Arsenal's Preseason Moves to Austria, Six Players Back from World Cup

With the first preseason friendly of 2010/11 behind them, the Arsenal squad are now in Austria for the next part of their preseason tour and to build their fitness for the new season. They should be joined today by Clichy, Sagna, Diaby, Song, Vela, and Eboue as the players knocked out in the first phase of the World Cup return to the fold.

The next preseason friendly is at 6 pm on Wednesday against Sturm Graz and I would imagine that none of those players will be involved in that game as they will have just started their training.

The game is again available on Arsenal TV online as part of the package of three games for £3 and I'm sure there will be plenty of people watching it. I know a lot of fans in different parts of the world would love the chance to see all of our games live on the club site but for the moment that doesn't look like happening.

There's no further news on the rumoured transfer of Eduardo to Shakhtar Donetsk but it does look to be a distinct possibility at this stage. The most interesting thing for me will be if we replace him if he goes. With Chamakh coming in, the boss may think that we have enough strikers at the club as RVP is due back from World Cup duty in two weeks and Bendtner would be due back today if he weren't injured.

We are linked with Phil Jagielka of Everton again today, but they have apparently turned down a bid for him and to be honest the price being quoted is very high and I can't see Arsenal paying £18 million for him. We are again linked with Sebastian Giovinco of Juventus today, and I don't know what if any truth is in it to be honest.

Speaking after Saturday's game, the boss said the stories surrounding Cesc moving to Barcelona have to stop. 

"There was a lot of unneeded talk," he said. "It is not pleasant to read this every day. Now, the story has to stop. Cesc is our captain, he is so important to us and we want to keep him, that is why we were not listening to any offers. It was not a problem of money, just the desire to keep him at the club. We can only influence our own behaviour, and I believe things have now gone straight again with Sandro Rosell.

"We always had a consistent attitude and were always reluctant to talk about Cesc's departure. It is very important we give the impression that because somebody wants a player from us, we don't just give in, we have shown our love and care for Cesc since the start.

"I believe Cesc loves the club, has shown his attachment to the club many times and I am very confident the story will end there. We want Cesc to be part of our club next year, and that is it.

"What we want is to build a team for the future, to develop our team and are not in any talks for next year or the year after—we want our players to be focused on the targets we have at the Club."

I don't think he can say too much more than that or make our position any clearer, yet the stories persist. The latest one is that Rossell will meet Arsenal today with a last ditch bid to lure Cesc to Barcelona. That bid is rumoured to be £40 million, but our position is clearly that Cesc is not for sale regardless of any offer, so if they do make another bid I fully expect it to be rejected immediately.

Thierry Henry spoke about Cesc and he said he understands his desire to play for Barcelona as it is his hometown club but he also knows that Cesc loves Arsenal. He said he wouldn't like to be in Cesc's shoes but as an Arsenal fan he hopes Cesc stays with us. I wasn't particularly thrilled when Henry left Arsenal but it's great to still hear him say he is a fan and that he would like to return to the club in some capacity when he retires.

For anybody interested in playing fantasy football I've got my league up and running again and the link can be found here . There will be a trophy for the winner as long as there are a minimum of 100 teams in the league.

At the moment, there are 82 teams after less than one week and I can't imagine that we won't reach 100 teams with over three weeks to the start of the season. When you sign up and pick a squad you can join my league by using the code 33954-12064.

There isn't too much else happening this morning so I'll leave it there for today. 

Here's a look at how Frimpong did against Barnet on Saturday.

See You Tomorrow.