Although he has the reputation of defending his team & players until the end, Arsene Wenger seems to have turned the page on Ashley Cole. After a week of constant allegations - the player is very close to signing a deal with London's rivals, Chelsea - Wenger admitted, for the first time since it all began, that his defender may leave the club in the next few days. And, unlike Henry, Fabregas or any other starting line-up player, he is not that upset with the move.

The two "gunners" have had a lot of arguments during the last season. And it all began when Ashley Cole decided to bargain his way out of Arsenal with Jose Mourinho. The Portuguese offered him a great deal with the "blues", even if he was supposed to talk to Arsenal's officials first. The Champions League finalists found out about the whole thing and asked the Premiership officials to punish Mourinho.

While the Portuguese coach received a pretty "impressive" fine and a few Premiership rounds of suspension, Cole was fined with about 120.000 euros. From that point on, the two - him and Wenger - have barely been speaking to one another. More, when sending his wedding invitations to all his Arsenal colleagues, Wenger's must have gotten lost in the mail, since the Frenchman was not even invited. Chelsea took advantage of that and made an offer for the English defender, which Arsenal seems very eager to accept.

"If you want me to guarantee he will be here next season I cannot do it. He has only two years left on his contract. We have not made any movement there and when you have a player in that situation you cannot say much. There is nothing going on with Ashley at the moment. There is no offer and we are not talking to anybody about him", said Wenger, trying to dismiss allegations about a future transfer to Chelsea.

Still, the English media is well ahead of the Arsenal - Chelsea deal and already named his price. According to the English tabloids, Abramovich is ready to offer Arsenal about 25 million euros for the English defender. Actually, that is the main reason Chelsea quit on pursuing Gianluca Zambrotta of Juventus for a move to Stanford Bridge. The Italian then transferred to Barcelona.