Pre-season underway & Denilson finally on his way?

Morning Gooners,

I love the first game of pre season. The excitement of finally having all our players back from holiday, seeing all our new signings in action knowing that the season is just weeks away. I have always had a fond affection for our traditional game at Barnet but this year the club have gone down a new route with the tour of the far east.

Now reasons for the tour are purely a commercial test. This is the club testing the waters for future pre seasons and although we'll only pocket around £3m from this tour, future tours - if done properly - will be a fantastic earner for the club in years to come.

The tour started with a 4-0 win over Malaysia XI. The opposition never really gave us much of a game but it was good to see that our boys seem to have looked after themselves over the summer in particular Andrei Arshavin looks like he's dropped a lot of weight and is looking leaner and ready to go. I'm excited about seeing Arshavin this year, it's his first season that he's gone into without the assumption he's an automatic starter and he seems to have taken that on board and cracked down over the summer. If AA23 takes his chances we could see much more of the star quality we thought we signed. Jenkinson surprised me with the way he fitted in so well with the rest of the team, he looked on the same wavelength from the start and although Sagna is still definitely first choice, young Jenkinson has not come here to be satisfied playing in the reserves. Aaron Ramsey was my other stand out player. I have high hopes for Ramsey as long as he gets the game time this year and his assist for Theo's goal was, dare I say it, Cesc-esc.

Our second pre-season game is at lunch time today against Hangzhou Greentown and although I would be shocked if they posed much threat at all it will still be good to how well our boys link up together.

Away from the pitch, the only player that seemed not to enjoy the Malaysia game was Denilson. The young Brazilian was brought on as a sub at half time and then taken off again 20 minutes later. However his torture seems to be coming towards an end as reports emerged last night that he is leaving the tour early  to travel to Sao Paulo to secure what looks to be a season long loan move to his old club. It'll be a good move for Denilson and if it comes off I honestly hope Deni can just start enjoying his football again.

It's been a while sine we've been linked with a new player but Gunnerblog broke the story that Costa Rica's Joel Campbell is having talks with Arsenal executive Richard Law who is hoping to seal a deal before the big Spanish teams make their moves as they are also believed to be interested in the youngster. I'm not going to pretend I've ever heard of this kid but you can see his youtube montage here:

Everything else has seemingly gone quiet on the Arsenal front. Stories on Mata, Nasri, left backs and centre backs have all gone quiet. So I'm off to desperately sniff around Newsnow and prepare myself for today's game.

Till next time,
Goonerfish.