Arsenal's New Home Kit Revealed, Cesc Says He Might Not Go, and More

Good morning, a few bits and pieces around this morning, so we'll jump straight in. Firstly, Arsenal have revealed the team's new home kit   for next season, which I must say is a beauty.

I know it's the kind of thing which some fans set a lot of store by and others don't really care, but for me it's very important that the kit is a reflection of the club's traditions. That's why I hate it when we have blue or white away kits; an Arsenal away shirt should always be yellow.

Arsenal's home kit is iconically red with white sleeves, yet so often Nike get it horribly wrong. The home kit Arsenal had for the past two seasons, the Charlton Athletic knockoff, was an abomination. I hated it for every second of those two years and am delighted to see the back of it. This new shirt is superb, simple and exactly what it should be.

Sadly, we've only got it for one season. The club say we're getting a commemorative home shirt for the 2011/12 season because it is the club's 125th anniversary. Awfully convenient that. It means we have a new home shirt this summer, a new one next summer and a new one the summer after that as well.

Ever since clubs discovered this loophole which allows them to have a home shirt for one season if it's "commemorative," every last vague anniversary has been rolled out as an excuse to only have the shirt one season. Why couldn't we have had this new one for two seasons and the abominable Charlton kit we've just had for only one?

On to other matters as Cesc Fabregas has been speaking about his future again, despite his previous insistence he was only going to think about the World Cup and Spain for now. Perhaps all that sitting on the bench has made him bored.

Cesc says, "I haven't said that I will definitely leave Arsenal. Everything is possible. Now I have my head and my focus on the World Cup."

"I am very proud to be captain of Arsenal and I love the club and have respect for them. It gave me such pride to be made captain."

I'm purely speculating of course, but perhaps Cesc isn't so keen now he's seen what being in a team with Xavi, Iniesta, and that Buckets bloke means for him.

I've said before that this isn't the right time for anyone for Cesc's transfer to go through. I really think the best thing for his career is to stay with us for a while longer, I should imagine it's not fulfilling his childhood dream to struggle to play in his best position, or indeed at all, at Barcelona. Stay with us Cesc —we've got a lovely new home shirt, after all.

A bit of speculation on the centre-half front this morning. The Mirror tells us what we already know in that all the departures from our central defence may mean we need to sign another defender even after the Koscielny deal is tied up, which looks like being pretty soon.

The article claims we're looking at the entire Algerian back line, and also mentions that we haven't followed up our interest in Dynamo Kyiv defender Papa Diakhate because of his price tag.

The Sun ,  meanwhile, links us with Germany defender and human skyscraper Per Mertesacker. Standing at an impressive 5000ft tall, he'd certainly add a bit of presence to our defence.

However, he's the kind of established European defender I'm always very dubious of us being linked with. Very rarely do we buy these kinds of established names so I'd be surprised to see it happen. But on the other hand, I like what I've seen of Mertesacker and I'd be delighted to be proved wrong on this one.

Finally for today, Sol Campbell says it's not all done and dusted with his departure from the club. He says, "I'm here to get a feel for the place more than anything else.

"I have to talk to Arsenal as well because they are still at the table, I have to talk to everybody, but the main thing for me right now is my wedding and honeymoon."

"I don't think I'll be committing myself to any club until after that."

I would assume that now we're into July, Sol's deal has expired and he's not technically an Arsenal player at the moment, but I suppose that may suit him if he wants his honeymoon off.

Personally, if he wants to grab himself a couple of extra weeks of holiday and come back to us for next season, I don't see the problem. He's not going to be needed for the first fixtures of the season so there's no reason he can't start training after everyone else.

I still feel he'll end up at Celtic, but it would save us an awful lot of hassle signing another defender if he stayed. He's still got it, we saw that last season, and if our defenders for next season were Vermaelen, Koscielny, Campbell, and Djourou I think I'd be reasonably happy with that.

That seems to be about all for this morning so I'll leave it there. I'll be back tomorrow, have a good day.