Joe Fitzpatrick 
When Arsène Wenger was asked to comment on the potential signing of Rennes defensive midfielder Yann M'Vila, he raised quite a few eyebrows with his response. The Arsenal manager was quoted as saying “No. We wait for [Abou] Diaby and [Jack] Wilshere. When he is fit, Diaby is the first name on the French team sheet. When you look, we have Alex Song, Aaron Ramsey, Francis Coquelin, Diaby, Wilshere and Mikel Arteta. We are not short if Diaby and Wilshere are coming back. If we have setbacks in pre-season, it could be different.” Arsène Wenger is clearly willing to take one more gamble on the suspect fitness of Abou Diaby rather than spend £15 million on a player that few people doubt would significantly improve Arsenal's defensive midfield options.
Wenger's claim that Abou Diaby would be "the first name on the French team sheet" is contentious at best. The fact that even the Frenchman had to use the caveat phrase "when he is fit", perfectly sums up the ridiculousness of his perfectly silly statement. We all know Diaby is going to break down sooner rather than later, and it is my personal opinion that the big Frenchman is only one slightly naughty tackle away from early retirement anyway. I am no mystic Meg or Derren Brown, but the fact remains that if I know that Diaby won't play 25 games for the Arsenal first team this season, and you also know that Abou Diaby won't play 25 games for the Arsenal first team this season, then can somebody please explain to me how on earth Arsène Wenger does not know this?
The answer to this must surely be that Wenger knows perfectly well that Diaby is just a mediocre crock, but he is deliberately finding excuses for not spending any of Kroenke's precious money. Wenger knows full well that he is never going to be able to sell Diaby because of his terrible injury record, so he is hyping the player up as a smokescreen for his frugal transfer policy. Rather than spending £15 million, plus substantial wages, on Yann M'Vila, Arsène Wenger is willing to gamble the entire season on the fitness of a player to whom he is already paying substantial wages. This daft decision is obviously being made for purely economic reasons, because if Arsène Wenger truly believes his own bulls**t this time, we should get him sectioned immediately.
My assessment of Abou Diaby is that he regularly gets caught in possession, he slows down the tempo of our passing game because of his technical limitations, and he doesn't seem to tackle or score very often. I'm sorry if I'm ranting, but I just don't understand the point of Abou Diaby! He admits to wearing a Tottenham shirt indoors while he's watching his mate Kaboul on the television, and some of his performances for us over the years have got me wondering as to whether or not he is some kind of scummy double agent. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to see my central-midfielders to, you know, break a sweat and maybe even (heaven forbid!) make the odd crunching tackle or score the occasional goal! It is my opinion that Abou Diaby will never be part of a Premiership winning team, and it is due to woeful players such as him infesting our squad like vile little cockroaches that Fabregas and Van Persie no longer believe in Arsène Wenger's grand vision for Kroenke's Arsenal.
Arsenal are not trying to win the Premiership on the cheap. They are trying to finish inside the top four on the cheap, and the truly world-class players are not going to settle for that.
For all the "Batman and Robin" analogies that flew around the web at the tail-end of last season, I find it amusing that no one came forward to christen Arsène Wenger as "the Joker" because if he honestly believes that About Diaby is going to be lifting the Premier league trophy anytime soon, he truly is away with the fairies. He must be Joking, surely?
