Cesc Fabregas: New Barcelona Bid Could Be Imminent

Good morning, after a couple of days off the World Cup returns later on today.

Brazil v Holland is a rather tasty fixture, and hopefully we'll see this game live up to the hype, which hasn't happened with the big fixtures so far. Quality has been in short supply at this World Cup, which is ridiculous when you consider some of the players that have been on show.

Good luck to Robin Van Persie & Co. anyway, as they'll be taking on ex-Gunner Gilberto Silva and a Brazil side that have looked, in my opinion, to be just about the best team in the tournament.

The Dutch haven't hit the heights we saw from them at Euro 2008 so far, fingers crossed they can step in up and give us a game to remember today.

On the Arsenal news front, we start with Cesc Fabregas and Barcelona.

Barcelona have wanted for a while now for Cesc to publicly state he wants to leave Arsenal and join them, and not only has he not done that, but he's also said he may not be leaving, which is the opposite direction Barcelona wanted him to go in.

The Mirror   reports that new Barcelona president Sandro Rossell still sees Cesc as a high priority and will be coming to us with Barcelona's second official bid shortly.

I'm surprised we didn't get a last ditch bid from Laporta before he left office. He seemed fixated on being the one to bring Cesc back to Barcelona, and I thought perhaps without a future to worry about with his job position, he might have thrown silly money at the deal to get it done.

During his election campaign, Sandro Rossell spelled out the economic situation at Barcelona. They've basically spent themselves into a hole. They can ill-afford the kind of fee it would take to buy Cesc from Arsenal.

The Mirror report claims Barcelona have a "ceiling" of £40 million for their bid for Cesc. I don't know if that's enough. Arsenal have certainly seemed very resolute not to sell, and give the impression of being rather annoyed with Barcelona and their tactics.

Perhaps, Rossell should concentrate his efforts on working out how to get the club he's just become president of out of it's half a billion euros worth of debt.

Moving on, apparently there's been some interest from abroad in  Tomas Rosicky . Tomas isn't interested in a move at the moment though, saying:

"I have noticed that, but I don't know anything about it.

"I am only interested in the preseason schedule with Arsenal."

Fair enough then.

I don't see why Arsenal should be looking to let Rosicky go. Yes, the man has suffered with injuries, but he does add something to the side. This coming season will probably be quite significant for Tom, he's coming up for 30, so if he doesn't play regularly for us I can see why he'd look elsewhere. For now though I'm happy enough to have him in the squad.

Back to  The Mirror who report that Arsenal want to cut the wage bill before offering Joe Cole a contract.

They claim Eduardo or Rosicky are the two candidates to make room for Cole. Out of the two, I think the club would probably rather move Eduardo on, and that's looking increasingly likely this summer.

Incidentally, that article also says Arsenal have offered Sol Campbell (whom Celtic manager Neil Lennon   is expecting to hear back from in the next week or so regarding their offer to him) a new contract, and that they are "close" to deals for Mark Schwarzer and Laurent Koscielny.

One man Arsenal are not close to a deal with is  Per Mertesacker . The German skyscraper/centre-half is happy with life at Werder Bremen and has no plans to leave, he says:

"I have a contract left at Werder Bremen and I would like to fulfil that deal.

"If I am given the opportunity I would definitely like to sign a new contract with Werder beyond (June) 2011."

I would say this leaves any outside interest in him dead in the water. I didn't think there was much of a prospect of us signing him anyway, but now we'll need to look elsewhere for another centre-half.

Good luck to youngster  Luke Freeman   who is off to join Yeovil on loan until December. I have kept an eye on Freeman since Arsenal signed him from Gillingham a few years ago, after he turned out for their first team at the age of 15. I thought we may have seen something of him in the Carling Cup this year, but regular first team football will obviously be better than the odd Cup game for him.

Fingers crossed he has a good time down there and scores a shed load of goals.

So, that's it for today. Take it easy, and more tomorrow.