Inter or Bayern: Who Will Win? (Cesc Still an Arsenal Player)

The weekend is upon us, and if it was part of the regular season we would be looking forward to watching Arsenal playing. Unfortunately it's the offseason, and we will have to make do with the transfer rumours and some meaningless international friendlies.

There is also the Champions League final on Saturday night as Inter Milan take on Bayern Munich for the trophy that Barcelona won last year and the majority of pundits thought they would win again this season. There is no doubt that Barcelona are a very good team and a joy to watch, but in their semifinal Inter showed up their soft center.

That soft center is something that Arsenal managed to expose for a short while at the end of our Champions League quarterfinal first leg at the Emirates. Barcelona are very vulnerable on the break, and their domination of the Spanish game along with Real Madrid is not good for the Spanish league at all. The majority of teams in the Spanish league are in a lot of debt, just like their English counterparts, and if UEFA and FIFA ever get their houses in order and impose proper financial controls, it will be a bad day for most of those teams.

It could be said that the English league is in decline as no English team made the last four of the Champions League for the first time in a long time, but when you look at it closely the competition in the Premier League is better than it has been for quite a while. I think that the tougher time the English clubs had in the Premier League this season made it more difficult for them in the Champions League.

Both Inter and Bayern managed to win their domestic leagues ahead of Saturday's final, and it can only be good for European football that Italian and German teams are back in the final again. Personally I think that Inter have to be favourites to win because they are so good defensively and Bayern are weak at the back, but in a final you can never be sure as it's a one off event.

You might have noticed that I haven't mentioned Cesc yet or the pursuit of him by a Barcelona club that I am disliking more and more as the days go by. The way I see things the ball is firmly in our court at the moment. If it's true that Cesc wants to leave (and we only have the word of Spanish journalists) then he has four or five years left on his contract, and it's up to Arsenal to set the price if we decide to sell him at all. I know it's virtually impossible to keep a player who wants to leave a club no matter how long his contract has left, but our boss can be very persuasive when he puts his mind to it.

Barcelona may be trying to play it cool in an attempt to keep the price down, as they are in so much debt, but if they want him they will have to pay our price if we decide to sell. It would seem that Arsenal are in no mood to sell at the moment, and as long as that continues Cesc will be an Arsenal player. I don't think Barcelona will make a bid for Cesc as they will hope that their attempts to unsettle Cesc and undermine our position will force us to offer him to them on their terms, but we need to stand firm.

I heard a rumour last night that the signing of Chamakh will be tied up before the weekend is over, but I'll believe it when the club announce it and not before. If we believed everything that we heard, we would think that Cesc will be gone before the weekend, and I don't see that happening.

That's it for today. I think I'll try to do a rundown of how the fantasy football finished up over the weekend and maybe have a look at the fantasy World Cup game suggested by a fellow blogger . 

Here's part five of Henry's goals for Arsenal.

See You Tomorrow.