It is worth noting that Ashburton Grove has been surrounded with trouble ever since the project was first conceived, but Ken Friar and the other Arsenal committee members worked hard to bring the project to fruit and will not give it up without a fight.

A lot of money has already been poured into the project, regardless of where it stands now, and Arsenal will be damned if it lets all that money go to waste. If I'm not mistaken, £10m alone was spent convincing the City Council that Ashburton Grove would be good for London.

And it is also worth noting that this story has only cropped up on the eve of Arsenal's big match tonight. I won't be surprised if this is some ploy by a cynical media to destabilise the Arsenal squad ahead of the game, just like there were rumours of a big Beckham tranfer to Real Madrid last week.

Let's all focus on tonight, and get behind the team.

Rupe adds...
The main source of the rumours appears to be some workers on the site, who have allegedly been laid off and been told that the the project has been delayed 6-9 months. It seems that many people are jumping to the conclusion that this validates the scare-mongering of recent months, ignoring the "delay" part of the gossip in favour of a more newsworthy "scrap" interpretation. Few projects of this size and complexity get through to the end without any delays.

We're not being blindly optimistic. It is impossible as an Arsenal fan not to be unnerved by these rumours. But as Ashburrn says, lets not allow ourselves to get carried away or distracted from the real drama of the day. If internet rumours were always right, we'd be lining up against Patrick Vieira this evening!

Ashburrn adds...
Arsenal.com have released an official statement. The project has indeed been delayed, but the Club is still totally committed to a move to Ashburton Grove.

It is now unlikely that the new stadium will be ready by 2005/06.