The Premier League kicked off last weekend and already Arsenal fans are pessimistic about the team’s display following the 1-1 draw against Liverpool.

Arsenal did not play terribly bad, we had lots of possession and control of the ball but lacked real penetration in the final third. I know what you’re all saying….same old same old?

But let’s just see how this team fares until January and then judge them. It is too easy to watch the first game and insult the players after what I thought was a decent performance.

Let’s face it, we are not Chelsea, we have not got Didier Drogba. Chelsea did not play particularly well, they scored most goals from set pieces and West Brom were terrible defensively. Manchester United played well but again they faced newly promoted teams whereas we played against one of the title contenders. And we did well? Really? Yes!

Playing against ten men is never easy. Sometimes it is harder as the opposition play a lot more defensively. The Liverpool goal came from a mistake- yes but not a goalkeeping mistake. Arsenals tried to pass the ball out of the area and were caught out. Ngog punished us!

The goal was perfectly fine, Almunia could not stop it. Not his fault! There has been so much speculation that Almunia should have saved it. I am sorry but if it was any other goalkeeper, they would have been saying what a great goal!

Now you may be wondering why I am suddenly taking the Spaniards side. Well Mr Wenger seems to have made his mind up that he will stick with Almunia as number one goalkeeper. Any critics coming from the fans will make it worse for him on the pitch. He will not perform well and will be too eager to impress. He might make more mistakes this way. We need to give him another chance to impress this season.

Reina made a bigger gaffe than anyone else; he gets laid into for one day. Almunia has been under pressure for a whole season! Its not like he can’t be a shot stopper, he is actually decent at saving shots. He just needs to work on being more in command when ball comes into the box from set pieces.

As for Arsenal, yes we lacked penetration and yes we lacked wingers to cross the ball in. But I am sure this team will evolve throughout the season and become sharper, and will make amends for all Gunners fans. I have a feeling Wenger will not let us down this season.

Two weeks from today Arsene Wenger has to name his 25 man squad - which must contain at least eight home-grown players and a maximum of 17 foreign over-21s (plus unlimited under 21s) - for the first four months of the season.

As things stand, the Gunners' current first-team squad contains 26 players, of which 13 are counted as home-grown, and seven are Under-21s. Just for clarification, only 12 first team players are non home-grown foreigners over the age of 21.

That means that Arsenal still have plenty of scope to add experienced talent before the transfer window closes on August 31.

By my reckoning we can still add up to five players, over the age of 21 who are not classed as 'home-grown'. If we were to sign Shay Given,  I believe he would be classed as home-grown because he was a Blackburn player from the age of 18-21.

The point is, Arsenal are in a pretty luxurious place to be as the pressure on teams to name their 25-men squads on September 1 intensifies.

We all know that Man City have a dozen first team squad members who will not be able to play and so who will be looking for alternative clubs to ensure first team football. Other clubs are not in the same position but there will be some high profile casualties with the likes of Owen Hargreaves, Jonathan Woodgate and Stephen Ireland all mentioned as potential losers of the 25-man rule. Craig Bellamy has opted to drop down a division to play for home town Cardiff, but others will want to remain in the Premier League and the offer of Champions League football should not be underestimated.

So is Wenger waiting to see just who becomes available at the end of the transfer window before he makes his move?

I personally would like to think so, although I'm not going to hold my breath.

Despite what some Gooners would have you believe, Arsene Wenger is not is stupid.

He knows that we're short in defence - he's said so often enough. He also knows the goalkeeping position is far from ideal.

I'm not a betting man, but I reckon Le Gaffer has players in mind for both central defence and goalkeeper and I have a funny feeling he might just surprise us with another player to strengthen an area of the squad where we feel we're already well served - midfield or attack.

I'd like to think that he might go for someone who is a natural wide player because we still don't have too many players who can actually cross a ball. But I think he might sign another forward before August 31 to add some experience to a front line which currently consists of Robin van Persie, Nicklas Bendtner, Carlos Vela, Marouane Chamakh and Theo Walcott.

I know that Arsenal will score goals from elsewhere, but those five, in my opinion, are too injury prone, unproven and simply not good enough to provide the firepower we need to mount - and sustain - a title challenge.

Or am I wrong on all scores and will Wenger frustrate us all again by putting faith in his players, hoping beyond hope that they can go through one campaign without suffering serious injuries??

Arsenal have agreed a deal with VfB Stuttgart to sign Serge Gnabry. The midfielder will complete the transfer in July next year after his 16th birthday.

Gnabry has now returned to Germany after a 10 day trial with the Gunners in which he featured in two behind closed doors friendlies, scoring in the second against Birmingham City. Young Guns revealed two days ago the two clubs were in negotiations for Serge’s signature, and we can now confirm an agreement has been reached. Arsenal are expected to hand over around £100,000 in compensation for the highly rated play-maker.

Serge, who is eligible to represent either Germany or Ivory Coast at international level, is a pacy, strong attack minded midfielder who can play on the right or behind the striker. He was a key part of the Stuttgart Under 16 side which won the Nike Cup earlier this year, picking up the Player of the Tournament award on the back of a 30 goal season.

Gnabry is expected to train with Arsenal during the Bundesliga winter break in January, giving him a chance to acclimatize to life in North London before his summer move.

The wise lessons I learned from “De Croc”

I must apologize because I have to start with talking about someone who isn’t related to Arsenal at first sight but someone who has told me some interesting things that many Arsenal fans should listen to or take notice of. So to start this article I must explain who “De Croc” is. As I live in another country I have supported in my childhood days my local team, still do from a distance. In those days I was a supporter of my local team who played half of the time in the First division (what is the EPL in England) but half of the time we went down, to only come back the next year or so. So it was mostly a rollercoaster ride with a sad finish at times but also with the fun of becoming champions the next season or gaining promotion.

And as a kid I had the luck to be living close to one of the last legends we have had in our team: De Croc. De Croc was the nickname he got and he was one of those players who only knew one team in his life: as a player and as a supporter. He was a few years older than I and he lived around the corner. All his career he stayed a semi-professional player. He was a plumber and had a company together with his father and it was not unusual that at 3 pm he came off the roof of a house to go to the stadium and to play a game in the evening.

De Croc was a boy from the neighbourhood, always had time for a chat, very down to earth. In those days I was helping our supporters club with their own magazine by writing articles and doing interviews of players. So I had the luck and the chance to speak with first class players and could ask them a lot of questions. I was between 14 and 18 years old at that time, just to give you an idea. Now come to think of it, I’m still doing what I did as a kid….

Anyway I have spoken on many occasions with De Croc when I was waiting at the bus stop and he came to get his morning newspaper and you could always ask him questions and he would answer it. I also did an interview once with him for the magazine. And I learned how a player is looking at things. So once the question was asked: Do you hear what people shout at you and does it influence you?

And this is what he told about it: “When we play away from home at Anderlecht, Bruges or Standard Liège as a player you feel the hostile atmosphere. But for me this was something that made me more determined. I wanted to spoil it for them. (Editor note: It mostly didn’t work out that way to be honest) Some players were affected by this but I loved it every second.”

And about the own fans he said: “When the fans are getting behind the team it really gives you wings. At times in a game you almost feel sick from the running you have done and you want to slow down but then the fans shout the team forward and you just want to please the fans and you forget the upcoming cramps in your leg, you forget that you hardly can breath anymore, you just keep running. It is inspiring and it is something that makes you work harder, run faster, dig deeper.”

But about the years when it was all doom and gloom, when we finished at a relegation place he had this to say: “When the stadium is rather empty it becomes painful at times. If there are a lot of fans there is so much noise that you cannot hear what individual fans shout or say. You here the noise of the crowd and that’s it. But when there are not many fans, and when you play not at your best, when you are struggling you sometimes hear nothing. You only hear silence as if the fans are just waiting for bad things to happen. They know you will screw up at some time in the match, as it happened all these times before. And then you can also hear what the individual fan is shouting. And when your own fans are shouting at you or at a team mate: ‘you useless piece of sh*t’ or even worse insulting things, you hear this and it hurts. Nothing is more worse for a player than having your own fans having a go at you. It cuts like a knife and hurts. And there have been times that I wanted to come off the field during the game and speak to such a fan and ask him to support us and not to tear us further down. When you are giving it all on the field and they call you names, you just wonder at times why you are doing it and for whom.”

So this is one of the reasons why I cannot stand it when people boo or insult our own players. It will never help them. And I know that when one fan in the Emirates calls one of our players a piece of sh*t, this player will not hear him. As there is too much noise in the stadium.

But now the shouting at your own players is not done in an empty Emirates. Now it is done at the internet stage. Where people keep on insulting our players and our manager. And let us just forget the manager. But concentrate on the players. The players are young, they all have the technology available that we have. They will surf on the internet and who knows which sites they visit. Just imagine one moment being an Arsenal player and coming on to some sites where you see your own supporters abusing you, calling you names, telling you that you are worthless, telling you should be given away, and so on….

Doing all those things on the internet is the modern equivalent of what “De Croc” has told me about hearing the individual fan shouting and pulling you down on the playing field. It will not help a player. It only undermines his confidence. So I will not throw abusive words to my own players as I know it will not help them in anyway. If you don’t like a player or even if you think you know more than the manager and think a certain player is not good enough, fine. But just say things like: Well I would play with player X instead of player Z, as I think that X is better against a defending team. You don’t just have to shout X = sh*t. Just imagine being X and have to read it every day on the internet. Yeah you could imagine that it would make you feel good.

And I don’t want to say that from now on you must adore each player we have and you must like them all. No, I also have my favourite players in the team. I also have players I rate higher than others. But De Croc taught me that bringing your own players down will not help that player at all. And this is one of the reasons my blood is boiling when I see our own fans having a go at our own players. Just get behind your team who ever the manager has chosen to play for us in our colours. Just support your own players and let us save the abuse to players from other teams.

De Croc taught me that players do need to know and to feel that the supporters are behind them, so lets just be real supporters and get behind our players, all of them, as long as they have our shirt on.