In the post-season lull between the excruciatingly long final match that Arsenal are now custom with, and the beginning of the transfer window, not much is going on at Arsenal. Only a few stories have made it to the news as the players rest up after a long and stressful season.

The Future Of The Skipper

The main story at the moment is Thomas Vermaelen and his future at Arsenal. Speculation is rife about his departure with rumours of Napoli and Manchester United being interested in the Belgian centre-back.

Reports in Finland have emerged, suggesting that Arsenal will play a friendly against Manchester City not long before the start of the Premier League season, on August 10th at Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium.

This would be a rather more strenuous warm-up game and would cap a busy summer for the Gunners, who visit Indonesia, Vietnam and Japan in July, as well as playing in the Emirates Cup.

It looks as if Tottenham have opened talks over a possible £10 million move for striker David Villa.

It has become a habit now, that when Arsenal are linked with a player, another club always manages to pummel our hopes of signing the player and beats us to it.

You snooze, you lose? Supposedly the purchase of a striker in not on Arsene Wenger’s To-Do list.

It’s been a fairly busy few days in terms of Arsenal talk and speculation, days which have sadly been neglected (blame the weather) of late.

So, there’s a lot to get through, including some significant progress on transfers.

Fields of Grenier

Arsenal are chasing Lyon’s 22-year-old Clement Grenier, and could have a deal completed soon. Arsene Wenger himself admitted to French TV station Telefoot that he admired the young midfielder and wished to bring him to Arsenal:

Arsenal have offered Wayne Rooney a wage package of around £200,000k a week if he agrees to move from Manchester United to Arsenal.

The England striker is unhappy at United and could force his way out of the club by refusing to commit under new manager David Moyes.

While of course Chelsea and PSG are keen to use their oil billions to attract him to their clubs, Arsenal are willing to make Rooney the figurehead of a new British identity at Arsenal, and give him the starring role he craves.