You know, no matter how disheartening the season just gone has been, pre-season generally provides a measure of confidence. A page has been turned over like some kind of new leaf, and you go into the new one full of hope and optimisim.
Its hard to feel that yet this summer, I have to say. I know that much of it has to do with the blanket coverage, the Twittering, the non-stop chatter about Arsenal when we might be best served stepping away for a little while and not analysing the ever-loving shite out of every single utterance made by every single person connected with the club.
Yet this is the world we live in now, like it or not, and its a two-way street. The club and the media feed us info which we gobble up via their various channels. Like the gluttonous little plumper in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were never full and maybe one day well fall into the chocolate lake and get whooshed away in a tube while little orange men (mini Deins? Deinpa-loompas?) sing and dance in a sinister way on the candy covered shore.
We examine these nuggets of information to see if we can extropolate and make educated guesses about what the club, so famously secretive in the transfer market, might do to improve the squad. A squad I think most of us accept needs some augmentation, and some improvement, if it wants to seriously challenge for honours.
