Silly season

It hasn't taken long for the bizarre transfer rumours to get into full swing, in fact it was exciting for the first three hours or so, but now it's just very very tedious indeed. It's hardly as if Arsene has told us anything we didn't know beforehand, he'll spend sensibly if he can get the right players at the right price, however he's not going to get carried away and fritter away stupid money on average dross just for the sake of it, especially in the current financial climate, something that Peter Hill-Wood has reiterated.

The Kolo Toure transfer request is certainly intriguing, the exact reasons behind it are yet to be revealed while there may well be a bit more to come on this one. There are various theories on why he handed in the request, maybe he doesn't like Gallas, maybe he's unhappy not playing every game, or maybe he'd been approached by the blue of Manchester. He has apparently withdrawn that request and Arsene has finally admitted that Gallas and Toure are not suited to playing together, due to their size and the similarity of their games:

“It is that the two together are a bit short in the air. We needed to add some size centrally."

The question is, why has Toure reversed this decision? I wonder has he been told that Gallas is on his way out and that he only need bide his time for his first team spot back partnering Johan Djourou. For me there's no doubt that Toure looks a different player when playing with a big dominant centre half, he is very capable of mopping up on the deck and using his mobility to good effect, however pair him with a similar player like Gallas and you will most definitely not get the best out of him.

Elsewhere the Given rumours were just plain nonsense, why replace one of our best players this season with a 32 year old who has never done it for a big club. The Arshavin rumours will not go away but his wage demands are likely to make any transfer tricky. Realistically there are actually a lot of internal solutions to our problems.

The FA Cup demonstrates this perfectly. With Cesc and Denilson out, we can see how the fast improving Ramsey and Diaby get on. Also Carlos Vela must be given a start at the left of midfield in my opinion, then Eboue can be dropped for Nasri to switch to the right flank. Up front I hope we see no Bendtner. Apparently Plymouth will play a packed midfield in a 4-5-1 formation, I really hope we stick to a 4-4-2 as it never works when we revert to a 4-5-1 system to combat defensive opponents. Come on you Gunners, today will be tricky if we become complacent, it will need a hard committed performance from the start.