The return of The Diaby, knocks all around and a signing!

Righto, hello everyone and happy Friday! Yes, it’s Friday! What does that mean? It means we’re playing tomorrow! I know I haven’t blogged much recently, in fairness there’s been an apartment move going on with all the usual internet stuff happening. Luckily I’m all settled now [hopefully],

Where do we start then? Let’s start with a signing! We’re signed Tarum Dawkins! “Who?” I hear you ask. Read all about it. It’s not surprising, because I believe I’m right in saying that he’s been training with the U16s for a few weeks now. Still, there we go. A signing. I told you we made one!

All kinds of news going around then. Per Mertesacker says his come-back is going well, although he still isn’t sure when he’ll be back. Yossi Benayoun complained before the Spurs game about a lack of game time. If he gets more minutes in the coming weeks then I don’t think we’ll here much more about is. I’ve nailed my colours to the mast on Benayoun, I’ve said before that I think he’s a great squad players who the youngsters could learn a lot from and that I’d love to have him around for another year or two.

In other news, an interesting piece by Arsenal Report on Theo Walcott and Chronicles of Almunia has written about how The Arsenal has got it’s fluidity back, partly due to it’s increasing full-backness. There’s nothing like a bit of fluidity. It’s so under-rated. I’d take fluidity over solidity anyday. An interesting piece by Jeorge Bird on Joel Campbell and Benik Afobe, while the usual politics goes on in the upper echelons of the club.

All kinds of transfer rumours have been doing the rounds as per usual. There were the rumours in recent days that we had agreed personal terms with Lukas Podolski with a lot of people in Germany talking about how we’re “the right move” for him. Just the little obstacle of agreeing a fee with his club now! The rumour is that we’ll offer him £90,000 per week. Apparently we’ve also scouted Matias Suarez and Monsieur Giroud’s release clause has risen from £13.5m because of his international exploits. Believe any of those at your peril.

Time to focus on tomorrow then and our trip to Liverpool.

As usual, you can find the usual pre-match presser, interviews and what-not here.

Team news is interesting. Santos is still two weeks away, although he’s recieved praise from Arsene Wenger. The other team news is that Coquelin is four weeks away while Djourou may make Milan but Ramsey is unlikely to feature before Newcastle. There are slight doubts about van Persie and Vermaelen, with the manager annoyed that Belgium decided to play Vermaelen for the whole ninety minutes. Tomas Rosicky also has a strain and was given one of the manager’s classic “50:50” ratings. One other thing, Abou Diaby is fit. Yes, that’s right. Here’s the actual team news.

Liverpool-wise, Daniel Agger is set to miss out with a fractured rib while Steven Gerrard could miss out as well after he fell foul of the biggest curse of club football, international duty. All kinds of pre-match chat doing the round. Carl Jenkinson talking about coming on last weekend and how we were a bit unlucky when we entertained Liverpool earlier this season. Johan Djourou has been talking about harnessing momentum and turning it into a renewable, perpetual energy source, or something like that.

Arsene Wenger was asked about all kinds of things, from international friendlies and Andrei Arshavin to football finance and a possible 4th substitute rule [I like!].

That’s it for now. I think Reuben and Cookie are doing tomorrow’s match report, although I’m probably wrong. While waiting for tomorrow, don’t forget to ‘like’ the blog on facebook, follow me on twitter @SavageGooner and follow me on tumblr as well.

Until next time tweeps.

Victoria Concordia Crescit – Victory Comes Through Harmony