Arsenal Transfer Rumours Will Finally End Today

To the best of my knowledge, the transfer window closes this evening and despite a flurry of rumours it doesn't look like anything major is going to happen on the Arsenal front.

The rumours persist that Mark Schwarzer will sign at some time today with it supposedly going to the wire and Fulham needing to sign a goalkeeper first themselves. It has been complicated by his current stand-in, Stockdale, getting injured and while Stockdale has done well, he is still seen as their second choice. Depending on the injury to him, Fulham may need to sign two goalkeepers.

There's far too many ifs and buts for me and I think the best thing to do is wait and see what happens as spending the day scouring Twitter or listening to the inane drivel on Sky Sports News is just too much for me at least.

As fans, there is nothing we can do to influence what happens today and although the need for a new goalkeeper is essential, in my opinion, it's difficult to understand how we got from the end of the season in May to August 31 without signing one. 

The only Arsenal player that I can find that is rumoured to be leaving is Armand Traore, with both Birmingham and Juventus after him on a loan basis apparently. If that's true and he has a choice, I think Birmingham would be the better option for him as he would surely get more game time there and they might be able to teach him a thing or two about defending in the Premier league.

He did very well on loan at Portsmouth a couple of seasons ago but he was played in a wide left position and defending was not his main duty which probably suited him. When he has played for us his defensive positioning has left a lot to be desired and you would think that he would have learned by now if he was ever going to learn.

Youth Team Victory

I forgot to mention over the last few days that our youth team played their second league match of the season on Saturday and thankfully it went a little better than the first one against Man City.

They played at home to Sunderland on Saturday morning and emerged as 2-1 victors with the goals coming from Elton Monterio and Philip Roberts. It's difficult to tell at this early stage but it would seem that they might struggle to live up to the trophy winning heights of the previous two seasons.

Van Persie Injury

We were treated to the sight of RVP limping off on Saturday with yet another ankle injury and there are varying reports as to its severity. The club said he will be out for 10 days but we all know what that means in Arsenal injury speak and it could be any time between here and Christmas when he returns.

Other reports are suggesting that he might be out for four weeks, and if that is the case he would miss the league encounters at home to Bolton and away to Sunderland as well as the Champions league game at home to Braga and the Carling Cup game away to the Spuds.

Carling Cup

I also neglected to mention over the weekend that we were drawn away to the Spuds in the third round of the Carling Cup, with the game to be played on September 21 or 22. It will be interesting to see if they deploy our policy of playing an entirely different team in that game from the one that will start our league encounter away to Sunderland the previous Saturday.

With them now playing with the big boys in the Champions league the need to keep their best players fresh was a lesson that they might have learned when losing at home to Wigan on Saturday but their desire to beat us in a fairly meaningless competition could well override the overall good of the club for their "esteemed" manager.

If they do win we will be treated to a DVD of the game the next day but there probably won't be one of their glorious qualification from their Champions league group.

That's the lot for today but hopefully we will have a new signing to talk about tomorrow.

Here's a look at  RVP and Cesc scoring against the Spuds last season.

See You Tomorrow.