This morning is the first morning with a real whiff of winter off it. As someone who suffers greatly with SAD (Sun Am Deadly) this is not good news. Let's hope the football is warm and glowing enough to get me through.

Champions League tonight and we travel to Holland to play AZ Alkmaar. The team news is that Theo Walcott is out and will miss three to four weeks after suffering ligament damage against Birmingham. It's a blow to him and to us although given the headlines in most of the papers you'd think it was the end of the world for England. So what if he's going to miss an England friendly? It's the 5 or 6 Arsenal games that count. Anyway, we wish him a speedy recovery.

From Saturday Tomas Rosicky also misses out with a little bit of a knee problem but the boss reckons it'll just be a couple of days. Although with Tomas you might just keep your fingers crossed over that. There's still no Bendtner or Eduardo but Gael Clichy comes back into the squad after his knock and Carlos Vela returns having recovered from a transatlantic flight.

The squad does look a bit light up front and I suspect the manager will use Eboue in a forward position, leaving Vela and Wilshere as options from the bench. Perhaps the most positive thing about this season is that we can go into a game without Eduardo, without Bendtner, without Rosicky, and still be confident of scoring goals. We're not reliant on just a couple of players to get them, they've been spread out across the team and the boss is mindful of that, saying:

We have a good team ethic, a good working attitude together. We all play on the same wavelength, which is why everybody scores.

That said the strikers are beginning to find the net on a more regular basis now. Maybe they, more than anyone else, needed to get used to the new formation. It was certainly a big change to ask Robin van Persie to play as a centre-forward but after a slow start the manager's patience has been rewarded and he's on a bit of a streak at the moment. And when your manager is comparing you to Marco van Basten you know you're doing something right.

It'll be interesting as well to see who starts in goal. With Almunia recovered from his chest infection you would expect a player who was the unquestioned number 1 at the start of the season to go straight back into the team. Wenger has never had any problem dropping a young player for the established one no matter how well the former has been playing so the continuation of Mannone, should that be the case, would be quite telling. And that his faith is kept in a young man who, at the start of the season, realistically had no chance of first team football might suggest the goalkeeping situation at the club is one that might require some surgery in the longer term.

Ronald Koeman, AZ manager, has declared Arsenal have 'defects', which I'm sure will come as a shock to all of us who thought we were the perfectly oiled football machine that could do no wrong. As a manager he has frustrated us a couple of times. Didn't we have two painful 0-0 draws with Ajax when he was in charge there? If I remember correctly they played a 10-0-0 formation designed to prevent us from playing football. If he sees our defects as defensive then his team is going to have to attack to exploit those, which is no bad thing.

If they come out and play a bit it should suit us down to the ground. I know there's a big expectation of three points tonight, and rightly so I suppose, but we shouldn't forget our last away trip in the Champions League. A really sloppy start made the game against Standard Liege much more difficult than it should have been so fingers crossed we're switched on right from the start tonight.

Not much else happening really. There's a bit more from Arsene's pre-match press conference in which he talks about his upcoming 60th birthday and his future at Arsenal, so we'll leave it there for today.

Here's to a good performance and three points tonight. Till tomorrow.

I am sleepy this morning. And possibly a bit grumpy. I share no other traits with the rest of the seven dwarves though. No, not even dopey.

Speaking of dopey how about those Birmingham fans? During the game on Saturday they sang 'There's only one Martin Taylor', to laud the man who broke Eduardo's leg. How edgy. How hilarious. Or, to put it another way, how knuckle-draggingly retarded. Arsene Wenger was not impressed at all, saying:

Frankly, that is atrocious. They will not be remembered for the quality of their taste with that kind of remark. Eduardo was here. I don’t know how he felt about the chants. I just put that in the ranks of stupidity.

What is a surprise is that not only were they were able to stop drooling down their fronts long enough to sing that, it shows a measure of co-ordination and communication you don't generally find with single cell organisms. Some call David Attenborough. I know football fans, Arsenal fans included, sing and chant things that aren't really that funny or, indeed, push the boundaries of good taste, but Eduardo is hardly the kind of villain who merits that level of opprobrium.

He had his leg bollixed up in bits by a crude challenge which nearly cost him his career. He has never really criticised Taylor, he's certainly never criticised Birmingham City, yet these chimps sings songs about him like that? 

There are many words to describe people like that but, perhaps, the Birmingham fans (I call them 'Mingers' for short), would enjoy the fact that shortly after that fateful game at St Andrew's we played Aston Villa. Aston Villa fans sang hilarious songs about Eduardo's injury including 'One Martin Taylor', and 18 months later the Mingers follow suit.

So nicely done, Mingers, you are Villa fans. Not to mention half-witted, slack-jawed, eat every meal from the local chipper megacretins. You can hold hands with Phil Brown on the way back to the Championship.

Theo Walcott will have a scan today on his knee. I'm told he spent yesterday limping about the place so there's definitely something up but hopefully it's nothing too serious. On the tackle that caused the injury Arsene said:

I don't want to go too overboard because one of the beauties of the English game is total commitment. We have to cut out what is really dangerous but we have to keep the basics, the commitment that makes the league more attractive than any other league.

As I said yesterday I thought the challenge was hard but fair and typical of the English game. Theo didn't see it coming so had no chance to try and 'ride' it but how many times have we seen Arsenal players down the years make challenges like that? It was Keown tackle, a Steve Bould tackle, a Tony Adams tackle, and while it's unfortunate Theo is injured it would be wrong to try and cut that out of the game. It's a contact sport which has had many of the physical aspects watered down or removed altogether in recent years. It would be a shame if we lost more of that side of things. Anyway, fingers crossed for Theo, no doubt we'll get news sooner rather than later.

Elsewhere Arsene did a big interview with L'Equipe, bits of and pieces of which are emerging in English now. I've read this Sky Sports version and the translation seems a bit weird to me. Sort of like the person translating it wasn't quite fluent in French and sat there with a dictionary for some bits. That might be just me though. Arsene talks about Real Madrid's interest in the summer but said his commitment to Arsenal and his players meant he couldn't leave. He also spoke about how he felt a duty to leave a legacy, saying:

It would be unforgivable to have had the privilege of longevity and leaving no trace after me. But that means a win in the Champions League, because great wins reinforce certainties and give rightfulness to a culture.

There's the usual stuff there about killing Song and Denilson with signings (zzzz), the finances at other clubs and the 'doping' at City and Real Madrid, nothing terribly new really, but Arsene's legacy, more trophies or not, will be the way we play football and the expectation that whoever takes over maintains that.

Beyond that not much happening. There's Champions League action tomorrow so there's likely a press conference today, so hopefully we'll get news on Theo then and we can look ahead to the AZ Alcazar game tomorrow.

Till then.

This morning's blog is brought to you with a big, fat 'meh'.

Instead of looking ahead to the next Arsenal game we are stuck here twiddling our thumbs and doodling on post-its trying to wile away the time. Do any of you care that Theo Walcott has been called up the England U21 squad for a game against Macedonia on Friday? I mean, it's probably good for Theo to get some fitness and match practice and all that but in terms of interesting it's right up there with listening to a footballer speak about his car. 

Or his tattoo. If I did a football version of The Onion there'd be a fantastic 'Footballer doesn't get unsightly tattoo on arm' story to be done, wouldn't there?

If I had the resources I'd set myself up as a tattooist and hire someone to do the stuff for normal folk but when, after advertising directly at footballers, one came in that I didn't like, I'd tattoo a great big cock on his arm with a set of sweaty, hairy balls underneath.

"What the fuck is this?", they'd say.

"Come on, man", I'd reply, "that's the Chinese symbol for 'scores lots of goals'".

"Wicked!"

Who do you reckon will the be the first footballer to get a face tattoo? I know that Celtic goalkeeper has 'Je suis un twat' going up his neck, but in Polish or something, but soon enough we're going to get someone with the old spiderweb going up the neck. I would have had money on Lee Bowyer but I reckon he'd have done it by now if he was going to do it at all.

Time will tell, I suppose. Like time heals all wounds. Which is the only reason I can think of for the story about Sol Campbell coming back to the club to get fit. You might remember him from such games as walking out at half-time against West Ham and other stuff like telling Arsene Wenger he was going abroad so his contract got paid off before he signed for continental favourites Portsmouth. 

More recently of course he signed a 5 year contract with Notts County then decided he didn't like it very much so walked out on them too. He can't play for another club until January, or until he makes a deal to release him from that contract, or something, so he needs some boys to run around with keep his fitness up. He should have just stayed at Portsmouth, the twat. Or go to the park every day.

I know we got the best out of him as a player, and for three seasons he was absolutely outstanding, but unlike Arsene Wenger I hold grudges and this doesn't sit well with me. Not that what I think has any bearing on anything but there you go. I am grudgey though. I still hate that cunt I went to school with in England who stood on my neck until I said "Leeds are ace!". If I saw him tomorrow I'd smash him in the face with a cricket bat and it's why I despise everything to do with Leeds, Leeds United and it has gone so far as to hating Leads, which is unfortunate for the Arseblog basset hound. 

Want some insight into how football journalism works? There's a story on The Sun's website about Barcelona being interested in Emmanuel Eboue. Where did it come from? Well, this was a rumour back in August on some really dodgy clickwhoring site who made some changes and the story popped up again on NewsNow. The Sun went 'Oooh, fresh meat', not realising the meat was maggot infested carrion and promptly put it in their site - even neglecting to notice Barcelona have, in fact, signed Dymtro Chygryskiy for about €25m. Good work, chaps. We'll certainly have a good think about that when Murdoch decides to start charging for access to their online editions.

Not much else going on. I'm hoping to break up the Interlull with some competitions, so hopefully there'll be a few books to give away between now and the return of football. In the meantime stay strong.

We'll get through this together.

Good morning from a very rainy Dublin. It's as if the whole place has been transported overnight to somewhere like Ireland ... oh.

I hope you've got your brolly and galoshes as we step on out into the Interlull once again. You know, if I were to ever write a science-fiction novel, I would include a strange and desolate place called 'The Interlull', inhabited by dust and half-dead trees where the only living thing was an unnerving creature you couldn't see, but whose breath you could hear, that was always behind you.

Anyway, there's no need to resort to sci-fi just yet. There's a bit of football to be going on with this morning. After slamming six past Fat Sam it's nice to hear that we can do better and new boy Thomas Vermaelen, despite his goalscoring exploits, isn't blind to the defensive wobbility we tend to suffer from. He says:

The first half was a little bit disappointing for us as a defence because we gave away too many chances and they scored two goals. That is something which we must improve and there are things we can work on.

As much as defenders like to score they like clean sheets better and it's good to know that we haven't lost sight of that. On days like Sunday we can always score more than the opposition but when faced with better opposition it becomes more difficult to win games. The prime examples, of course, are from last season. We scored 4 against Sp*rs and drew at home, and 4 at Anfield yet Arshavin's heroics were not those of a match winner. 

For all the goal scoring you need to be able to grind out a 1-0s during a season. We've shown we're capable of it as the win against Fulham testifies but I don't think anybody would complain if we became more miserly at the back.

Theo Walcott, who can now spend the week at the training ground playing Yahtzee and Mousetrap, has been singing the praises of Cesc Fabregas. After his stellar performance against Blackburn, Theo says of his captain:

If he plays like he did against Blackburn, nobody will be able to stop him this season. He is fantastic to play with.

While Andrei Arshavin says:

Fabregas performed miracles.

And I'm told from an extremely good training ground source that at half-time much needed supplies had not arrived due to traffic problems so Cesc turned water into Lucozade Sport to allow our players to rehydrate properly for the second half. Ground staff also reported finding a cupboard entirely full of loaves and dishes, which indicates he hasn't quite got the hang of his powers yet, but never mind.

Theo went on to talk about the new system and how it suits him. In mentioning him and Carlos Vela the other day I mentioned how they should be able to make the most of the 4-3-3 so it's interesting to hear Theo talk about it.

I also noticed a video interview with Carlos Vela on the official site where he says he'll make his mark this season but it's one of those interviews done in Spanish then dubbed into English and for whatever reason I find it almost impossible to watch to those. I'd prefer subtitles, to be honest, or that our players speak English, so I have no clue what he's saying. 

How about a bit of transfer speculation? The Sun is linking is with injured Standard Liege midfield Steven Defour. He's got a broken foot at the moment but a fee of around £8m is being made-up reported. I don't know much about him as a player but I hope we sign him for the pun value of his name alone.

"May Defource be with you", "Steven gets Defourth as Arsenal spank United at Old Trafford", "Defourmed - horror injury rules out Gunners midfielder", and so on. 

Come on Arsene, make it happen, then surely the fates will bring about highly unlikely situations like him scoring the 4th goal at Old Trafford. It's cosmic, baby.

There was a good win for the reserves last night as they beat Chelsea 2-0 at Underhill. Banfield's Boys have made a good start to this season.

And that's about that. Have a rainy one. 

Morning all,

it's Blackburn today and if Blackburn were never my favourite team before - the fact that they're now managed by that Walrus looking cunt Allardyce has definitely secured their status as one of the top 19 Premier League teams that I hate.

We know old Walrus's teams like the physical approach and with their 8'7 centre-half promising more of the same today it could well be a bit of a battle. And with their El Hadji Diouf it will surely be a complete cuntfest. I would very much enjoy seeing him get a red card today. Or, if that wasn't possible, shot in the back with a laser cannon. I'm easy.

Although I'd like to see Tomas Rosicky play today I think the manager will take into account Blackburn's pack of cloggers and go with Diaby in midfield instead. So I think we'll line up like this:

Mannone - Sagna - Gallas - Vermaelen - Clichy - Song - Cesc - Diaby - Arshavin - RVP - Bendtner

With Eduardo out for a couple of weeks our attacking options on the bench are two young men who both need to start making a bigger impact this season. Firstly, Theo Walcott. Of him the boss says:

I believe that he is not considered anymore like a youth player. He is considered a senior player, so it is a big season for him as he wants to win. I believe it is very simple - great players make their clubs win. So of course it is important.

And it's all there in front of him. He's got the profile, the Nike ad, the reputation, but I don't think it's unfair to say we haven't seen the performances on a consistent basis. Obviously today is his first game back this season so he needs time to find his form, to find his touch, but there's no doubt this is a big season for him.

On the other hand we have Carlos Vela who, Carling Cup apart, hasn't made any kind of impact at all on the first team. There's no doubting his ability, he's got great pace, fantastic finishing, lovely skills, but he's no longer a teenager either. He's got to make a step up this season as well. 

In both their favours I think the new 4-3-3 suits them down to the ground so fingers crossed they can start realising their potential. A goal each from the bench today to make Fat Sam blow his gasket would be a nice start.

Whatever happens we've got to stand up to Blackburn's physical threat. If we do that I think we'll have too much for them when it comes to actual football.

The rest of the Sunday papers are full of transfer rubbish. There's a lot of talk about Patrick Vieira coming in January. As others have pointed out the story about him being on the brink of signing just before the transfer window closed is nonsense but The Mail links us with him and Bolton's centre-half Gary Cahill. What is interesting are the whispers already that January might be a busy month for us.

The Sunday Mirror says Stan Kroenke will continue to buy shares but will stop before reaching the 29.9% mark which would require him to make a formal takeover offer.

The News of the World has a piece on Arsene Wenger's legacy. I assume they've cogged this from elsewhere as that's what they usually do. Some interesting quotes from the boss though.

And that's about that. Here's to a performance and three points today, laser cannons, an exploding walrus and more.

Till tomorrow.

Theo's new Nike ad, watch it here on Arseblog first

You know, when the season is over it should be over, yet we have players away on international duty and some players who could possibly play right up until the end of June.

We know about Theo Walcott, whose determination to play in the U21 European Championships is outlined in today's Mail. On the one hand it'd be better if he got a summer of rest and arrived at pre-season fresh as a daisy, but on the other he had four months off, so to speak, during the winter. He's also a very young player who should have energy to burn. Tony Adams is worried about burn-out but given Tony's recent proclamations I'm inclined to think that the opposite of whatever he says is probably true.

As well as Theo though Cesc Fabregas is away with Spain who are going to be taking part in the risible, pointless Confederations Cup in South Africa this summer. I've spoken before about this ridiculous tournament. FIFA complain about players not being given enough rest by their clubs yet they schedule this needless, money-spinner in the very summer when players could get a good holiday. 

If Spain go all the way Cesc could be playing/training right up until June 28th and with our pre-season starting on July 6th it's hardly ideal. I suppose the fact that Cesc also spent a lot of time out injured this winter means he may not suffer as much as if he'd slogged his way through the whole campaign but with the Confederations Cup in particular it's hard to see the benefit to anyone bar FIFA's bank accounts.

Arsene Wenger will be looking at Theo and Cesc playing through the summer, then having to take a holiday, come back for pre-season, play a full season with Arsenal, then both players will head for next summer's World Cup and he'll be concerned that come next summer's pre-season he's got players whose batteries need a good recharge. Anyway, it's a problem for the future, but a problem nonetheless.

Cesc played for Spain last night against Azerbaijan and picked up what looked to be a serious head injury but he got a couple of stitches and he's all right.

Meanwhile Robin van Persie has been talking about potential new signing Thomas Vermaelen. He says:

It's a good thing. There's nothing wrong with the qualities of Vermaelen. He can play as left-back and central defender and we need this type of player.

The guys that we now have on those positions are already somewhat older. Our head scout doesn't do such a thing out of the blue. He needs to see a player 30 to 40 times before a decision is made.

Interestingly the Mirror reports this morning that the arrival of Vermaelen could hasten the departure of William Gallas with Italian clubs said to be interested. There are also a lot of whispers about us bidding, still, for Fulham's Brede Hangeland as well.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Gallas leave, with everything that went on last season I think it was fairly common knowledge that he'd seek an exit this summer. What makes me wonder is Kolo Toure as well. It seems City are after him and maybe I'm putting two and two together and getting five but the insistence of Yaya Toure's agent that he wouldn't go to Arsenal was interesting.

It seems he's not getting the love, or the big bucks, from Barcelona despite being a vital part of their team for the last two seasons. They've got their beady little eyes set on Mascherano meaning Toure Jr could well be leaving Catalunya. With our need for a player of his type, our ability to pay very decent wages and his brother at the club you'd think Arsenal would be an option ... unless his brother was on the way out.

Perhaps I'm just reading stuff into the situation that isn't there but maybe we're about to see a complete changing of the guard at the back this summer.

Also former Sp*rs boss Martin Jol is said to be 'livid' that Ajax have agreed to sell their captain to us. Here's my thinking on that: Jol is a potato headed cuntbutler who can go and shove it (it being anything large and/or pointy) up his hole. "Play on", Martin? Cock off, more like.

There's other stuff this morning about Andrei Arshavin wanting a pay rise because of the new tax rates in the UK but this means trying to figure out what goes on in the rather baffling mind of Dennis Lachter. The Owl's agent can contradict himself in the same sentence. One moment he says there's no story, the next he's saying the exact opposite, so rather than make my brain hurt more than it already does I choose not to analyse this story at all.

Not much else going on. Reminder about the London Masters competition, see Monday's blog for details on that.

Catch you later.

You know that thing you get when your alarm goes off and you think 'It's Saturday, I can have a lie in!' but seconds later you realise it's not Saturday but Thursday and you have to be up earlier than normal because your car which went to the garage and was supposed to be ready yesterday but isn't because they found stuff wrong with it which is going to take ages to fix and is probably going to cost a fortune which means having to leave the house much earlier than you normally would because you have to walk to get somewhere and you have two very painful ankles from football so you'd rather not walk at all but walking is far preferable to getting the bus because the bus is full of smelly people who cough all the time and spread germs?

Yeah, well I got that this morning.

Arsene Wenger won't be happy this morning either as Theo Walcott has been called up to the England U21 squad for the European Championships this summer. He's not the only Arsenal man either, Kieran Gibbs has played his way into the squad too so congratulations to him.

There are two schools of though here. One is that Theo will be tired without a summer of rest. The competition ends on June 29th and we have pre-season training on the 6th of July. 

The other is that Theo's had four months off through injury, he's only 20 years of age so he's got all the energy in the world, and that Stuart Pearce is actually a bit crap and England will probably go out in the group stages having lost to Austria, Bratislava and the tiny principality of Perineumia. There's not much we can do about it anyway so there's no point stressing about it.

Some good news though, the squad is getting a good bolstering already. Many of us thought it'd take a few weeks at least before we saw some transfer action but not so. Two players are on their way into the club. 15 year old Cheltenham midfielder Jamie Edge and 15 year old FC Zurich centre-half Martin Angha (nickname, Lookbackin), will join the club and immediately add some experience and quality to the first team squad.

To be honest I don't think we need to sign anyone else after this. I mean, if we did it would just kill them and one thing Arsene Wenger is known for is his Angha management.

From an Arsenal point of view that's about all there is this morning. Last night's Champions League final was quite enjoyable though. After a 10 minute spell at the start in which United threatened Barcelona, Demento's men got sucker punched with Eto'o's's's goal and after that they were never in the game. Barcelona dicked all over them, Iniesta was incredibly good and Messi's header to seal the game was fantastic.

Despite everything I was happy for Thierry but especially happy for Silvinho who was very emotional at the end. I love that little raised-by-wolves guy. What made it even better was that Alexander Hleb didn't even make the bench. Hahahaha. Not that I'm bitter or anything but that made me smile and I suspect there was a certain dreamy Arsenal legend watching the game in the Valencia region who enjoyed that as well.

Of course he cavorted around the pitch with a medal and what have you but he didn't play. He wasn't inured, he just wasn't picked. 'Discarded' as the Spanish press so eloquently put it. Tee and indeed hee.

Right, that'll have to do you for today. Thanks for all your phone messages in relation to the Arsecast so far. I'll leave lines open until noon so if you have any thoughts on the season and feel like sharing see yesterday's blog for more info.

Update: Lines closed now, thanks. Yes, it's too late.

Till tomorrow.

Last week Theo Walcott was appearing at the Nike North London 5s (which were almost as skillful as the Arseblog 5s, I'm told), and Arseblog managed to get a few minutes with the man himself.

The questions posed to him were provided by helpful Arsebloggers, some much less helpful than others, I should point out. I do particularly like his answer to the 'Do the players read any websites or blogs, like Arseblog?'. Funny.

Anyway, thanks to Nike and especially to Theo for giving us his time. Take it away.

Comments on this post should be about the interview only. Normal Arsing takes place on today's earlier post. 

Good morning. At this stage the team are in Rome. Or on their way to Rome. Or hanging around Luton airport trying to find out what EasyJet did to their bags.

Either way they'll be there in time for the game tomorrow. We're still awaiting the full squad announcement, the only real doubt is over Kolo Toure who is expected to recover from a calf strain. Eduardo and Theo Walcott should both be in the squad, adding quality and depth to the bench.

And the latter is looking forward to a good physical game. His shoulder is obviously going to be a worry until he finds himself on the end of a robust challenge, but Theo's not worried, saying:

It feels fine now. I still haven't experienced getting clattered yet so that's the next test. Our new doctor, Gary O’Driscoll, comes from a rugby background. He has regularly dealt with dislocated shoulders and says players tend to come back without suffering any reaction.

Gary O'Driscoll is the cousin of Ireland rugby captain Brian O'Driscoll, a man who has had more injuries than Rosicky, van Persie and Darren Anderton put together, so hopefully he'll have had plenty of practice and can see Theo right.

It'll take a little time for him to find his match sharpness but in the final stages of tomorrow's game it'd be great to throw him on. His pace would trouble defenders under normal circumstances, trying to keep up with him with tired legs will be even more difficult.

From a Roma point of view they'll have Totti fit but will be without Daniele di Rossi (suspension), Cicinho (injury), Perrotta (injury) and Panucci (being a crotchety old twat and falling out with the coach).

More on the squad and the game itself tomorrow. The club have been advising fans on how to avoid trouble in Rome. We've seen some nasty scenes in recent years when Manchester United have played there so fingers crossed there's nothing like that and everyone stays safe and sound.

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Adebayor, who misses the game with a hamstring strain, reveals there was indeed interest in him in the summer, but says he chose to stay at Arsenal:

Arsenal are a club that I want to repay with important victories for having allowed me to become one of the great players in world football.

I find myself well here, even if, as I say in life, you can never know what will happen in the future.

Erm, 'one of the great players in world football'? I'm really not sure about that. It will be interesting to see what happens when he comes back from injury and gets a chance in the team. Carlos Vela is showing he's got the stuff, Eduardo is back and scoring as if he'd never been away, Nicklas Bendtner, for all his troubles, now only has one goal less this season than Adebayor, and Robin van Persie has established himself as the main man this season.

I wonder in the face of this competition will we see the old Adebayor back. The one who ran, chased, harried, worked hard and did 90 minutes of graft. If we do then it'll be good for the team. However, I'm sure I won't be alone in wondering where that Adebayor was earlier in the season when his place was assured.

It's something I've always maintained - that competition for places is absolutely crucial. If a guy knows a bad performance means he's going to be dropped and a ready and willing replacement is standing by then he's going to put in the effort. Some players aren't motivated enough, aren't professional enough, to put in that kind of work when there's no pressure.

I'm not saying it's deliberate, I think it's just a fact of life. You have some players who want to win every game, who can maintain a high standard week in-week out. Then there are those that need to know they've got someone else itching to take their place to do it consistently. It's human nature and I think Adebayor falls into the latter category.

He needs to work on becoming one of the great players in this Arsenal squad first. The world can wait.

Right so, not much else to tell you this morning. More build-up and such tomorrow.