Rosicky rested, transfer rubbish and Sagna come-back?

Howdy all. I would apologise for the lack of blogging action yesterday, but there wasn’t really much to blog about. Besides which I’m not really sorry and I don’t really want to lie to you lot. With no EURO action last night, we’re all feeling a little bored but thankfully that ends today when the Czech Republic take on Portugal in the quarter-finals. Our own Tomas Rosicky is unlikely to start with reports saying that he’ll be available off of the bench if needed. From an Arsenal point of view that’s obviously better, given Tomas’s injury problems in the past there’s no point needlessly risking him.

Staying with the Euros, Laurent Koscielny will start for France against Spain. Erm… whenever that match is. Friday? Saturday? It’s some day anyway. Which is nice. Benik Afobe is at the Euros as well! The Under-19 Euros that is. He’s the only Arsenal representative at the tournament with Nico Yennaris missing out due to the illness that saw him miss the end of the season. With Afobe taking part, he’s almost certain to miss the pre-season friendly tournament at Southampton and will probably miss the Asia tour as well, although he could still feature in Nigeria. There are rumours that Bacary Sagna could be fit enough to take part in pre-season as well, but it’s better to wait on that one than start speculating I feel.

Some players have started early though, with Benik Afobe starting very early on getting fitness work done at the club. He’s been joined by Carl Jenkinson and [to a lesser extent] Jack Wilshere.

Transfer-wise, we’ve been linked with Hatem Ben Arfa. A good player on his day but not what we need and too inconsistent in my opinion. I doubt there’s much to that story. Arsene Wenger also apparently was willing to bet an iced-cream that Robin van Persie wouldn’t move to Juve. I know I’m a bit late given that it was made public yesterday, but I still don’t think van Persie is going anywhere. As always though, it’s really just a case for us fans of waiting and seeing.

Carlos Vela’s agent says Arsenal are tough negotiators and that Real Sociedad is still Vela’s preferred destination. Arsenal? Tough negotiators? That’s funny? So many people [who obviously know so much about our negotiating methods] have told us that Arsenal are rubbish negotiators! How strange. It almost seems as if… they don’t know what they’re talking about? Surely not. God forbid they’re making things up to suit their own agendas, but that seems unlikely.

A bit of other guff news as well. Something on us trying to improve and diversify our membership structure, which is nice. Also a fascinating piece by SwissRamble [as always] on the new TV rights deal. Worth a read if you’re interested in the financial side of things.

That’s about it I think, no other transfer tittle-tattle going around, but at least there’s some football on tonight. I’m sure most sensible people will be supporting the Czech Republic, given the despicable nature of some Portuguese players. Yes Pepe, I’m looking at you.

Righto, that’s it. You can find me on twitter @SavageGooner if you want to abuse me, or feel free to desecrate the blog’s facebook wall. Until next time.