Arsenal Preseason 2010: The Hard Work Starts

Good morning. After the excitement of Arsenal being involved in an actual game of football it's back to the everyday summer routine of talk. Talk about transfers, tactics, and what colour Nicklas Bendtner's boots should be this season (I favour a luminous green myself).

Despite the manager's insistence yesterday that talk of Cesc Fabregas leaving Arsenal should come to an end, it was never going to be as easy as that. I'm fully away of half man, half nose Carlos Puyol's comments and I'm going to ignore them on the grounds that no Arsenal fan cares what that hideously ugly cave troll thinks about anything.

Instead I'm going to focus on a man whom Gunners fans have infinitely more time for.  Thierry Henry , probably the greatest player ever to wear an Arsenal shirt.

As we know, he's experienced life at both Arsenal and Barcelona and had this to say about Cesc's situation: "It is hard because Cesc is from Barcelona. I wouldn't like to be in his position because he is from there and he loves Arsenal. As an Arsenal fan, I want him to stay at Arsenal, but I would also understand if he goes back home."  

Of course, we all understand Cesc's position. If any of us were young, wealthy football players with furniture made out of money and an unlimited supply of attractive members of the opposite sex vying for our attention, and were to boot captain of a successful club and Arsenal came calling for us, I think a lot of us would struggle to act in half as professional a fashion as Cesc has over this summer.

Barcelona are Cesc's team. He's grown up supporting them and dreaming of playing for them —every football fan can understand that.

What Arsenal fans object to is our club being disrespected and treated like dirt by a classless pack of vultures who think they can bully Arsenal, and by extension us, into accepting things are are always going to be the way Barcelona want them. Barcelona haven't grasped that and it's a big reason that they haven't got their man so far.

Staying with Thierry Henry though, he also talks a bit about coming back to Arsenal one day. He says "What I want to do is when I retire, I don't know how, but I want to come back to Arsenal. I have just come to New York to play and to compete and win another title. After everything is done then I will think about it. But whatever it is, I want to come back to Arsenal—maybe as a waterboy—I just love this club."  

Good old Thierry. I think there are a few times in the last few years when we could have done with his return. On the balance, his departure did help us because it stopped our over-reliance on him for goals, but a man of his class is never a detriment to a team, and I wish we had gotten to see him play for Arsenal again.

It seems very unlikely now. Of course, you never know in football, but I think we'll have to settle for waiting for him to come back as a coach, cheerleader, or any other thing he wants to be.

Arsene Wenger has been talking about the challenges ahead and the need for hard work before the new season. I maintain that results and performances in preseason games are not the important things, but more the physical and mental preparation, but if that means winning all our preseason games 4-0 then so be it, I won't complain.

The boss mentions the Emirates Cup, but I don't rate it as a "challenge" or assign it any more importance than a fun weekend for the fans. I could certainly take not winning the Emirates Cup if the preparation it gives the squad carries them on to a more important piece of silverware in the season.

A slightly surreal moment today as we see Robin Van Persie defending functional, physical football as he talks about Holland at the World Cup. It's a bane of Arsenal these days, so to see one of our players defending such an approach is a strange contradiction.

However, when you read Robin saying, "It was not as pretty as it used to be with Holland. But my question is: Getting results and reaching the final or playing the beautiful game and getting knocked out in the first round —which would you choose?"  I think I can guess which way a lot of Arsenal fans would go on that question.

I could certainly live with Arsenal becoming more functional and less pretty in their approach to the game, and hopefully it's something the manager has noticed we could stand to improve on. I mean, it's not as if he's stubborn or anything, is he?

That appears to wrap it up for this morning. It's still annoyingly quiet on the incoming signing front. Hopefully some more news on that tomorrow. Until then.