Freddie Ljungberg’s parting gift is to re-ignite the debate about the current state of the Arsenal squad. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of his reasons for his departure, you can read them in yesterday’s comments and elsewhere. Indeed, Goodplaya has covered those rather nicely, highlighting the contradictons and hypocrises. Personally I find it a pity that so many footballers now start a new chapter in their careers with a negative end to their old ones. It is, of course, nothing new. It is however more and more prevalent. It makes me wonder who was making promises to him though. Given the responsibilities within the Club at the time, it will have been one of two people.

I think I’ll remember the man with more affection for the goals that typified his career at Arsenal, a number of enjoyable moments, becoming a rarity in recent seasons due to injury and being unable to recapture that form as a result. Perhaps a change of scenery will do that for him. So long as he has two absolute stinkers against Arsenal but then again, he is more likely to ‘do an Anelka’ than anything else.

With his departure though, another of the ‘Invincibles’ moves onto pastures new. It leaves at the Club this season Toure, Lehmann, Gilberto and Clichy from that era. At the moment, they part of an incomparable Arsenal squad who performed exceptionally over the 2003-04 season. A lot of pleasure and yet, to paraphrase The Smiths, ‘Invincibles, So Much To Answer For‘. Expectations raised, rebuilding dismissed in a sea of ‘Spend, Spend, Spend‘, prophecies of doom with Cesc leaving next Summer, simply because the team is not full of household names, the megasuperstars. Arsene counters that with comments published in The Mirror,

Whenever I look at a potential new player the question I always ask myself: ‘Is he good enough to win the league?’. If I come to the conclusion that he isn’t, then I don’t buy him. It is unbelievable how much has been spent. It looks like the banks are being very generous this year! I have been very surprised.

Talking of the sums spent by others,

The challenge is the same. They can only play 11 players at the start of the game. And it is not necessarily the case that because they spend £50m that they are any better

No doubt there will be those who disagree.

Meanwhile, The Mirror insists that Phillipe Senderos is the next one to leave The Emirates, Juventus will apparently pay £3m to ‘end his Arsenal misery’. The Italians apparently believe he ‘wants to quit England’. The money seems good to me and with three other natural centre backs at the Club and one or two more who can play there in an emergency, if they offer it I would take it. The underlying point with Senderos is that he may need a new challenge to get first team football on a regular basis. Even with some sort of rotation in the side, is he likely to play more than fifteen games a season with Gallas and Toure as the first choice pairing with Djourou seemingly ahead of him in the queue.