Morning, does it feel a bit like Groundhog Day to you?

I apologise profusely for having to go back to this subject, again, but something just has to be said about the latest in the incessant tapping up of our captain by Barcelona. Just days after Pep Guardiola said that Cesc should be left alone, one of his senior players has come out and publically undermined him and disrespected Arsenal for the 223473th time.

‘We know where Cesc wants to be this coming season, but perhaps there is not enough time for Barcelona and Arsenal to agree a deal. Arsenal need to understand they are only delaying the inevitable. If we don’t manage to get his signature this season then Arsenal only really have him on loan for a year – because there is nothing they can do to stop him joining next summer.

‘I haven’t given up on him joining us this season but, if he doesn’t, it won’t be more than a year before he is back home. His people will have a whole season to sort out the deal between the two clubs and it will happen at the very latest next summer.

We were all with him for five weeks in South Africa and we know he wants to be at Barcelona, he made it very clear but he will under no circumstances do anything that will upset the Arsenal fans. And that’s probably why we are going to have to wait for him for another year.’

Source: arseblog.oleole.com

Congratulations, Xavi. Not only have you succeeded in undermining your boss, disrespected one of England’s biggest clubs and shown a complete disregard for Cesc Fabregas’ right to speak his own mind – you have also broke the rules for the umpteenth time.

Just to rub it in, FIFA displayed his comments on their website… the rule-makers of football are giving coverage to the rule breakers ?? Something is very wrong here, it stinks and just shows what a hypocritical bunch of corrupt, spineless, useless money-grabbers they are. That is all they are interested in at the end of the day, they put a few pennies in site revenue ahead of the rule books and principles … well, what principles?

This organisation is killing the game, much like UEFA is doing so in Europe, they are a whole lot of talk and no action. It is rotten from the very top to the bottom, starting with Sepp Blatter right down to the suits at the lower levels. I guess it isn’t good to make accusations in a public forum so I will refrain from doing that, all I’ll say that until the day FIFA are amended, cleaned out and turned into a straight faced, fair, rule-enforcing body they will continue to be mocked, ridiculed and the Xavi’s and Barcelona’s of this footballing world will continue to run riot; not on the pitch but in the disgraceful, continuous, monotonous and quite frankly annoying tapping up of another teams captain. I’ll leave that topic there for now.

Over the last 24 hours rumours surrounding one of the standout players of the World Cup, Keisuke Honda, and a move to us have started to take off. The fact is, there is nothing in them at all. The Boss is known to like him and his style of play but the fee he would demand, coupled with the fact he has never played in a top league in his career so far means that any gamble would be unnecessary and the money could be spent on an area of the team that needs the investment. The failure of Junichi Inamoto would be a pretty good reason to ignore him too.

The Sun are also running a story today about Mark Schwarzer being offered a player/coaching role at the club. You may remember on the 5th I mentioned it in passing after receiving some infomation from a source. If this is the case it is clear that he is clearly being brought in with Chesney in mind, mentoring him them retiring to give him his chance. There is just the matter of the fee to sort out and I sense that there is going to be one more chance to get him and that will be when Fulham’s new boss is announced.

The players will be on Arsenal TV Online later on against Sturm Graz, kick off is at 6pm.

Expect Eduardo’s departure to be officially announced today.

Laters.