As Gooners, we have become depressingly accustomed to spending every close season listening to endless speculation as to which club our star player is on the brink of transferring to, and how the club will come crashing down like a pack of cards following said player’s departure. Whereas fans of every other club devour the transfer news in the assorted gossip columns filling the tabloid papers and the online footy sites (Kaka for £50 million sounds alright I s’pose, you can hear the Chelski fans cooing!), Arsenal fans are more likely to avoid these like the plague, for fear of discovering yet more bad news. Reading the back page of The Sun over breakfast, for example, will put you right off your honey nut cheerios if you’re a fan of London’s top club.

This strange phenomenon really began in earnest once a formerly unknown Senegalese-born midfielder, having been plucked from obscurity in the AC Milan reserve team by the ever eagle-eyed (where footballing talent is concerned at least!) Arsene Wenger, turned into a formidable midfield powerhouse and rose through the ranks to become our club captain. Once his questionable temperament had been controlled, Patrick Vieira became an irresistible force in the Arsenal team, a highly-skilled footballer but also a leader; who, by sheer example, would drag the rest of the team to victories. Suddenly all of Europe’s top clubs were sniffing around and we seemingly suffered summer after summer of ‘will he / won’t he?’ debates until Paddy finally left us in 2005, and moved to Juventus (and subsequently on to Inter Milan after Juve chose to splash the cash not just on players, but on securing results too!). This was a huge disappointment, although I’m not sure that his performances in Serie A have ever reached the heights of when he was strutting around Highbury, but the club survived (thanks in no small part to a certain Spanish youngster showing precocious talent in midfield...more on him later!).

Maybe now we could relax during the months of June and July, dreaming instead of the big star player that Wenger was going to tempt to play in the famous red and white? Not a chance in hell. Rumours started to build again of the next player out of the door. It shouldn’t have come as any surprise as to his identity, Thierry Henry was scoring goals for fun, and nine times out of ten they were seriously classy finishes. Question marks were (and still are) raised as to whether he really turned it on against the ‘big clubs’, but he was consistently running Premiership defences ragged and, you can imagine, dropping like a stone to the bottom of the Christmas card list of every goalkeeper in the top flight! There were things that Henry could do on a football pitch that we had never seen the likes of before at Arsenal, the only problem was, these sublime pieces of skill were attracting too much attention from Johnny Foreigner! All of Europe’s elite clubs were linked with signing the Frenchman, who was promoted to team captain by the manager, an attempt to anchor him to the club further. All to no avail as in the summer of last year, due it would seem in part to some off the field problems, our all-time record scorer was off to Spain to play for Barcelona. Once again we were a spent force, ready to drop into mid-table obscurity.

I remember whilst we were watching the warm-up prior to our first game in last year’s pre-season Emirates Cup (roll on this year’s tournament!) remarking to my mate who I attend all of our home games with that, Fabregas aside, the squad looked bereft of true world-class talent. I feared that we would struggle far worse than we did during the season that we have just witnessed, in fact only the last seven weeks or so was a struggle of any sort. But in the back of mind I clung on to the comforting thought that at least this squad could stay together and grow season after season (as Wenger envisaged) and really turn into something special. Who would want to steal away any of these young pups?! Lo and behold, here we are, nearly in June again, and they’re all running out of the door as fast as their big orange football boots will carry them, if you choose to believe the English press!

Gooners were put on ‘yellow alert status’ for outgoing transfer activity around the middle of the season when the question started to be raised as to whether Mathieu Flamini, whose contract expired this summer, was going to put pen to paper on a new deal. If I’m honest, prior to the 2007/08 season, 99% of us couldn’t have given a s**t about this but, following the delayed return of Gilberto due to Brazil’s progress in the Copa America, the Flamster seized his chance and had begun to really shine. The Flamini / Fabregas partnership became the heartbeat of our young team, with the manager citing them as the best midfield duo during his reign, high praise indeed. Having a much slighter build than Vieira didn’t bother the Flamster, he made up for it in heart and he drove on the players around him, putting in one tireless performance after another. Yet again a former ‘nobody’ in greater footballing terms was becoming hot property. In the end, the money that a frustratingly financially-handcuffed Arsenal could offer their new star could not compete with the larger chequebook (imagine one of those big cheques that you see on Comic Relief and the like!) of an Italian giant and we bid ‘au revoir’ to a player who was just beginning to become an integral part of the squad. On a personal note, I know that you can’t believe all of the numbers that are thrown around these days but if £55k a week is not enough to do something you love, at a club that has kept faith in you and (undoubtedly) made you a better player then it’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

So what can Le Boss possibly do to prevent a mass exodus of our starlets and keep us with a real chance of claiming that piece of silverware that has eluded us for too long now? Here are a few tips for him, should he wish to take any notice of ‘the man on the street’! Firstly, it may be too late for this one, but devote an area of the training ground to become a woodland retreat (complete with log cabin, melodic bird song and gentle, flowing streams) and give Alex Hleb exclusive use of this area. It seems our Belarussian winger is struggling with the pace of big city life and wants to head off to the tranquil little village of… Milan (population around 2.9 million)!?! To seal the deal, equip the cabin with a brand spanking new Mr Whippy machine, if reports are to be believed from his meeting with Inter officials, one lick of an ice cream and Hleb’s anyone’s!

Secondly, splash the cash that’s burning a hole in the club’s pocket and buy David Villa from Valencia. Not only would this top-class forward be a great addition to the team (56 goals in 100 appearances to date for his current club in La Liga) but this would provide the dream play-friend for Fabregas, as he has recently revealed in the press. As it stands, I’m not too concerned about Cesc’s immediate future, I think he genuinely loves Arsenal and wants to win honours under Wenger. Needless to say though, he is one of the best midfielders in the world and it would be an absolute tragedy if he were to be lured away. Therefore, don’t make him captain next season (we have a recent tendency to lose our captains, give the captaincy to Eboue instead maybe!?!) and buy him a new best mate, he’s just lost Flamini and might have to wave a tearful bye-bye to Hleb, surely the boy wonder’s suffered enough!

Finally, another potential target for overseas clubs is last season’s top scorer Emmanuel Adebayor. Ade takes quite a lot of (what I think is pretty unwarranted!) stick off of Arsenal fans – yes, he misses chances that he should be tucking away and in some games he seems to be playing with rubber feet, such is his poor control. Nevertheless, our Togolese striker hit an impressive 30 goals in the last year leading the line up front, including some quality finishes (remember his glorious second at Sh**e Hart Lane?!) and the energy he shows chasing down both the ball and opposition defenders is admirable. To ensure he stays with us reward him with two benefits – (1) Let him design next season’s tracksuit and training kit, allowing him complete free reign to include all of the usual Huggy Bear / top pimp stylings that he regularly parades with his own wardrobe. It would definitely liven up the pre-match warm-ups anyway! (2) In training sessions give him one free Bendtner-slap a day, without any possible retaliation from the big Dane. They clearly don’t get on, so allow Ade to keep Nicklas in his place and you never know the youngster’s game may improve too!

If none of that lot works then we’ll just have to endure another ‘grin and bear it’ summer and see who goes and who stays in the annual ‘Arsenal exodus lottery’! Good news is coming out of the club that they are set to reward Fabregas, Clichy, Adebayor and Sagna with new, financially pumped-up deals; hopefully that will keep that quartet happy and their feelings of content will start to spread amongst the other players (just don’t show ‘em your payslips lads!). We have got a great squad at the moment which needs to be increased a little more rather than reduced, so if that happens then next season I have a feeling that Gooners everywhere will have an awful lot to shout about!!