Arsenal Win 4-0 In Austria But Lose Another Defender To Injury.

The Austrian part of our preseason ended yesterday with a 4-0 win over the part-timers of Neusiedl 1919. It may not have been a great performance by the team, but it was an exercise in improving fitness and getting back into the swing of playing our style of football again. As such, it was a job done and now we can move on to the Emirates cup this weekend.

The starting 11 only contained two or three of the players that will be expected to start in our first league game away to Liverpool on Sunday, August 15. The rest of the team was made up of players who will hope to make the breakthrough into the first team this season and a few of the younger players who just hope to get into the first team squad for the season before daring to think that they will get a chance to shine in the first team.

The biggest surprise for me was the inclusion of Almunia in goal as I had really hoped that he was on his way out of the club. By playing him yesterday (and making him captain) the boss has as good as told us that he is one of the keepers who is being considered for first choice this season.

I honestly feel that his goalkeeping just is not good enough on a consistent basis for a team who want to challenge at the very highest level in club football. 

I did read on Arseblog yesterday that the biggest obstacle to selling him is the amount of money he is on at Arsenal and that he won't be offered the same sort of wages at a run of the mill Spanish club.

It's hard to argue with that and it probably means that we will have to give him a golden handshake if he goes or keep him until his contract ends. I can live with both of those scenarios as long as we bring in a keeper who is good enough to play at the required level.

Back to the game itself and the injury problems that we had last season reared their ugly head again as firstly Rosicky pulled out before kick-off and then Djourou went off injured after less than half an hour. With Bendtner and Denilson already injured it doesn't look too promising for the new season and I was wondering what we will do if we have as many injuries as we had last season.

If the new rules only allow for a squad of 25, what happens when Arsenal have 12 or 13 injuries at one time again? Will we be allowed to draft in players from outside the 25 if that isn't the case? I may have the new rules wrong and we may be able to have more than 25 players in the squad as long as all the extra players are what is considered "homegrown" under the new regulations. Feel free to correct me if that is the case. 

The goals came from Walcott and JET in the first half and after the boss made six changes at half-time both Chamakh and Vela scored after the break. Both Walcott and JET took their goals well and Chamakh scored a penalty to get off the mark for the club. Strangely enough, Vela scored from a neat chip after being played in by Nasri and it would seem that he is almost incapable of scoring any other type of goal. 

After the break we also got to see four of the players who returned from World Cup duty get their first game time of preseason as Sagna, Clichy, Eboue, and Vela all got 45 minutes under their belts. When we were 4-0 up, Mannone saved a penalty after Nordtveit had handled in the area and I'm sure he will feel it has done his chances of getting the keeper's shirt a bit of good. 

Our need for another centre back increased yesterday as Sol Campbell chose Newcastle over us for this season and it means we have only three centre backs now. One of those is the now injured Djourou and even if it's not a bad injury it points to him being injury prone.

We cannot face into the new season without signing another centre back capable of commanding a place in our first team if we are to be considered candidates for the Premier League and the Champions League.

There was plenty of speculation about Cesc yesterday as stories emerged claiming a deal was about to be done with Barcelona or that Barcelona couldn't understand why Arsenal wouldn't do business, depending upon what you read.

Cesc will be back at the club very soon and only then will we know for certain what is happening, but in my opinion he is staying at Arsenal as we would be crazy to sell the most productive central midfield player in the world.

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 Wayland Shamburger's league too as he has been a regular contributer to the comments on my articles and is looking for a few more players. The code to join his league is 15394-86877 and he would be delighted to welcome you to.

Here's the highlights from yesterday's game.

Here's a great goal celebration I saw on Twitter last night.

See You Tomorrow.