Turns out my plane is leaving later than I thought, so I have time for a quick round-up for you.
Starting with the big news: Vermaelen is on his way to Barcelona. From what I can gather, United and Barca were fighting tooth and nail over our captain and Wenger capitalised on the situation. United wanted Vermaelen for £15 million, we wanted a player + cash deal. Van Gaal said no deal, Arsene said go to hell and sold Verminator to Barca for the same amount.
It's a brilliant piece of business we've done, so I don't get the reaction of most people on Twitter. We've sold our third-choice centre-half for approximately £5 million more than I expected and he's not going to our direct rivals. Just think of it: we've sold a player who've been sitting on the bench for 18 months and before that had an atrocious run of form for another 6 and we've sold him for such money. Put your hands together for Le Prof.
The player himself wanted to go to United (at least at first), but then Barca did their magic and persuaded another one of our captains to join them. I don't much care what they did, but it's an amazing piece of business for us.
Now we need a centre-half, though. And I'm sure Wenger will bring someone in. There are rumours he can buy a player to fill both at the back and in midfield and I don't see a flaw with this plan.
In other news, we've drawn Besiktas in the Champions League. Not the best opponent possible, as we know the atmosphere there will be fiendishly hard (remember how last year Fenerbahce's fans didn't allow our players to get a good night's sleep?). On the other hand, Besiktas is definitely inferior to Fener and we've powered past them without problems last year, so I'm not overly concerned. Travel and away fans are an issue, but our squad is quality, no doubt about that.
Finally, the game against City. The basics remain the same, I've gone over these yesterday, but it appears City will have to make do without some key players. Aguero, Negredo, Lampard, Fernandinho, Demichelis, Kompany, Sabaleta and our old pal Sagna all miss out. While their midfield is rife with good players and City will hardly notice the absences of Lampard and Fernandinho, their attack and defense have suffered considerably. Pellegrini's side still has Djeko and Jovetic up front, so we should be on our guard, but the blow to their defense is damaging. Two right-backs and two centre-halfs, three of these would have started under different circumstances. I think it's high time to pick City apart. We can even try breaking through down the middle, that with Sanchez up front and their make-shift defense.
Arteta has also talked about how important this game from a psychological point of view and I agree. We'll be fighting not only against City, we'll be fighting back from three huge defeats we've suffered. If we come out on top, in just one game, it may become a turning point.
So c'mon you Gunners.
That's it for today, I'll do my best to get back to you tomorrow (after the game) or in two days, so check back here.
Follow me on Twitter @AlexBaguzin