Robin,

There comes a point in every footballer’s career where they’re faced with handling the business side of the sport. This aspect of the sport is something that’s played out behind closed doors (or, lately, in the confines of the manager’s residence) and every single word from key stakeholder’s quotes gets distorted, misrepresented and, most of the time, blown out of proportion. As someone who watches from outside of the main activity, I certainly don’t envy the players who have to step away from what they love doing in order to make sure their wishes, desires and ambitions in the sport are fulfilled through a mutual commitment in the form of a contract with the club that best provides these needs and wants. After all, you’ve trained yourself the majority of your life to make sure your talent lies on the pitch, not off the pitch.

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The second of our player reviews focuses on Lukasz Fabianski

Lukasz Fabianski might one of the unluckiest goalkeepers in the world. In the first half of 2010, Arsene Wenger gave him lots of chances to supplant Manuel Almunia, but Fabianski was awful in all of them. Finally, though, he does supplant Almunia, and shows confidence and a shot stopping ability that many didn't know was possible. Then, he injures his shoulder and countryman Wojciech Szczesny never looks back. As a result, Fabianski only started 6 games, none of which were in the league. Unsurprisingly, he wants to leave, with his first team and national teams limited by not being played and by the excellence of Szczesny.

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The first player under review for the 2011-12 season is goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny.

Szczesny was a bit of an Iron Man this season, starting all 38 Premier League matches, 1 FA Cup match, and 9 Champions League matches. In these 48 starts, he had 18 clean sheets, which isn't spectacular, but in truth, Arsenal's defending as a team was often subpar, and Mr. Szczesny was often stranded. Szczesny is 22 years old, and played the last few matches of the season with a shoulder injury which curtailed his training and necessitated medicinal injections to allow him to play matches. What follows are each of our thoughts on Szczesny.

Come with us after the jump!

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Jack Wilshere had hoped to return to pre-season training on July 9th, but that date is now under question after it was revealed that the 20 year old must undergo minor knee surgery.

However, his ongoing rehabilitation has seen a long-standing slight issue with his patella tendon in his left knee flare up.

As a result, Jack will travel to Sweden for a minor procedure on his left knee in the next few days.This procedure is not expected to significantly affect Jack's comeback ahead of next season

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It was utterly insane. With 3 minutes to go in Arsenal's season, protecting a 1 goal lead against West Bromwich Albion, Arsenal's defence falters as Jonas Olsson, a centre back, makes a barnstorming run, nutmegs Francis Coquelin and plays a brilliant pass for the Baggies' right back, Billy Jones. Jones is in; he's going to score, Arsenal are going to finish 4th. But Kieran Gibbs comes across, and gets the ball away. He then wins 3 headers in a row, and Arsenal finish 3rd, a point ahead of Tottenham, 6 ahead of Chelsea in 6th. This sort of haphazard play shouldn't be a surprise to Arsenal fans, but this season, it was even more apparent. This is a team that lost it's two best midfielders in Cesc Fabregas and Jack Wilshere, and also some whiny fathead who had a 3 month purple patch (that needs to be replaced too!). This is a team that lost 8-2 against Manchester United, and 4-0 against a fairly unimpressive AC Milan. They conceded nearly half a century of goals in the Premier League, 2 less than promoted Swansea City. They went on runs of 4 points from 15 and 1 point from 12; yet they still finished 3rd. This season has been an emotional roller coaster, nerve wracking and extremely frustrating. It's also been completely brilliant, which is it's been utterly insane.

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This is the first in a series of posts about Arsenal's history, about how they got to where they are today and what it took to get there (this whole series was inspired by this comment thread). After this one, which is about three decades' worth of stuff, each post will probably cover about a decade, and once we get to current day, there will be an Alltime Best Arsenal Players-type thing. Isn't learning fun? I think so. Let's go learn stuff!

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