Arsenal News: Is Shay Given a Genuine Target for the Club?

If the reports from yesterday are to be believed, Arsenal are in talks with Shay Given about a move from Man City to Ashburton Grove. Our need for a goalkeeper is obvious for all to see and with Given stating that he is not prepared to sit on the bench at City, it would seem to be a perfect solution for both Given and Arsenal.

I've seen Given play quite a bit over the years for his clubs and of course for Ireland too, and he is a very good shot stopper. I don't think he's great at controlling his area or at handling crosses but he's certainly better than either Almunia or Fabianski at both of those tasks.

I can also honestly say that I have never seen his defenders have an issue with his goalkeeping or show a lack of trust in him, and our defenders cannot say the same thing about our current two options.

As a result of that, I think he would definitely be an improvement on our current options and I hope we sign him as soon as possible. There are not a host of other goalkeeping options out there and we need to sort the position out as possible so that we can concentrate on getting a new centre back into the club as well.

We have to be a very good move for Given too as we are in the Champions league and hopefully challenging for the league. I'm sure he would relish a chance to challenge for both of those trophies and maybe win himself a medal as well.

There are reports that Almunia will consider his position at Arsenal if we do sign another keeper. At 33 he says he doesn't have too many years left in the game and he would find it hard to spend them anywhere but at Arsenal.

I've said before that we will find it hard to offload him if we choose to do so as he is on quite a high wage for a player who wouldn't fit into any of the bigger teams in England, Spain, Germany, or Italy. However, I'm sure Given is on a lot more money than Almunia and he would probably have to take a pay cut to join us.

The boss now has the rest of the week to train with the players before we play Blackpool next Saturday. It should mean that Cesc, RVP, and Song are available to play and there is no reason why they should not start as we have another week before the next game comes around again.

It might mean that there is no place in the team for Chamakh or Wilshere, but that's football and in my opinion we need to play our strongest team at their best to send out the type of message that Chelsea did on Saturday.

After the first weekend of the season, the most impressive performances were by Chelsea in their 6-0 demolition of West Brom and Blackpool in their 4-0 win at Wigan.

Arsenal may have played some attractive football in the first half and had loads of possession and a draw at Liverpool is never a bad thing but I think it was a chance missed as Liverpool looked like they have a long way to go before they become a coherent team. I don't think any of the players they have signed are actually going to improve their team and it's hard to see where they are going, but I could, of course, be completely wrong.

At this stage I suppose I should give a short run down on my fantasy league and who is doing well in it and who isn't.

The leading team is still Vancouver with J. Cogan as their manager on 89 points. He's just outside the top 3,000 teams and obviously he chose Drogba as his captain. He's Canadian and an Arsenal fan too and he's already 68 points ahead of Andy Clayton and his Sparta AC team and Kojo Baffoe and his Black Star FC team who are joint bottom on 21 points in 619th place.

Funnily enough, they're both Liverpool fans with one from England and the other from South Africa.

Hopefully things will improve for them in the coming weeks and for me too as I'm only just in the top half of the league in 275th place on 50 points. I see that Los Angeles Galaxy are in sixth place and their manager has told me he intends beating me this season after I pipped him at the post last season.

Like myself, he's a bit of a veteran at this game as it's his fourth season playing but I'm hoping to catch him up. I'll have to have a look at all the teams at some stage to see how many Arsenal fans are in the league and what team has the best name too.

That's it for today but here's a look at  some great goals from Robert Pires.

See You Tomorrow.