Cheerio!

Who exactly does Lassana Diarra think he is? He leaves Chelsea last summer for more first team action and within roughly 5 months decides he doesn't fancy fighting for his place. Did he really think he would walk into the Arsenal midfield just because he's played a few times for France at right back (by the way, how long is it going to be before Clichy and Sagna are France's regular full backs?)??

We have central midfielders in abundance at the moment:

Fabregas
Flamini
Gilberto
Diaby
Denilson
Song

What bothers me most is that, Fabregas aside, Diarra has the potential to be as good as all of the above. Yet instead of biding his time he has decided to move on. He even had a superb example in Flamini to follow. The Flamster has had to sit by and watch Gilberto play regularly for the last few seasons. He has responded to the challenge and rightly been given the plaudits for his wonderful contributions this season. Flamini is less naturally talented than Gilberto and Diarra but who cares when he is putting in twice the effort?? Why could Diarra not have done this?

I doubt very much that any Arsenal fans will be particularly sorry to see this departure and I hear that Pompey fans are not actually that chuffed with their new recruit. Not surprising when Diarra has already announced to them that he will be off as soon as a bigger club comes in for him. What a joker.

On to another point: it looks like Arsene is keeping his wallet shut this transfer window. Fair enough given our position but most of us know that if Gallas gets injured in the next few weeks we are up the creek without a paddle - Senderos/Gilberto at centreback anyone?

I hope that this summer Arsene has a top class centreback, goalkeeper and winger (is anyone convinced by Rosicky as the successor to Pires?) on his shopping list....