Arsenal starlet Jack Wilshere believes the club are firmly in the title race.

Arsene Wenger's side are currently sitting in fourth position in the Premier League and are seven points behind leaders Chelsea.

The Gunners' 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge before the international break has left the North London giants with some catching up to do.

However, Wilshere believes the champions will eventually slip up and he is confident Arsenal can take advantage when they do.

Wilshere told the club's official website: "It's still early days, we're definitely still in it.

"I know we are seven points behind, but I think Chelsea will definitely drop points and we've just got to capitalise when they do.

"Hopefully there aren't too many injuries (ahead for us) but if there are we've got a big squad and we can cope."

The 18-year-old disagrees with suggestions that Wenger's side only have one way to play against physical teams such as Chelsea.

"I don't think that's true (that Arsenal cannot beat Chelsea)," he said.

"You saw we dominated the game for long periods but we just didn't take our chances.

"A couple of games before that we scored six, so it was just one of those days.

"In football it's what you do on the ball, but also make sure that when you haven't got the ball that you defend well.

"Obviously Chelsea have got some good players and they showed that on the day."

Why? Because we suffer the growing pains, then when the said player is of a high enough standard, one of the elite mob make him an election promise.

How often do Chelsea, Liverpool or Manchester United sell players they don’t want to? By my reckoning… not too often. Liverpool lost Alonso a couple of seasons back becuase Rafa treated him terribly, United sold Ronaldo against their will but generally Fergie decides who stays and who goes. Chelsea never seem to lose players they don’t want to…

Arsenal on the other hand heamorahge players all the time. The latest transfer saga is Cesc Fabregas who will no doubt be off this summer to whoever can pay his substantial transfer fee.

So where have we gone wrong here? For me it’s in buying young foreigners. We buy them in, watch them painstakingly become adequate, then we get one good season out of them… then they start whoring themselves out like an FA secretary.

In the old days we used to buy journeymen foreigners. They’d done their travelling, made their mistakes and by the time they’d arrived at the home of football, they were ready to give us their best years and more importantly, they were hungry. Freddie Ljungberg, Paddy, Dennis Bergkamp, Thierry Henry, Overmars, Gilberto all had the similar backgrounds. (although Freddie was young)

When you bring players in at 15, by the time they enter their prime they’ve been at the club for ten years. That’s a long time to live in a foreign land and they rightly think the grass is greener in a hotter country. Factor in that these kids are paid vast sums of money, trained in what I hear are 7 star facilities even by Premier League standards and never criticised. They don’t know hardship once they’ve been with us a few years which is why so many regret leaving.

How can we combat this problem? Well, buying players who are around 23-26 is a good start. Arshavin, Chamakh, and Vermaelen are all unlikely in my opinion to be pushing for moves away from the club any time soon.

The other option is to really put an emphasis on British and Irish kids. Why? Well, firstly it’s cheaper to scout them. Secondly they tend to fare better in the Premiership. Thirdly, they’re they don’t want to bother themselves with another language… so a move to Madrid or Milan is off the cards straight away. Unearthing gems like Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere is far more likely to deliver us long term stable success becuase generally, once you play for a top 4 club, you don’t move. You become part of the furniture, you appreciate the fan love you get in the streets and all your family are within a few hours drive or a cheap Ryanair flight home.

Wellington Silva could be the next Ronaldo (the fat one), he could bang in 30 goals a season for 3 years… if he becomes that player, how long before he’s on Madrid’s radar, how long before we’re talking about what we’ll have to do to replace him? The fact is, foreign kids don’t share the same passion for the club the foreign fans do mainly becuase they don’t share our culture.

If the 30 goal a season striking sensation’s name was Kenny Johnson, I’d have far more confidence we could keep him. If you can turn a pub player like Song into an acceptable footballer over the course of 3 years, you can do that to Irish, Scottish, English and Welsh kids.

More and more studies reveal that very little in life comes down to natural ability. It’s all about hard work and getting the right breaks. If we focus more energy on local kids, we could have a staple of Arsenal legends on our hands to rival Chelsea, United and the players Arsene inherited when he joined the club. Hey, you know what, we might just have such a situation developing right now!

I know people think that Arsene invented Youth team football, that avoids the annoying fact George Graham gave him 6 or 7 top quality players who served him very well in his early years… the common denominator there? None of them ever requested a transfer, none of them had an interest in moving away and none of them were foreign. Tony Adams only ever had one club.

British ignorance could be a strategic advantage over the next 5 years. It’s about bloody time it did us a favour!

P.S. The interest Arsenal have in Kevin Doyle is genuine, they think he’s a fantastic player. Don’t be surprised if he makes the move one day. Also, I am fully aware that the Irish could be classed as Foreign, but culturally we’re the same… binge drinking till the end of time!

Arsenal, in terms of any player of any age, who is thinking of getting a transfer, has a number of attractions.  One is obviously Arsène Wenger, who is so highly regarded worldwide as a coach.  Another is the training facilities.  Another is the ground.  Then there’s the year after year of Champions League activity.

It is quite a heady mixture and out of all of this comes something rather important. You can get some of these things elsewhere (Man IOU has a manager of high repute, for example) although in other areas our rivals struggle (few clubs can match the training facilities and the Emirates).

Players tend to believe that they will become better players while they are at Arsenal.

The basis of this belief is, of course, the vast number of little known or underachieving players, plus players who have never made it to their highest potential, who suddenly turn out to be masters of the art of football.  We all know the list, from Vieira and Henry to Cesc and Van Persie.

This heritage gives Arsenal a huge kick start when they start to negotiate with a new potential player.  Of course there are those who will argue about Arsenal’s credibility having suffered of late through the trophy winning exploits of the KGB in Fulham and Manchester IOU, and no doubt such players will not have any concerns about the financial stability of those clubs.

And of course players want to win medals.  But they also want to have a chance to do their thing and become great players – and many are sensible enough to recognise that this tends to happen more at Arsenal than elsewhere.  Even the dope-heads who fall out with the club and leave for massively inflated prices (I think of course of Cole and Adebayor).  And as for those tempted away by the promise of more, the grass can often turn out to have a rather yellowish complexion when they arrive at the new ground (as Hleb, Flamini have found.)

Indeed there is nothing like being heralded as the great new boy, and then finding one can’t get a game, to make one realise that life is not quite a bowl of round red fruit.

At the youth level I have heard it said by those in the know that Arsenal now has its pick of the bunch (within the restrictions laid down by EU labour laws and FA recruitment regulations).  Some come in at a very early age (Jack Wilshere) some a little later (Cesc, Ramsey) – but all of them come to be developed, and developed they are.

Recently Mr Wenger himself gave a list of some of the talent he has developed, restricting himself to players who joined at an early age.  Johan Djourou and Philippe Senderos were in the list.  We might not always have them at the top of our list of great Arsenal players, but Djourou is coming back from a year out and Senderos is captain of his country. They are not to be dismissed.

To these he added those we can all agree on Gaël Clichy, Kieran Gibbs, Cesc Fábregas, Alexandre Song, Abou Diaby.

But it can be argued that Manchester IOU have developed Giggs, Beckham,  Scholes, Butt, Neville and Neville.  And that really makes the point rather than contradicting it.  My Arsenal list above is current.  But there is no contemporary Manchester equivalent.  As Wenger mentioned in his discussions on the subject, if we are going back that far in time to bring in Beckham et al, you need to include Emmanuel Petit, Thierry Henry and Lilian Thuram at Monaco.  And more.

Which brings me to my point.  Which other club has, over the past five years seen the development of such a group of young players?  (Remembering I haven’t even got to Vela, Walcott, Bendtner, Denilson, Eboue).

If you have read my ramblings over the past year or two you’ll know I have endlessly raved about the way the youth team is coming through, and the great talent we have.  From Afobe to Eneke, Coquelin to Cruise, Eastmond to JET, Freeman to Lansbury (actually Lansbury really ought to be in the top group, alongside Jack Wilshere), and most recently Sunu and Miquel.  And below them another lot.  True, as I mentioned yesterday, we have had a slow start this season, but that does not make the argument invalid.

Oh and there’s Wellington Silva too.  I almost forgot.

Yet sometimes when I write the occasional piece in which I wander through this list of players I hear complaints that all that has happened is that these players have been brought in.  “Cesc was not developed by Arsenal, but by Barca” comes the complaint.  Suddenly the argument is changed and the only players we can count are those who joined not at 16 or 17, but at 13, or 11, or even 9.

But that is not how it goes.  We are only allowed to sign up under 16s from a very restricted geographic area, and yet we are competing as one of the top teams in the world.  It is not viable to find that many brilliant youngsters just in the local region.

Which is why the reputation counts for everything.  We need this constant development of the greatest youth system that the world has ever seen, taking in both 9 year olds and 17 year olds who have started elsewhere because they are not allowed to start in London.  And we need our reputation as the place that will turn these guys into even better players.

And that’s what we’ve got, thanks entirely to one person.

Агент Ренцо Контратто, представляющий интересы голкипера итальянской "Болоньи" Эмилиано Вивиано отметил, что в услугах его клиента действительно заинтересованы лондонский "Арсенал" и мюнхенская "Бавария".

Правда, помешать трансферу игрока может миланский "Интер", которому принадлежит половина прав на игрока.

"И "Арсенал", и "Бавария" мечтают заполучить Вивиано. Эмилиано входит в число самых талантливых голкиперов Европы. Правда, здесь не все зависит от него. Учитывая тот факт, что он намного моложе Жулио Сезара из "Интера", "черно-синие" могут воспрепятствовать его трансферу", - приводит слова Контратто FootballPress со ссылкой на TuttoMercatoWeb.

Бывшая звезда лондонского "Арсенала" Рэй Парлор боится, что надежды "канониров" на титул чемпионов Англии не сбудутся, пока команда не обзаведется мощным форвардом.

Парлор играл вместе с такими звездами как Иан Райт, Тьерри Анри и Дэннис Бергкамп в течение его пребывания в северном Лондоне, и он считает, что таких нападающих сейчас не хватает "Арсеналу".

Команда Арсена Венгера сейчас занимает четвертую строчку в чемпионате Англии, отставая от лидирующего "Челси" на 7 очков, и Парлор, в интервью  "the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast ",  высказался о нынешнем "Арсенале":  "Команде не хватает последнего удара. Они играют в симпатичный футбол, но  у них нет "нападающего-убийцы", форварда, который способен создавать голы из малейших моментов. Раньше были подобные игроки, например Анри или Бергкамп, но сейчас у них нет такого игрока в составе. Может Ван Перси или Уолкотт и смогут так играть, нам остается ждать и смотреть. Но "Арсеналу" игрок, который способен создавать момент из ничего, нужен уже сейчас."

"Канониры" рассчитывают успешно продолжить свою кампанию в чемпионате, благополучно приняв "Бирмингем" на этих выходных,  после поражений от "Челси" и "Вест Бромвича".

"Ромфордский Пеле" также добавил:  "Арсенал"  не может не победить в эти выходные, но то же самое мы говорили об игре с "Вест Бромвичом", и ребята расслабились. Это в очередной раз доказывает, что каждый игрок должен выкладываться полностью, в противном случае вы оплошаете".

В то время как Сеск Фабрегас оправляется от повреждения подколенного сухожилия, другой испанец, также капитан, но уже резервной команды, продолжает проявлять себя не только как защитник высокого уровня, но и как лидер. .

Игнаси Микел прошел огромный путь с того момента как прибыл с Испании в Англию в шестнадцатилетнем возрасте. Чтобы показать значение игрока для клуба, его удостоили капитанской повязки резервного состава Нила Банфилда. 

Англия кажется ему домом, и он признается, что продолжает свой рост день ото дня. 

"Я помню, когда только приехал сюда, не мог сказать ни слова и был в замешательстве. Сейчас же я стараюсь говорить и объяснять людям, что делать. Я стараюсь помочь им во время игры", -  сказал он в интервью официальному сайту клуба. 

"Я приспособился к английскому стилю жизни. Это было непросто, но сейчас я чувствую себя уютно, будто дома. Я счастлив находиться здесь и сейчас просто хочу продолжать усердно работать, что бы когда-нибудь получить возможность доказать, что достоин играть в основе Арсенала". 

Микелу в конце сентября исполняется 18, и он приравнивает свою игру к игре соотечественника, который праздновал победу своей сборной на Чемпионате Мира этим летом. 

"Я играю в стиле Херарда Пике из Барселоны",- сказал он." Тоже самое случилось и с ним, когда он прибыл сюда, будучи еще совсем юным. Мы оба достаточно высокие и любим играть из глубины. Мне нравиться играть с мячом, а также в отборе.  Я люблю побеждать. Я считаю себя победителем, ведь всегда выкладываюсь на 100% во время каждой игры". 

Честь носить капитанскую повязку не позволяет чувствовать расслабленность, и Микел отдаёт себе отчет по поводу обязанностей, которые ложатся на него. 

"Я очень счастлив, что Нил дал мне возможность носить повязку, и я не собираюсь разочаровать его. Я буду упорно трудится,  и надеюсь показать всем, на что способен". 

"Я знаю, что должен выкладываться по максимуму каждый день и делать все, что в моих силах во время игры. Я просто хочу попасть в первую команду. Я имел возможность тренироваться с основой "Арсенала", что бы доказать Венгеру, что могу быть там, и если он даст мне шанс, я постараюсь показать всё, на что способен".