Philippe Senderos has joined Fulham on a free transfer after agreeing a 3-year deal with Roy Hodgson’s men.

The 25-year-old is out-of-contract at the Emirates Stadium and he had already decided his future lies away from Arsenal in January. Senderos joined Arsenal at the end of 2002 from Servette, but he has played just over 50 games for the Gunners – including the run to the Champions League final in the 05/06 season.

He spent some of last season on loan at Everton but David Moyes decided not to pursue a permanent deal despite several astute performances for the Toffees.

Hodgson told Fulham’s official website:

Quote:

“Philippe is a player that I have admired for a very long time since he captained Switzerland to the UEFA Under-17 Championship in 2002. “He is a strong defender who has great aerial presence at both ends of the field and has a superb work ethic which is a vital component for any team’s success. I am very much looking forward to working with Philippe next season.”

On recapping the season I think it is fair to say that every Gunner out there feels disappointed with the season. The question though is why?

Let’s have a look; on the 15th August 2009 we travelled to Goodison Park where our boys in Red and White totally and utterly destroyed the Toffees 6 – 1. Which brought much relief for some of us who where worried about our fearless leaders new signing of Thomas Vermaelen, then he scored in his debut in only the 37th minute of the game. Not only did we have a long and stressful summer with the endless press talk from the Catalan’s about our captain but what better way to end those rumours than to score twice in our first game.

So there we were set for a promising season ahead. Which left us all wondering from game to game who will be scoring the first goal for Arsenal, would it be our striker Robin or our captain Cesc?

Then it was time for us to play the so called richest club in the English Premier League, Manchester City. As was to be expected it was a good match producing 6 goals, but what we didn’t expect was to be on the losing side of a 4 – 2 game. I think what left the worse taste in our mouths was the fact that former Gunner Emmanuel Adebayor purposefully mangled Robin’s foot and then celebrated.

A month later the unthinkable happened while on call up for his country Robin suffered a terrible injury putting him out for most of the season. I think that was when most Gunners started to get worried about our title aspirations. To follow the injuries up of other key players and the double loss against Chelsea and Manchester United really made the light at the end of the tunnel get smaller.

Yet out of nowhere we pulled back eleven points twice to put ourselves back into contention for the title, but as luck would have it, our defence let easy games slip. In January not even a full 5 months after trashing the Toffees, they came to our home and we had to play catch up to save a draw. Where we decided to throw further points away was against Birmingham and draw there too. These made many of us wish Arsène Wenger would walk onto the pitch and chain our goalkeepers (especially Almunia) to the goalposts, as he made good saves on his line, but every time without failure when he came off it we conceded.

All of this left us from 2 points behind the leaders to having to win our final two weeks of play to secure a Champions League spot.

So what has this season taught us?

Go back 12 months, we finished FOURTH, if someone came to us and said next season you will finish THIRD as we did, would we have taken it? (I know I would’ve!)

Yes we suffered major injuries, but half way through the season we were the top goal scorers (in the Premiership) but we had let through too many, that the only other team to let through more than us in the top 10 was Fulham.

My conclusion is, we had a good season, better than last. The Spanish press will talk about Cesc leaving every transfer window till his contract ends with us in 2015, so don’t get worried about him leaving unless you hear it from Arsenal.com.

We got two world class strikers now and our leader Arsène has promised to fix our defence, so let’s keep our belief in him. Good Gunning for the season ahead!