The North Bank – “It’s got va-va-voom” (An Arsenal blog)

Greetings from Yokohama. Thank Jaysus it is still Sunday as I don’t think I could face work this morning. Anyway, today sees Spain take on Holland in the World Cup final and from tomorrow onwards things should really start moving in the transfer market for most clubs, hopefully we’ll have a few more deals to announce, too.

Talking ahead of the World Cup final, Cesc spoke about how he is looking forward to coming up against Van Persie and how it is a good tribute to Arsenal that they have two players involved in the game. However, it remains to be seen whether or not Cesc will get onto the field. Cesc also took the time to mention how Arsenal are already back at training preparing for the new season while both he and Robin are still finishing last season. Nice to see him keeping Arsenal in mind even though he is about to be involved in the biggest game of his life. One way or another, we will have a World Cup winner in our squad when the final competition ends tonight.

Elsewhere, Owen Coyle has again said that he would love to take Wilshere on loan again for the coming season and I must admit that I would be in favour of that in order to get him the games he needs so as to continue his development. He would certainly get more games there than if he stays with us for the season. Then, he can come back to us and challenge for a midfield berth in the 2011/2012 season.

Sandro Rossell yesterday demonstrated his lack of intelligence when stating that Barcelona want a short, definitive answer from Arsenal on the Cesc situation. They want a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Well, all he needs to do is visit the club’s website and he will see the official statement the club made about a month ago. That was about as definitive as you can get with regards to Arsenal’s position on the situation.

Some media outlets are linking us with the Udinese goalkeeper Handanovic but I’m going to try and avoid all keeper-related speculation as the same media outlets also ran with the Wenger non-interview interview a few days back without verifying their source. So, it’s a bit like me pulling a tenuous link out of my arse and printing it as fact. Given that Handanovic is 25yrs old, I’d be surprised if Wenger signed him and thereby block Szczesny’s route to the first team for the foreseeable future. If we are to sign a keeper, I’d expect him to be in his 30s, with plenty of experience and would allow our younger keepers to develop some more before being thrown into our starting eleven.

In other news, Wenger spoke of his anger at how poorly France played and how unprofessionally they behaved at the World Cup. Though, is seeing a group of French people going on strike such a surprise? Anyway, it still doesn’t excuse how poor they were in each game that they played at the tournament.

Finally, best of luck to Robin and Cesc in tonight’s World Cup final. Let’s hope that both are involved and that it is a cracking game. Though, I have a feeling that there is a bigger chance of the former happening than the latter. I’m not all that enthused about the game, I must admit. Neither team has set the world on fire so far, despite each boasting a very impressive record.

Right, that’s all for today. I’m going to spend the afternoon debating whether or not I want to get up at 03:30 to watch the game, or to just wait and watch it on MOTD before going to work in the morning. It’s all been a bit quiet on the Arsenal front this weekend, not all that surprising considering the World Cup final is today. Take it easy.