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Morning all, and welcome to the fourth attempt to make the news and links roundup a thing again. We'll see how it goes, but I reckon that a bi-weekly post might be a useful thing to have. Leave suggestions and feedback in the comments, if you have any. And now to the news:
Arsenal's non-European Championship involved players returned to preseason training on Monday, and Arsenal.com, and Getty Images, have some pictures. From the pictures, Gervinho looks at breaking point, Andre Santos looks chill with everyone, and Johan Djourou and Arsene Wenger are creating a caption contest moment. Excitingly, youngsters Thomas Eisfeld, Serge Gnabry and Jon Toral Harper were included in first team training, as well as some guy with a mohawk who looks suspiciously like Neymar. Which, I assume, gives me enough credibility to write an article for the Daily Mail claiming Neymar is on his way to Arsenal. There's some guy called "Abou Diaby" there, presumably on trial.
In other trial news, Arsenal have taken 17 year old M'Baye Niang on trial for a week. Jamie Sanderson wrote all about Niang in November, and it looks as if he could be an Arsenal player.
I don't really want to talk about Robin van Persie, but we're going to have to. Sky Sports News understands that van Persie could make a u-turn on The Statement. I understand that Sky Sports News is probably full of it. Yeah, I'm cynical.
In more good French news, Arsenal are looking to extend Laurent Koscielny's contract until 2017. Given the contract shenanigans we've had recently with Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott and Samir Nasri, it's good to see Arsenal trying to be proactive on this front; and it's not hard to say that Koscielny would deserve said new contract, as he's definitely become Arsenal's first choice centre back, and one of the best in the Premier League.
Finally, Poznan In My Pants responds to Amy Lawrence's piece about Arsenal being dysfunctional. It's a good response. Read it. I'm not linking to Amy Lawrences's piece, though. Between that and the Paul Wilson article, the Guardian are fast becoming the new media trolls, if they weren't already.