Arsenal appear to have chosen a European-style rugby ball-shaped stadium to replace their current Highbury home. Highbury & Islington Express report that designs for the new venue have been described as "breathtaking" by the chosen few who have seen them.

To minimise the impact on residents in Drayton Park and Bryantwood Road, the huge stadium will be on the north of the Ashburton Grove site. There may be a hundred metres between the stadium and the nearest house.

Initial plans for the new elliptical shaped bowl reveal a two-tiered stadium split with a row of executive boxes, a huge dipping roof encircling the stadium as well as bridges or tunnels leading from Arsenal Tube station and nearby Aubert Park.

The architects, H&K Lobb, who designed the Stadium Australia Olympic venue in Sydney and the McAlpine Stadium in Huddersfield, stressed that the plans are at "a conceptual stage".