Arsenal.com has confirmed the official list of squad numbers, and realistically there's no alarms and no surprises.

New French signing Pascal Cygan inherits Gilles Grimandi's number 18, with Gilberto Silva in the 19 shirt liberated by Inamoto's departure, and Fabian Carini replacing Richard Wright at 24. Youngster Moritz Volz gets a 'senior' number, a new entry at 29; Jeremie Aliadiere is up one place to 30.

But surely most worthy of note is the gaping hole between Keown (5) and Pires (7). Yes folks, there's no number 6 on the list, which means no Tony Adams. Does that constitute a formal notice of his retirement? Maybe that's reading too much into it, but it's the closest Arsenal.com has come to confirming his exit.

And of course, there's no number 2 either, with Lee Dixon's retirement. Full marks to the club for leaving the numbers empty for one season at least. Arseweb isn't sure about retiring shirt numbers, it all seems too American. But we're certainly not ready to see anyone else wear those particular numbers just yet.