Arsenal Look Set To Lose Sol Campbell, Manuel Almunia

With the preseason seemingly dragging on forever, it's great to have some Arsenal action tonight as we take on Neusiedl 1919. It's the third of our six games before the real action starts and after tonight's game it's back to London for some more training ahead of the Emirates cup games this weekend.

We take on AC Milan on Saturday afternoon at 4:20 and Celtic the following day at the same time. Both games are live on Sky Sports 2 and it will probably be the first chance for most armchair fans to see them play since early last May. Of course, there will be plenty of fans in the stadium too to cheer the team on.

Regular readers will know I'm a member of a local branch of the Arsenal supporters club and I usually join the other members in the Strand bar in Bray. I won't get a chance to have a few beers with everyone else this week, unfortunately, as I'll be in sunny Wexford for a few days, but I will be there for the season opener against Liverpool two weeks later.

I would imagine that we will get to see the players who have returned from World Cup duty in tonight's game as they have played no part in the games so far but they should be up to 45 minutes at this stage.

The big question for me tonight will be whether we see Almunia at any stage or not as he hasn't had a minute of action so far. He appears in the photos on the club site as he trains with the rest of the squad in Austria. There were yet more photos on the club site yesterday and the photographer is certainly earning his money so far this season.

With Cesc and RVP not due to return to training until after the Emirates cup, we should also be looking at how Nasri and Chamakh perform tonight and at the weekend as they will probably be fulfilling the roles we would hope to see Cesc and RVP in for the first game at Liverpool. It's important that we get a good start in that game to get our season up and running and it won't be easy without those two players.

In transfer rumours today, we are linked with Cagliari and Italy goalkeeper Federico Marchetti as well as both Schwarzer and Stekelenburg yet again. The whole goalkeeping situation looks like it might be resolved very soon, and it's about time in my opinion. It would also appear that a number of Spanish clubs might be interested in signing Almunia, but I would be very dubious about that.

As far as I remember, Sol Campbell gave today as the date to make his decision on his future and the reports at the moment are saying that he is undergoing a medical at Newcastle before signing for them.

If that is the case, we have wasted time waiting for him and we need to get another centre back in immediately. My choice has been Mertesacker for a while now as he will offer us something that we are lacking, in my opinion.

The quality of the opposition in tonight's game isn't particularly high and we would be expected to put quite a few goals away. I'll be joining LadyArse and quite a few others on her live blog and if you haven't paid the £3 to get the preseason friendlies live from Arsenal TV there are quite a few streams out there to watch it live anyway. 

Finally for today, there's the small matter of my fantasy league and the fact that it now has over 100 teams in it, which means that there will be a trophy for the winner. If you want to sign up the link is here and the code to join my league is 33954-12064 after you have set up a team. As the number of teams is now nearing 200, I'll have to consider a runners-up prize too, and if it does reach that figure I'm sure there will be one.

If you do sign up please take the time to join Captain Arsenal's league too as he has been a great help to me in promoting my blog on Twitter. The code to join his league is 13028-5211 and he would be delighted to welcome you to his league.

That's it for today.

Here's a look at how even the very best players can make a mess of something.

See You Tomorrow.