Let me set my stall out straight away; I was convinced that Mark Schwarzer was going to sign. I thought both sides had reached the point of no return, there was no way it could not happen. Well, not for the first time I was wrong and a lot of fans were very angry, despite knowing yesterday that the deal was in effect hanging by the tiniest of threads.

The Mark Schwarzer saga has been the subject of a lot of column inches with this particular blog – a mixture of information received from a well-placed source and using media articles to try and establish what was really going on. It seems that everyone with a decent contact (and there aren’t many), and even journalists, were unsure themselves. There has been a lot of stick dished out recently to people who have used a lot of their time off their own back to establish quite what has been going on – using time to research and talk to people who know their stuff – the insults these people have had to put up with from respectable and in some cases pioneering bloggers is quite astounding, and sad.

There have been accusations of people just spouting pure fiction, and in some cases that is quite true, but there are people out there who do know their stuff and have good connections with the club, and whilst they will get the odd duffer I am sure that sometimes they can get information that is priceless. Accusations of part-time journalism have been slung as an insult but in some cases its a compliment – dedication and hard work for scant reward other than maybe a few more followers on Twitter… whats that going to get you eh? A lot more spam in your inbox probably.

There are different styles of writing – evolving styles for an evolving type of exciting new media, an era that is growing with every day, to me it just shows bitterness and jealousy. The spotlight is drifting away, maybe they need to change their style too. Don’t get me wrong people, this is not something I am writing aimed at one writer in particular, its just one writer trying to explain what has been happening behind the scenes in the Arsenal world this summer. More than ever, our fanbase has some serious divisions and thats sad, its dividing a group of people that all have one great thing in common. Opinion is a right – its what helps make football so great, its just a shame that its the very same thing thats pushing the people that make football football what it is apart.

There is probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest football blog around in Arseblog – there is the best writer in Goonerholic, the memories that make you just wish you were there. The brilliantly informative Young Guns, unique among clubs and massively popular. We have by far the best blogs out there – why not use them… disagree with one site, find another. Anyway, moving on….

I can understand why fans are angry we didn’t sign a goalkeeper – it isnt the goalkeepers fault though so if Almunia makes a mistake we should not jump on his back and give him grief. You can see the stress he has been under written on his face, he just looked a defeated man in the majority of pre-season but now, hopefully, will give him the boost needed to regain the confidence he had in 2008/09 because that Manuel Almunia was a good one.

Overall it has been a good summer, we have brought in Laurent Koscielny, Sebastian Squillaci and Marouane Chamakh  all of whom bring something different to the table, Chamakh in particular. Some frustrated individuals have already started rounding on these players claiming they are not good enough or too injury prone… lets just see them play first!!

However – behind the players there have been plenty of mistakes. I said at one point this summer that the goalkeeping and defensive situations were a disgrace, that they had been neglected. They have been, one part was rectified the other part showed appalling man-management, to the degree that if it happened in an office, the manager would have been ousted long ago.

Manuel Almunia has been treated badly – all summer his place has been under threat and he has known that the club are casting their eyes elsewhere but never go through with any of the targets, its a strange situation and this sort of bad management is happening too much of late, last season it was Phillipe Senderos who got the bad treatment.

Now though it is time to look at the positives, Squillaci is a winner of seven major honours, probably more than the rest of the first team put together – koscielny has looked very able in his first two games, if a little raw and Marouane Chamakh has already shown his qualities, one goal and the main factor in another that got us an important draw at Anfield.

The madness is over and the football can now take center stage once again.

Bring on Bolton a week on Saturday.