No sooner had the boots been polished following the Australia tour, than the team are off to China and training in the blistering summer heat of Shanghai, as the team take part in some sort of trophy involving all of the types of teams that none of us want to see Arsenal play,

So it’s games against Bayern and Chelski on Wednesday and Saturday that we have to endure and given that we also have to see the team line up against Chelski in a few weeks time in the Community Shield, it’s the first of a lot of familiarity that we have for the chavs, and we certainly don’t need that to breed our contempt. We have it in abundance already.

I suppose one could argue that at least it’ll be a bit more competition for the players than against two Aussie teams. Not me though. I’d rather us play a collective of Chinese waiters and dentists than have to play those two sides. Which is why I’m quite glad I’m at work for the first game and finding other things to do for the second.

As for the other news circulating at the moment, it’s still all sadly about Alexis, with many still wading in with their opinion. Including our future head of youth development Big Per, whose said that Alexis needs to relax on holiday and then come back and make his decision about his future. 

Hold on BFG, you’ve changed your tune from the other week, when you said he is definitely staying at the club! What’s going on big fella?

I suspect that he’s realise the impact of his words and is now practicing a subtle politicians retreat on what he originally said, because he knows that Alexis has done all but state that he pretty much wants out, so it seems clear what the next steps are. As I said in the blog yesterday for me this appears quite cut and dry and all we need to do is get on with selling him abroad and getting somebody new in to make up for his influence on the team. And I tell you something else, the last time we had a player we were so reliant on was RvP, but when we sold him we replaced him with three players in Santi, Giroud and Podolski who all got the same level of goals that the Dutchman did, so if Alexis is shipped out I would just expect some of the other players to step up in his stead.

I understand the comments that Alexis won some games single-handedly because of his goals, but I am not as convinced that without him we wouldn’t have won certain games, because he still needed his teammates around him to get some of those goals. I don’t recall so many in which he beat three men on his own and smashed the ball in. I remember the first goal against Middlesbrough away last season, but not that many more in which he effectively ‘did a Messi’ by dribbling past people and doing everything himself.

I’m not saying we wouldn’t miss him, because of course we would, but I’m saying that when somebody leaves there is always others that take up the slack. That happens in every walk of life and it’ll happen when Alexis goes too.

Let’s just hope Arsenal press hard for another incoming and don’t wait all summer for a player that they then fail to sign. That’s the biggest worry I have.