Most of the squad will return from their summer breaks this week to commence pre-season training and it is not long now before we get our first taste of action with what is becoming a traditional stretch of the legs at Barnet on 18th July. After a very quiet close-season so far, it will be good to have some real football to watch and talk about, even if most of the team that day will be made up of second-string players and youngsters.

Following the purchase of Thomas Vermaelen from Ajax a few weeks ago, there has been no further transfer activity aside from some of the younger players either signing improved deals or being released. The tiresome annual circus of transfer speculation, gossip and rumour has been pleasingly muted this summer. A few new names have been linked with the club, but nothing concrete has emerged so there is very little point in indulging in any further dissection of that. Ultimately, potential new players only become interesting once they have signed on the dotted line and Arsene Wenger is not a man who tends to loudly advertise his targets ahead of time. All we can do is sit and wait patiently to see who, if anyone, might arrive between now and deadline day.

The other side of the coin with regard to summer transfer conjecture is the question of who may be leaving. Again, there have been a few rumours but nothing really to get excited (or upset) about. The two names that appear to be at the top of the list of potential leavers are Emmanuels Eboue and Adebayor. Today it was reported that Fiorentina might be willing to accept Eboue as a make-weight in a deal to bring Brazilian Melo to North London. Whilst in the case of Adebayor, the manager has stated that he not leaving - though one suspects that this is merely lip-service to prevent his current valuation collapsing, particularly when it is unlikely that the club will get as much as they might have done had they shipped him out last summer.

That this pair would seem to be the most likely to leave were there to be any departures will not come as a surprise to most fans. Neither covered themselves with glory last season. But there may be another reason why Arsene Wenger might be keen to unload them this summer - and also why rumours of Kolo Toure possibly being on his way out of the club keep cropping up.

January 2010 sees the next staging of the bi-annual African Cup of Nations. Why this tournament is scheduled in the middle of the European season and why it is played every two years instead of every four like the other major international competitions seems to be mainly because, historically, that is how it has always been done. In the past, it may not have mattered so much to European teams but now, with so many Africans playing at the highest levels both in England and on the continent, the prospect of losing key players for up to a month is one that top-flight managers now have to build into the plans and calculations.

What this means is that a tournament that was originally created to promote and develop African football could turn out to be counter-productive in that effort as the major teams across Europe opt out of signing players who they will lose for a month in the middle of season every two years or, alternatively, the African players refuse to play for their countries, which will deprive a major football tournament of some of its stars.

It is a problem that has already been noted by FIFA and in January 2008 Sepp Blatter called for the African Cup of Nations to be scheduled in June or July by the year 2016. This move would mean that many central and western African countries would be unable to stage the tournament due to those months coinciding with their rainy seasons. It would also require that the bi-annual format of the tournament be changed in order for it not to clash with the World Cup. There doesn’t seem to be an easy or perfect solution to any of it - and 2016 does seem a very long way off. In the meantime, African football and the players it exports could find themselves stifled while matters are resolved.

From an Arsenal point of view, the club currently has four African players in its first team squad - Adebayor, Eboue, Toure and Song. Though next year’s tournament runs from 10th-31st January the players will be missing for a couple of weeks before the start date in order to prepare with their international squads. Clearly, not all of them will be there until the final but regardless of when their teams are eliminated and there is the question of how much time they will need to recover afterwards from both the differing climate and the travelling - not to mention the spectre of injuries that may be sustained whilst they are away.

Certainly, the African Cup of Nations comes at a crucial time of the season for Arsenal. The weekend the final is due to be played in Angola, the Gunners are scheduled to be hosting Manchester United at Ashburton Grove. They then play Chelsea away and Liverpool at home on the 6th and 9th February respectively. Assuming that the squad manage to keep themselves in contention for the title during months preceding the New Year, this ten-day period would seem to have the potential to make or break any title dreams that Arsenal might have. It is certainly not a time to have any of the squad away, injured or suspended.

Of their "top four" rivals, Chelsea seemingly are the club who will be hit hardest by African Nations absentees with Essien, Drogba, Kalou and Mikel all due to be away. Though this quartet might seem like a greater loss to the Blues than Adebayor and Co. would be to Arsenal, Chelsea do have far greater strength in depth to cope with losing four players than Arsenal do.

The upcoming season could be a pivotal one for Arsene Wenger. Most supporters have kept patience with his long-term approach to building a team but in return some signs of real progress need to be achieved for everyone to retain their faith that the club is heading in the right direction. Wenger knows that he has not got a lot of room to manoeuvre and, even if the team do end up trophy-less again next term, at the very least, a creditable challenge for honours has to be mounted, particularly with regard to the Premier League. Over these summer months, the manager will be plotting out his plans for the next year and one wonders how much the African Cup of Nations will affect his thinking – not only about who might be leaving, but also regarding who he might be looking to bring in.