A Barcelona delegation held talks with Arsenal in London on Thursday to negotiate a deal to buy Cesc Fabregas.

The European champions are ready to finally resolve the long-running transfer saga, 48 hours after manager Pep Guardiola said Arsenal were willing to discuss the sale of their club captain.

Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis is expected to tell the Spanish club, who are being led in the talks by vice-president Josep Maria Bartomeu, that the Londoners are not prepared to sell for less than £40 million.

Barcelona's offers have fallen short of this valuation over the last two summers and they remain reluctant to go beyond £35m for a player nurtured at their academy.

Fabregas has left Arsenal and manager Arsene Wenger in little doubt about his desire to return to his boyhood club.

Whatever the outcome of today's talks, Fabregas is not expected to be included in the Arsenal party that is named on Thursday afternoon for the five-day trip to Germany.

Having already missed the short tour of the Far East with a hamstring injury, the midfielder's likely absence from the squad that flies out on Friday morning will prompt fears among supporters that he has played his final game for the club.

Arsenal play a friendly in Cologne on Saturday and then stay on in Germany until Wednesday for a short training camp.

Everton are determined to hang on to centre-back Phil Jagielka in the face of a bid from Arsenal.

The Gunners made a £10million offer to take the 28-year-old to the Emirates Stadium which was rejected out of hand.

Press Association Sport understands that was £2million lower than the one made 12 months ago.

The Merseyside club view the bid as being well below the player's market value, particularly as the defender signed a new four-year contract in March.

Everton have yet to make any signings so far this summer and their tight finances means manager David Moyes is likely to have to sell players in order to be able to bring in new faces.

But Jagielka is not one of those on the list which the Toffees boss is looking to offload, although should a bid closer to the club's valuation of about ?£20million come in they would have to seriously consider it.

Arsenal have also been linked with Bolton centre-back Gary Cahill and Blackburn's Chris Samba and Gunners boss Arsene Wenger could well explore those options.

Arsenal defender Thomas Vermaelen is relishing the opportunity to make a new start in the coming season, and is positive regarding the Gunners' future.

The Belgian missed the middle eight months of the 2010/11 season thanks to an Achilles injury, but returned for the London side's final two Premier League matches.

And the 25-year-old centreback believes it is important for everybody at the Emirates Stadium to forget the frustrations of last term and approach the new season with a positive mindset.


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“Everybody starts from zero and everybody has to start again,” he told Arsenal's official website.

“You get a new chance and that’s always a good feeling when people give you another chance to win something. The past is behind us and it’s good to look into the future.

“That’s what we do now - we start all over again with a new chance and we will go for it this year.”

Vermaelen also spoke of his excitement at playing in the upcoming Emirates Cup, in which Arsenal will compete with New York Red Bulls, Paris Saint-Germain and Boca Juniors in their now traditional pre-season warm-up.

“These are the first games we play at the Emirates in the season so it always feels like a new start,” the former Ajax star explained. “It feels like that so I am looking forward to playing there."

After a very disappointing campaign last season, Arsenal desperately need to take full advantage of pre-season and sometimes off-the-pitch activities can help the players reach the right state of mind to achieve their goals.

And as confirmed by Emmanuel Frimpong when the squad was on tour in Asia, one of the most popular hobbies when the squad is together for friendlies or official games is gaming.

Speaking to Arsenal Player, the youngster confessed Theo Walcott and Vito Mannone are hard to beat adding that he still has a long way to go before reaching their level.

On his level, the 19-year old joked about how the other players “banned” him from playing FIFA 2011 but was happy to win a bet against friend Alex Song with the Cameroon International yet to “pay” after losing the battle between “the two worst players of the team”.

On how players relax when they are together, Frimpong said:

Quote:

[The king of FIFA?] Probably Vito [Mannone] or Theo [Walcott], probably they are the best of our group. They are usually nice to play against but yesterday they beat everyone in the game without letting the rest of the squad play. [Me?] According to the players, I’m nowhere as good as the other players. Yesterday they stopped me from playing because they thought I was rubbish, just have to keep on practicing I guess. Yeah, I got banned from playing, it’s bad but then I think Samir said that the two worst players of the team – which is me and Alex [Song] – had to play against each other. We had a little bet, we played, I won [but] Alex is yet to pay me, he hasn’t done yet, hopefully he pays!

Бывший защитник "канониров" Райан Гарри ушёл из футбола в возрасте 27 лет.

Правый защитник "Арсенала", который в 2001 выиграл с молодёжной командой "Арсенала" Кубок Англии, перешёл в "Борнмут", однако, вскоре получил травму нижней части ноги и не сумел оправиться от неё психологически.

Гарри подписал профессиональный контракт с "Арсеналом" в июле 2001 года и дебютировал за команду на "Хайбери" в матче третьего раунда Кубка Англии против "Сандерленда" в ноябре 2002 года. Тогда команда потерпела поражение со счётом 3:2.

Он забил единственный гол в Премьер-лиге "Саутгемптону" в мае 2003 года, для "Арсенала" эта игра стала отправной точкой беспроигрышной серии, которая длилась 49 игр.