a long term contract when his contract with Auxerre expired. He's currently starring for France in the under 20 World Cup but his club career has been very limited due to a string of injuries. He's a player who appears to have a lot of talent and he could be a real asset to the club if he can put his injury problems behind him.

The doubters will say he ticks all the usual boxes for an Arsene Wenger signing as he's young, French, free and has had loads of injury problems. Arsenal have had their fair share of injury prone players in recent years and it is a gamble to bring in a player with his record. I'm prepared to sit back and see how he does before knocking his arrival or the manager either.

The latest departure was Vito Mannone who packed his goalkeeping gloves and moved up north to Sunderland. In his eight years at Arsenal he made a few appearances and played quite well in most of them, but never really looked like the answer to Arsenal's goalkeeping problems. I wish him well at his new club except when he comes up against Arsenal of course when I hope he lets in a shed load of goals.

Before Mannone left Johan Djourou was loaned out to Hamburg for the season with an option for them to sign him at the end of the season. Djourou is another player who never quite made it at Arsenal despite playing quite regularly two or three seasons ago. Hopefully things will work out well for him at Hamburg and they will take him for real at the end of the season. 

Before both of those departures the club offloaded Andrey Arshavin, Sebastien Squillaci and Denilson without bringing in any money. The most important things for Arsenal were the space created in the squad for new arrivals and of course the amount of money saved on the wage bill by the five departures. At a guess I would say the club could save up to €250,000 a week by cutting those five players from wage bill. 

That money could well go towards paying the wages of the new arrivals that surely must be just around the corner. The deal for Gonzalo Higuain seems more likely by the day and hopefully it will be announced very soon. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I think he would be a fantastic signing for Arsenal. Not only would he add genuine quality to the team, but his arrival would also show that Arsenal really are trying to compete at the top again.

Nicklas Bendtner is still an Arsenal player though as his proposed move to Eintracht Frankfurt seems to have fallen by the wayside. His departure would save the club a lot of money with his weekly wage supposedly matching his number 52 shirt. There's even a chance Arsenal could bring in a few million quid if Bendtner can find a new club and that could be put to good use elsewhere.

Things have certainly been busy this week even if most of the movement has been out wards. I have no doubt there will be plenty of inward movement before the transfer window closes and I just hope it's all dealt with sooner rather than later. 

That's if for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal Lose 2-1 Away To Chrlsea

Arsenal went to Chelsea yesterday afternoon to play a game which they really had to take something from. They had taken only one point in the two Premier League games they had played so far this year. With the race for fourth place picking up pace it was vital that Arsenal got something to keep pace with Spurs and Everton.

The chances were that Arsene Wenger was going to keep faith with the same team which beat Swansea 1-0 in their FA Cup replay on Wednesday night. News came through that both Lukas Podolski and Alex Oclade-Chamberlain were ill which more or less guaranteed the team remained unchanged. It also meant the team's options from the bench were very limited.

The game was very open from the first minute and Chelsea had a good appeal for a penalty turned down. Abou Diaby appeared to have both arms around a Chelsea player in the Arsenal penalty area and it wasn't too far off a similar incident involving Laurent Koscielny last week. The difference was last weeks holding was more obvious and prevented a goal scoring chance and the referee chose to ignore it yesterday.

Soon after that Arsenal should have taken the lead when Theo Walcott played Olivier Giroud in on the left and he put his effort wide of the far post. He really should have done better and Arsenal paid the price less than a minute later.

Arsenal cut out a Chelsea move and the players pushed up as Francis Coquelin brought the ball out. Coquelin played the ball a little too far in front of himself and stretched to knock it away from the advancing Ramires. The Chelsea player went in on Coquelin's foot with his studs and left Coquelin on the grounding agony as Chelsea broke forward.

A quick ball was played over the Arsenal defence to Juan Mata who was in acres of space with Bacary Sagna caught going forward. Mata took the ball down and crashed it into the roof of the net past a helpless Wojciech Szczesny before Sagna could block his effort. I thought Per Mertesacker could have got back quicker to cover for Sagna when he was caught out of position, but he didn't and Chelsea had the lead after only six minutes.

Chelsea were now in the ascendancy and they closed Arsenal down very quickly in midfield. Arsenal were unable to cope with Chelsea's pressure and they lost the ball in midfield time after time. Despite this Santi Cazorla still managed to come close with a shot from outside the box which Peter Cech pushed around the post for a corner.

Jack Wilshere was again deployed in an advanced midfield role, but he was never in the game in the first half. It was obvious that he needed to drop back and become more involved, but Arsenal continued to play as they had been set up from the start. They paid the price after only 16 minutes when Chelsea added their second goal of the game.

There was even more controversy about the second goal after the referee awarded a penalty when that man Ramires went down in the Arsenal penalty area. First of all Abou Diaby was caught in possession in midfield and a quick ball was played to Mata who passed to Ramires who had only Szczesny to beat. As Szczesny advanced he tried to go around him and went over for what looked like a certain penalty.

When the replays were shown it was pretty clear that Ramires foot went from under him or he dived, but he certainly wasn't taken down by Szczesny. I feared the referee would give the Arsenal keeper a red card, but thankfully he only got a yellow one. Frank Lampard stepped up and dispatched the penalty with relative ease to make it 2-0 to Chelsea.

The game went by very quickly and Chelsea completely bossed almost all of the rest of the first half. There were a few encouraging signs for Arsenal before the break as they managed to involve Wilshere a little more in the game. Santi Cazorla was out on the left though and his influence in that first half was minimal at best.

The second half started an awful lot better for Arsenal as they were the ones putting the pressure on Chelsea when they were on the ball. Chelsea were the ones finding it hard to cope and Arsenal were making chances. The first of them fell to the feet of Mertesacker when a ball dropped to his feet from an Arsenal corner, but his effort from 15 yards was straight at Cech.

In the first half Chelsea worked their offside trap very well and caught Walcott at least three times when he had tried to run in behind them. He timed his runs a lot better in the second half though and almost took advantage shortly after that effort from Mertesacker. He was played in on the right hand side, but his effort from a fairly tight angle was straight at the Chelsea keeper.

After 58 minutes Arsenal got themselves back in the game with a very well taken goal from Walcott. Thomas Vermaelen beat Fernando Torres to a ball just inside the Arsenal half and the ball fell to the feet of Cazorla. He played it in behind the Chelsea defence for Walcott to run on to and finish expertly past Cech.

It was game on now with Arsenal in the ascendancy and Chelsea looking to hit them on the break. Coquelin had to go off with an injury just after the goal and he was replaced by Aaron Ramsey. As the half progressed it was a case of Arsenal trying to prise open the Chelsea defence without leaving themselves too open at the back.

They crossed that line a couple of times and Torres should have done better on at least one occasion. Demba Ba had a great chance late on too, but Thomas Vermaelen blocked his effort after he had gone around Szczesny. Chelsea will feel they should have added to their lead, as Arsenal struggled to make chances at the other end.

In the five added minutes at the end Arsenal piled on the pressure and it took a last ditch tackle from Gary Cahill to stop Walcott equalising. There were also. Couple of fouls by Chelsea players just outside their box to stop Arsenal in very dangerous positions. Arsenal won plenty of corners late on but they couldn't take advantage of any of them.

I thought they lost some momentum when Diaby went off with 15 minutes left and was replaced by Andrey Arshavin. The game passed Arshavin by and he may as well not have been on the pitch. For a squad the manager says has two quality players available in every position he was the only attacking option on the bench.

It might have been better to bring Emmanuel Frimpong on as he would at least have given his all to the cause. I'm sure Arshavin came on to allow Cazorla to move into a more central role where he was having a lot more joy. Arshavin's days at Arsenal are numbered and to include him as a genuine option is unfair to Arsenal fans.

The game finished 2-1 to Chelsea and Arsenal now find themselves seven points off fourth place with a game in hand. That game in hand is at home to West Ham on Wednesday night and it's a game that has to be won. Arsenal have 16 league games left and they will probably have to win 11 or 12 of them to have a chance of finishing in the top four.

It was hard to figure out the difference between Arsenal in the first half and the second half. All too often recently the team have played at a much slower pace in the first half and Chelsea took advantage of that yesterday. Whatever was said at half time had an effect and Arsenal were a completely different animal after the break.

Maybe those half time team talks need to take place before the game to give the team any chance of winning games. It was the same against City last week and in the FA Cup replay against Swansea too. Something has to be one to get the players to play with everything they have from the start before it's too late and all is lost this season.

Besides the team display being so disappointing in the first half the performance of Sagna was absolutely awful. He has played very badly for the last five or six games now and there has to come a time where Carl Jenkinson is given a chance. I don't know if it's anything to do with his contract situation or just that he's going through a bad patch, but he is very far from the player who I consider to be the best right back in the league.

Diaby wasn't at he races either, but he was being asked to p,any for the third time in a week after missing over three months through injury. I'm not exactly sure how that is managing a player who is so injury prone, but obviously the manager felt he was more up to playing the defensive midfield role than Ramsey. He will be needed again on Wednesday night, but surly he must need a rest instead.

I was far from happy with the referee's performance after mistakes from him led to both Chelsea goals. There was also a very good shout for a second half penalty for Arsenal when Branislav Ivanovic turned his back on the ball and ran right into Giroud as he tried to head a great cross. How could he be deemed to be making a fair challenge with his back to the ball and an interest in only playing his man and not the ball.

The referee's performance shouldn't take from Arsenal's abysmal performance in the first half in particular though. It's hard to understand how they got it so wrong in the first half of a really big game for the second week in a row. Can it all be down to the players or are they getting sent out there with the wrong instructions.

Something has to change in their attitudes or the instructions given to them before it's too late. When a game is going away from Arsenal where is the ability to change things on the pitch and why do they have to wait until half time to do so. All too often it seems Arsenal are being out thought before they even step foot on the pitch and that cannot be allowed to continue.

I still think this team has the ability to finish in the top four but it's hard to understand why they can't show it for 90 minutes in a game. The squad certainly needs strengthening as it did on the first of January and eight league points have been dropped in three games since then. There are two league games left this month and six points are an absolute necessity from those two home games.

That's it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal's Capital One Cup Game Against Reading Previewed

Arsenal got back to winning ways on Saturday by just about managing to beat QPR 1-0 at home. It was hardly a vintage performance but the result was the most important statistic of the day for the team. Arsenal dominated the game in every single other statistic too, but were more than a little nervous as they tried to see the game out.

Their next Premier League outing is a trip to Manchester United next Sunday, but meanwhile they play again tonight in the Capital One Cup. Reading are the visitors to the Emirates stadium and like QPR they're struggling at the wrong end of the Premier League. On the face of it Arsenal should be firm favourites to advance to the last eight of the competition.

Of course Arsenal don't exactly play their strongest team in this competition. Usually the substitutes from the previous league game are the first names on the team sheet for Capital One Cup games. The bench contained a few players who will be anxious to get the chance to show what they can do.

In goal Damian Martinez should get a rare start with Arsenal already relying on their third choice to fulfill the first team duties. Carl Jenkinson and Laurent Koscielny should both play in defence with Johan Djourou and Ignasi Miquel possibly playing there too. It's hard to know who will play at left back, but Miquel has done so before and will probably do so again.

In midfield I would imagine Francis Coquelin and Emmanuel Frimpong should get a look in, but it's hard to know who will play with them. I don't know if Serge Gnarby is suited to that role and whether he will play there at such a young age either. He has been in the first team squad a few times recently and he may well get the chance to impress tonight.

The attacking trio could well be made up of Theo Walcott, Andrey Arshavin and Marouane Chamakh unless Arsene Wenger decides he would like to save any of them for Sunday. Chamakh hasn't seen much action in a long time, but surely this is a chance for him to show what he can if he is chosen. I'm not so sure if both Walcott and Arshavin will play with Gervinho's injury ruling him out for Sunday.

Thomas Eisfeld and Nico Yennaris are other possibilities to play at some time and even Sebastien Squillaci could get a look in. The team will have a fair deal of experience in it, but the youngsters will get a chance to shine too.

I would imagine Reading will play a strong team with the opportunity of picking up a win at Arsenal an attractive one for them. They may be in the relegation zone of the Premier League, but they have enough good players to expect to have a real chance of progressing.

Arsenal will have to be at their very best with the team they have to get something from the game. They could have problems in midfield with their best players rested and players such as Abou Diaby and Tomas Rosicky still injured. I'm hoping to see good performances from Coquelin and Frimpong too as long as he is up to playing.

When Chamakh first joined Arsenal he filled in admirably for the injured Robin van Persie, but he has hardly got a look in since then. In almost two years he has seen very little action and when he has played he had been far from impressive. His future lies elsewhere I'm sure, but I would imagine he will see out his lucrative contract at Arsenal first.

Arsenal have only one player to play the central strikers role and surely Chamakh should see himself as the automatic back up for Olivier Giroud. It's hard to fathom what has gone wrong for him at the club, but maybe he was never the type of player they should have signed. A player may be a bargain if he is signed for free, but not of he then goes on to do virtually nothing at the club.

There's an awful lot of deadwood at Arsenal at the moment and the club have found it very hard to dispose of these players. Besides Chamakh both Arshavin and Squillaci could be on show tonight and the clubs desire to dispose of them has been no secret either. Whatever happened to players buckling down and doing everything to prove judgements on them to be wrong.

I always predict an Arsenal win and tonight is no different. I may not be overly confident of that win tonight, but I'm plumping for a 3-2 victory.

I would love to see Arshavin and Chamakh come out and show what they can do and maybe even make the boss think twice about their futures at the club. It's probably a forlorn wish but I do believe they have the ability and it's the conviction which is missing.

There should be another full house tonight as the club continues it's policy of offering tickets for this competition at a very good price. It's a competition which Arsenal have won a few times in the past with the victories over Liverpool and Sheffield Wednesday being the ones I remember. Unfortunately I also remember defeats in the final to Luton and more recently Birmingham and they were bad days.

Whatever happens tonight it's the game on Sunday which is really important. Once any players who might play on Sunday come through in one piece I will be relatively happy, but of course a win would be great. November is going to be a tough month for Arsenal and they will need all of their best players fully fit and ready to go.

That's it for today.

See you tomorrow.