Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger insists there are no hard feelings towards William Gallas despite his impending move to rivals Tottenham.

Gallas, 32, who is a free agent after leaving the Gunners at the end of last term, is set to pen a one-year contract with Harry Redknapp's team.

"The Spurs move is a surprise, but I can completely understand that," said Wenger.

"At the moment he looks for a club, he is free, he has chosen the best possible option for him.

"We are thankful for what he has done for us and we wish him good luck in his new club."

Meanwhile, Wenger has declared himself happy with his defensive options following the departures of Gallas, Mikael Silvestre, Sol Campbell and Philippe Senderos during the close-season.

French centre-back Laurent Koscielny arrived from Lorient, while Wenger is reportedly chasing Sevilla defender Sebastien Squillaci.

He added: "We bought Koscielny and we are still looking for one more body.

"Don't forget, last year we did not have Johan Djourou available for the whole of last season.

"He will be available now so if we find one more player, we will be okay and will have the same numbers as last year."

Arsene Wenger had a long press conference today and, although looking quite tired and drawn, he managed to field all the searching questions quite well. He was obviously asked about the rumours surrounding his interest in Sebastien Squillaci, and said that although Arsenal were interested, they were nowhere near securing his signature.

“There is not a lot to say but he (Squillaci) is one of the players we look at,” said Wenger. “….. With central defenders we are short number-wise so we look at him and he’s one of the defenders we look at, but we are far from being close to signing him.”

He was also asked about what he thought of William Gallas signing for Arsenal’s greatest rivals, Tottenham, and he said that it was just bad timing, as once they were in disagreement, he decided to replace him with Koscielny.

“It was more down to timing why William left,” Wenger said. “We had not found an agreement towards the end of the season and then I turned somewhere else. I focused completely on signing Koscielny and it took me a long, long time to do that.”

Wenger then went on to explain that he wasn’t worried now as he already has four centre-backs he can trust, and he included Alex Song in the list, despite the Cameroonian having played as a defensive midfielder last season.

“You have to turn somewhere else and now we trust now Koscielny, Djourou, Vermaelen and Song.

“I tried to keep him here but no, I am not disappointed. I respect that in our game we are in a professional world where he had an offer which was not good enough at the start, then I turned somewhere else. You have to accept that.”

So it looks like Wenger has decided that he is happy to use Song as cover if anything untoward happens to Koscielny or Vermaelen, but it remains to be seen if Johan Djourou can remain injury-free long enough to make an impact if he is called upon……