Can Arsenal Benefit from Aston Villa's Problems?

Yesterday didn't look like it was going to a particularly exciting day as players were joining up with their international team mates for the midweek round of friendlies. There had been rumours of Arsenal making a possible move for Given, but the clever money said that there was no way City would sell him to us.

Later in the day there was an article in which Given apparently said that if he was on the bench in the opening league game for City against the Spuds on Saturday that he would have to consider his options. He also apparently said that Joe Hart would do the same thing if he weren't playing as they are both at a stage in their career where they need to be playing.

While that's possibly good news for us as our need for a goalkeeper is great, it's still highly unlikely that City would consider selling or loaning either player to Arsenal. From the players perspectives, though, it's surely an opportunity to play the game at the very highest level as joining Arsenal would put them in a team that is in the Champions League and with the right additions has a genuine chance of winning the title.

We were then treated to the news that Martin O'Neill had resigned his post as Aston Villa manager with immediate effect with only five days to go to the start of the season. I would imagine that he decided to go as a result of the potential transfers of Young and Milner and the possibility that he might not get all the money from the sale of players to reinvest in the team. 

His departure raises the possibility of Arsenal making a move for one or two of his Aston Villa players.

I have always been a huge admirer of Brad Friedel as a goalkeeper and I think he would be a perfect solution to our current goalkeeping problems. He could come in for a year or possibly two at the very most and that would give Szczesny the time he needs to progress to a level where he could be our first choice keeper. I don't know if it's an actual possibility but surely we could at least test the water with his club.

Another player at Villa that could do a job for us is Richard Dunne, and again I think we should test Villa by making a bid for him. He's a strong player who gives his all and organises his defence very well and I think he would make a good partner for Vermaelen. He may not look fast but he has a deceptive turn of pace and I think that a chance to play in the Champions league for the first time might appeal to him.

I know the chances are that neither player would be sold by Villa, but if the boss even attempted to buy them the fans might believe that he is doing all he can to solve our defensive problems. As it stands, it just doesn't look like there is any prospect of a keeper or a centre back signing up and it scares me just a little.

The two teams who finished ahead of us last season have not strengthened themselves much in my opinion, and the league is there for the taking if we can just get the right couple of players that we need and can afford.

On the club site they are reporting that 14 of our players have been called up for international duty and with two others definitely out injured and another four carrying knocks, it will make for a worrying end to the week as we wait for them all to return to the club. Besides that, our two World Cup finalists are a long way behind the rest of the squad fitness-wise and both of them are highly unlikely to play on Sunday.

With Cesc having to travel so far to play for Spain we, at least, are lucky enough that the Dutch FA showed some common sense and decided to give their World Cup final losing team some time off and picked a reserve team. Added to that, the French FA suspended all of their squad after their antics at the World Cup, which meant that Sagna, Clichy, and Diaby stayed at the club too but Nasri was chosen as he wasn't part of their debacle in South Africa.

I've said it before and I'll say it again—I think Nasri and Chamakh will be very important for us this Sunday against Liverpool and I hope they come back from international duty fit and raring to go.

Finally for today, there's the small matter of my Fantasy league and the fact that it now has over 300 teams in it which means that there will be trophies for the first three teams. 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. 

I'm running the league this season with a little help from 11Gunners and I'd like to thank them for their help in promoting my blog and the fantasy league too.

If you do sign up please take the time to join a friend's head-to-head league in which he needs only 20 teams. With only a few days left to go I said I'd give him a hand and the code for his league is 576173-163660.

I'm also running a results prediction league on "I know the score" which is a part of the Fantasy Premier league site. Here's the link to sign up and make your predictions and the code to join my league is  FBE3B-ZGP if anybody would like to try their hand at it.

Here's a close up of how Chamakh played on Saturday.

See You Tomorrow.