So the club yesterday confirmed Robin van Persie's injury and the prognosis that he'd be out for around 6 weeks. Now that it's official we can all run around and panic, throwing our hands up in the air like sometimes we feel like doing. I know, I know.

What did emerge yesterday is that Robin is set to try a revolutionary new treatment, apparently with the blessing of the club, whereby he'll travel to Serbia to have his ankle massaged with placenta fluid. Seriously. He says:

I am going to receive treatment from a female doctor. She is vague about her methods but I know she first massages you for a long time with placenta fluid. I'm going to give it a try.

It can't do any harm and if it helps it helps. I have been in contact with Arsenal's chief physio about it. The club has allowed me to have this treatment done.

It does seem odd but like he says if it helps, it helps. I mean, if there was the possibility that smearing his foot with late term abortions while quaffing great big goblets of stem cells would help I'd be all for that too. Anyway, 6 weeks from today would see him return at the end of the December. Then we have to take into account is it 6 weeks before he can return to training or 6 weeks before he plays again? I suspect it'll be the new year before we see him.

The question now is what do we do without him. The obvious choice is Eduardo. Actually, at the moment he's pretty much the only choice. Bendtner has just had his goolies operated on, Theo Walcott is still out with whatever it is that's wrong with him this time and Carlos Vela ... well ... I'm not sure Carlos Vela is even with us. I suspect he may have been kidnapped by nasty banditos but with the club using all the money we have to prettify the stadium we haven't been able to pay the ransom.

After that it's youngsters like Watt and Sunu so Eduardo it is. Whether he can stay the pace and play the amount of games we're going to need him to play remains to be seen, but he's confident he can get his shooting boots back on and not his missing boots after the chances he spurned against Sp*rs. He says:

Against Tottenham I missed one big chance in particular, when I was one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Maybe I had too much time to think about what I had to do. Sometimes it is better when you have less time to think and can act instinctively. But I will not worry about that chance, I feel strong in my head and my body. It is good that I was in the position to have the chance because if you keep doing that, then the goals will come.

He got a couple at the weekend in a Croatian friendly against Lichtenstein, a notoriously difficult team to score against, and there's now an onus on him to perform for us. He's had the luxury, so to speak, of not being essential to the team, to come on from the bench without a great deal of pressure, but now we need him so fingers crossed he can do the business. Without Bendtner and van Persie (who is 6'1) we are bit on the teenchy side up front though. Eduardo, Arshavin and let's say one of Rosicky/Nasri aren't going to knock centre-halves on their arses, are they? I'm sure we're practising lots of running through people's legs in training.

Carles Puyol is the latest to do Barcelona's dirty work in tapping up Cesc, saying not only does he hope he joins but that Barcelona don't pay very much to sign him. Does he think there's a January sale or something? I know they've bought a few players off us in the past but Arsenal is not like some kind of coffee shop. You don't get one free on your fucking loyalty card. Twats.

Arsene Wenger says Patrick Vieira needs to leave Inter Milan to get into the French squad but pretty much ruled out him moving back to Arsenal. He said:

If I had to bet, I would put my money on another country. It's complicated for him to come back to this country.

I wouldn't bet against Arsene Wenger, no sir. And while we definitely need somebody to step in and do the job Alex Song has been doing when he goes away to the ACN you do have to wonder whether Paddy would have the legs for the Premier League anymore.

Beyond that not much else happening. Tomorrow sees the final round of WC qualifiers plus another group of meaningless friendlies. Get your lucky socks on and hope for the best. There'll also be an arty kind of competition tomorrow too, more details then.

Have a good one.

Happy Monday to you from a very wild and rainy Dublin.

Still lots of misinformation abounding regarding Robin van Persie's injury. This morning's Sun says he could miss the 'entire season' and says Arsene is 'gutted' but the news from the player himself isn't so bad. The Dutch FA have confirmed that there's a 'partial rupture' of his ankle ligaments but there's no requirement for surgery, which is a good thing.

As for how long he's going to be out, Robin says:

The prognosis is that I will be out for four to six weeks.

Which is good news, I suppose, but I think I'd like to hear what our medical staff have to say before I get too enthused. Anyone who has done their ankle playing football knows that it can be a difficult injury to heal properly. If we take 6 weeks as the period out then we may have him back for the Christmas rush. In the meantime we'll have to cope and thankfully the fixtures aren't anywhere as testing as they might be.

Chelsea at the end of this month and then Liverpool in mid-December are the two biggest games. The rest are fixtures that you feel we should be able to cope with his absence. And let's remember that one of the real positives about this team this season is that we're not reliant on one man for goals. They've come from all over the pitch, I think we have something like 16 different goalscorers already, so while it's a bit of a setback and obviously his contribution in recent weeks has been outstanding, it's not the hammer blow some would make it out to be. I expect some kind of official update from the club today, let's see.

What is amusing, relatively speaking, is the invention of the press. As soon as van Persie got injured we started seeing stories regarding Marouane Chamakh arriving in January. Honestly, this is some of the laziest shit I've ever seen. Are we really supposed to believe that they have a direct line to Arsene's head? Because as sure as eggs are eggs the boss hasn't spoken to anyone about bringing in Chamakh. That information, which doesn't exist in the first place, hasn't leaked anywhere. They could replace the word 'Chamakh' with 9-ton hippo/giraffe hybrid, the Gippo, and it would be as accurate as the shite they're peddling. Idiots.

Although the idea of Cesc providing killer passes for a Gippo, who would undoubtedly be very good in the air, is quite appealing. 

In other news Kieran Gibbs has been talking about making sure he takes his chances this season. With Gael Clichy out injured for a while he's got a real opportunity and while he's not thinking about the World Cup former Gunner Ray Parlour reckons he's got a real chance of making England's squad. Maybe it's just me but I think the longer he stays out of the England set-up the better. Think about it, do we really want him hanging around 'JT' (barf) and 'Lamps', Wonky-mouth and 'Cuntley', sorry, I mean Cuntley? 

What will he learn from them apart from how to park in handicapped spaces, how to enjoy a shoplifted dinner after a few lines of gack, wideboy nightclub bollocks such as pissing into people's pints, road swerving and general cuntsrousness? For his own sake I think he should declare for a nation which has no footballing ability whatsoever. Like Ireland. Kieran is kind of an Irish name. At least if Ireland's senior players tried to influence him he could just say 'Look Robbie, you fucking mallet-headed, Desperate Dan looking twat, there's more to football than sitting on your arse bleating at the ref to give you a free kick when you haven't even been fouled, just tackled, you pox-bottle piece of useless shite'.

I suppose if he plays well for Arsenal we'll just have to cope with the consequences of him being called up to play international games, and you can't blame Capello for looking at him when his other left back option is Wayne Bridge, who is to defending what Karen Carpenter was to overeating. 

The praise for Aaron Ramsey after his display at the weekend continues with one of his Welsh teammates comparing him to Cesc, which is good stuff indeed. One Cesc is a thing of wonder, two of them would be almost like cheating. Let's hope his progression continues at this kind of pace. 

And that'll have to do. Just a few days of the Interlull to go, then we can back to real football. Hopefully some competitions to come this week to pass the time, so keep your eyes peeled. 

More tomorrow.

Well, it had to happen, didn't it? The Interlull had been so dull and tedious the only thing that could spark a bit of life into it was an injury to one of our players. It certainly wasn't going to be the football as anyone who sat through the Sunday park football shitstravaganza that was Ireland v France last night will tell you.

Anyway, as that game was plodding on reports began to emerge of an injury to Robin van Persie not long into Holland's game against Italy. Within a couple of hours there were all kinds of rumours. He'd broken his ankle, he'd ruptured his ankle ligaments and he'd be out from 2-3 months to the rest of the season. Or forever. As his leg had fallen off. The Dutch coach said:

The first diagnosis is that Robin has a bad ankle injury. The seriousness of it we won’t know until we have the full X-rays in hospital.

Basically though we don't know anything yet. The video footage of the injury is here. While some might choose to blame Chiellini, I don't think that's fair. The defender made a tackle, as he was perfectly entitled to do, van Persie just got unlucky. Making him some kind of pantomime villain is pointless. What is clear though is that van Persie was in a lot of pain and it does look like the kind of injury that might keep him out for a while.

However, until there's some official confirmation from the club about the extent of the problem I'm not going to get involved in speculation and rumour. Let's step back from the cliff face and see what happens. And look, an injury to an important player was inevitable. It happens to every team and if you had to put any money on it happening to one of our players you'd get short odds on it being Robin.

It's a big shame because he's playing so well at the moment and with Bendtner out of action as well the most obvious replacement is there right now. Nonetheless we're going to just have to grit our teeth and get on with it. We won't win any games by feeling sorry for ourselves - and while it's doubly frustrating that this injury happened in a meaningless international game, and I'm sure Arsene will have something to say about that, we've got a big enough squad and it's time for them to step up and show they're up to the task. Over to you Eduardo and, if he still exists, Carlos Vela. Theo's not far away either.

Some of the newspaper hype is quite ridiculous though. If you believed some of them Arsenal now have no chance of winning anything this season because of van Persie's injury. As if all our hopes rested on one man. Yes, it's a blow, and yes we've spoken about how important it is that our big players stay fit, but should we throw in the towel because of one injury? My bollocks. As I said, they happen to us, to every team, and the show must go on. Fingers crossed it's not as a bad as we fear it is but until we get official confirmation let's not lose the run of ourselves.

Thankfully there are no reports of any injuries to anyone else and there was much talk yesterday of Aaron Ramsey's performance for Wales against Scotland. I didn't see any of it, nor can I find any footage, but the young man was outstanding by all accounts, which is, at the end of the day, good news for us.

Update: Video thanks 101greatgoals.

Rounding up the rest of the Sunday's guff, Patrick Vieira talks about Abou Diaby in the Sunday Mirror, the News of the World links us with a Brazilian called Maicosuel and links our Crozilian with a £10m move to Liverpool (you don't need me to tell you both these stories are most likely complete fiction, do you?) while Thomas Vermaelen tells The Mirror he can do better - maybe we can play him up front in van Persie's absence. 

Tribal Football carries quotes from Philippe Senderos, probably from the Swiss press, who says he might leave the club when the transfer window opens. You couldn't blame him, in fairness, his move to Everton was scuppered by Djourou's injury but playing back-up all season is no fun for any player. Still, if he is to leave then a replacement would have to be found.

Beyond that not a lot going on. Time for bacon and eggs, the Sunday papers and some serious hoping re: RVP.

Laters.

Sometimes I have Arsenal related dreams. Last night Ray Parlour was working in my local area as a mobile fish and chip shop man. He had a kind of caravan thing which he motored with a tricycle contraption of some sort, and this contraption also heated up the oil for him to fry the fish and the chips. But if he didn't get the oil to the right temperature then the fish came back to life and they had baseball bats which somehow they were able to hold despite only having flippers.

Ray seemed quite happy with his lot but it was a strange world, as if everybody had lost all their money and nobody could afford to buy his wares. The last I saw of him was when he turned a corner, rubbish strewn about the streets, and he was whistling a tune I can't quite remember.

Odd, I know, but a timely dream as there really is fuck all going this morning. The Interlull has choked the life out of everything and here we are, bereft, football-less, bored and doleful, like a basset hound that has just been told there will be no more cheese ... ever. If you thought they looked sad before ...

There's a little bit about Robin van Persie saying he's not a killer striker like Drogba or Torres, but more of a half-killer, half-not killer thing. He says he's as proud of his assists as he is his goals, which is fair enough I suppose. I just don't get the whole 'Drogba as a killer' thing. Imagine if he was some kind of stealthy assassin. I suppose he'd be quite good as long as he could do it from a distance, what with him being a sly, sneaky cunt, and that. But not every job goes perfectly, believe me, and if he had to engage in hand to hand combat with one of his potential victims then things would be very different. The moment his opponent even looked at him funny Drogba would lying on the ground twitching like Harry Redknapp after touching a live wire. At that point then he would be like an upside down turtle, completely vulnerable to attack, and his career as an assassin would come to a bloody and evisceratingly painful end. 

We're also being linked to Yaya Toure again. I really think there ought to be some regulation here. It's so indiscriminate. I might just lobby UEFA to prevent this happening year round, confining it to a specific time-frame. A story might appear in the paper and we might say 'Yup, it's Yaya Toure season again. Man, only seems like a few weeks since the last one', in a kind of 'Shit, it's nearly Christmas again?' way.

Toure Jr is unhappy at Barcelona this season as they gave him a big new contract in the summer and then treated him a bit like Hleb. Not that I care but his agent is going on and on about it and the minute he starts the stories appear about him joining Arsenal. In the past that seemed like a reasonable assumption to make, what with his big brother playing for us, but now that his big brother is in the Middle Eastlands can all tabloid journos please refrain from saying he's coming to us and choose Man City instead? It'd make everyone's life much easier when he signs for someone else altogether.

Transfer speculation? The Sun links us with teenage Barcelona winger .... zzzz ... Gai Assulin. I'm sure if he did sign the Gai Ass shirts would be flying out of the Armoury. And speaking of Barcelona Xavi's been at the whole 'Cesc has Barcelona DNA' stuff again. I'm beginning to wonder if he's not a robot stuck on repeat. Maybe somebody should hit him in the head really hard to see.

Jack Wilshere is looking for a return to action in the Carling Cup game against Man City and he's confident Arsenal can go all the way to Wembley. There'll be plenty to say about that game in the weeks to come. No doubt Pubic Enemy No 1 will play and I want to save my bacon a bit in that regard.

Apart from that there's little else to discuss. You have until tonight to enter the competition to win the Savile Rogue scarf with thanks to Savile Rogue, the makers of Savile Rogue scarves. See yesterday's blog for the competition question. In the mailing list yesterday they got a typo which referred to my 'next dour neighbour', which is a bit unfair on him. He's not the most exciting man in the world but he made a joke about a frying pan when I bumped into him in Aldi one day.

He's not the most exciting neighbour I ever had though. That was a bloke from Zaragoza called Geronimo. Seriously. He lived a couple of doors up from us in Spain. Honestly, that poor bloke's life was like a soap opera. And he was only 5'2 and his name was Geronimo. 'Geronimooooooooo', I used to call and he would say 'Hola!'. He didn't get it. I still did it though. I'm nothing if not predictable.

Till tomorrow, curtain twitchers.

The football just keeps coming with Champions League action tomorrow night. There'll be a press conference and team news today so we can preview the game properly tomorrow.

A win would assure qualification for the knock-out stage of the competition so there'll be no rest for the main men. Robin van Persie will lead the line again and after two goals against Sp*rs the manager seems to think 25 goals for the season is an achievable target for him. He says:

I don’t want to set targets but why not? If you look at the chances he has had since the start of the season you cannot say he won’t reach 25 goals.

Robin has taken much more responsibility because he is up front. He has committed himself to the club for a long period and he is at an age, 26, where a footballer becomes really efficient, mature and wants to win things.

It's not hard to see the connection between his improvement in terms of scoring goals and the fact that he's, you know, not crippled on a near constant basis. I always felt he was a bit unlucky with his injuries. He wasn't a Michael Owen, for example, whose hamstrings were made of frayed rubber bands. He seemed to pick up a lot of reasonably serious injuries through impact. There was the knee when he played for Holland and he landed funny, the metatarsal after scoring against United, and on top of that a lack of patience which saw him come back a couple of times too early and suffer setbacks as a consequence.

He was fit for the majority of last season and he had his best ever return. If he stays fit again for the bulk of this term then there's no reason why he can't do better. It's clear now he's getting used to the new role he's been asked to play, he says himself he's found a balance which allows him to be more efficient, and while Match of the Day spend their time asking which of Torres, Rooney or Drogba is the best striker in the Premier League, I'm quite content to watch Robin bang the goals in without the hype. He's got to ensure that the efficiency he's found lasts the duration of the season but to me there's no doubt he's got the potential to become the kind of goalscorer a top club needs.

Meanwhile Andrei Arshavin says that the win over Sp*rs shows Arsenal have put the blip of West Ham behind them. He says:

What I liked in this game is that at half-time were were sure we could end as winners. We were not nervous. There was a sense that the opponents couldn't equalise and that we wouldn't lose our lead.

Quite why there wasn't that sense at Upton Park is something you'd have to ask the little Russian. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with him on Saturday. He seems to be off the pace in recent games and perhaps we could expect a little more from him. When I saw him last in the flesh against Boro last season he was so fascinating to watch. He communicated, told players where to put the ball, where to go to receive it, and generally put in a good shift. Against Sp*rs there wasn't much of that, if any at all.

I know he's the kind of player who can give you something out of nothing, and I'm not criticising here, merely observing, but perhaps there's just a bit too much nothing at the moment and not enough something. Maybe he's carrying a bit of a knock, which would explain things a bit, but there's also the sense that fitness is not exactly his strong point and that's an area he could improve. Anyway, hopefully it's just a little bit of a lull and things will pick up as the season progresses. He might be just pacing himself so he can last till May. What with his fitness and that.

Kieran Gibbs, rather prematurely tipped for England by Arsene Wenger I thought, has spoken about that and how nice to see a footballer with his head screwed firmly on his shoulders. He says he can't even begin to think about England until he does more for Arsenal. Refreshing and intelligent. Maybe it's the intelligence that's refreshing. It's why Almunia's repeated comments about playing for England never really sat right with me. It was all newspaper hype really and he should have just concentrated on doing well for Arsenal instead of getting sucked into tripe like that.

Stan Kroenke has had his chequebook out again. The American has bought another 427 shares taking his overall shareholding to 29.6%, edging ever closer to that mythical 29.9% which would require him to make an offer for all the shares. On the new purchase the Arsenal Supporters Trust say:

The AST’s own assessment of today’s development is that a takeover is not imminent and that today’s purchase is the consolidation of an existing position.

And I'd agree with that although you have to think the closer he gets to the 29.9% the more likely it is that something will happen. But just because he has that shareholding doesn't mean others are under any obligation to sell to him, so unless there's some serious dialogue going on behind the scenes about willingness to sell to Kroenke I can't see any takeover happening in the near future.

In other news Emmanuel Eboue says he'd play for PSG if they made an offer for him next summer while Abou Diaby talks Champions League.

Arsenal reserves lost their first game of the season, a 2-0 'home' defeat by Portsmouth.

And that's that. A full preview of the game against AZ tomorrow, any breaking team news during the day will probably be Twittered, if that's your thing.

Have a good one.

Good morning, a fine start to a new week for many of you. Round these parts there aren't too many Sp*rs fans. I play football with one on a Tuesday and when I told him I was going over for the game he said 'Oh dear, you've just wasted your money there'.

Oh dear indeed. So he'll get some tomorrow night but I can imagine those of you returning to work today who live in much closer quarters to fans of that persuasion will have a jolly good morning engaging in 'banter', you might say. Have fun with that.

While we have a Champions League game this week much of the focus is still on the weekend's events. Amazingly people are now beginning to revise their opinion of this team. While Alan Hansen watches his beloved Mugsmashers reel from crisis to euphoria and back to crisis again, he manages to write something nice about Arsenal. Amazing. I bet his scar was pulsing as he did. 

Meanwhile Robin van Persie has summed up things perfectly, saying:

It always feels good to beat Spurs. It even feels good when we don’t play them and they get beaten, so it’s especially good when we’ve played them.

Marvelous. A bit like van Persie's form at the moment. Patrick Barclay writes about him in The Times and he's really growing into the central striker position. He started slowly, no goals in Arsenal's first 6 games. Now he's fot 8 in our last 9 and he's fast becoming accustomed the role many thought he wasn't really suited to. I suppose we should know better than to underestimate Arsene Wenger's ability to get the best out of a player in a forward position. 

Let's not forget he had to convince Thierry Henry he had what it takes to score goals at a time when established commentators on things Arsenal were just as convinced that Henry would never be a centre-forward. Van Persie is no Henry, he doesn't go at defences the same way, but the boss's comments about him being a bit of a mix of Henry and Bergkamp isn't too far off the mark. And what a mix that is. Let's hope he can keep it up and it's worth pointing out that everyone's favourite £25m summer signing who was lauded in the press as one of the best strikers in the world hasn't scored since he nodded that one in against us. The lanky bollocks.

Robin himself makes headlines this mornings, not for his scoring or his recent form, but for the fact he's expressed a desire to play in the next round of the Carling Cup. Funnily enough it happens to be against Man City. On Saturday he said:

What's the draw? Manchester City away? Nice. I want to play that one. If the boss decides to let me play, I'm happy. I'd love to play. We fancy winning that competition.

Two guesses at why he'd be so up for this one. The defeat earlier in the season and the incident with Adebayor no doubt providing motivation. To be honest I don't think Arsene will involve him. Firstly because with Bendtner, Walcott and Vela all injured the manager won't want to risk his main man. And secondly, for all the maturity he's shown, there's a small part of me that just wouldn't put it past him to cunt Adebayor right up in the air and get himself a red card. Anyway, that game isn't till December so we'll see.

I think I'm in love with this picture. I want it in large. So large I can wrap it around my house. Like house wallpaper. That'd be awesome. And I'd put a speech bubble coming out of Pat Rice's mouth that just said "Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!". Because that's what he's saying just before he turns to the Sp*rs fans and gives them the finger while thrusting his groin out at them.

"Yeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhh!"

Not much else happening though. It's a good way to start the week though. The joy of Saturday still resonating, a nice home fixture in the Champions League to look forward to. I've had worse Monday mornings, it has to be said.

Have a good one, more tomorrow.

It's a long time since I've seen a team as negative as Olympiacos were last night. In the 6th minute Arsenal had possession just inside our own half, every single Olympiacos player was behind the ball. Pathetic.

I figure as Zico has only recently taken over as manager he doesn't know the players too well so his plan was to try and stop us playing. We've seen plenty of teams to the Grove and 'park the bus', as they say. Many of them do it effectively, preventing us from creating chances and frustrating fans and players alike but the Greeks weren't good enough to do that.

We played 5-a-side football last night. Lots of short passing and movement which provided us with plenty of goal scoring opportunities, especially in the first half. Their keeper, Aristotle, made some good saves although it has to be said despite creating the chances our finishing was a bit less than emphatic. The closest we came was a Cesc Fabregas volley which crashed back off the crossbar, while the keeper made saves from Arshavin, Cesc and Robin van Persie at various stages.

The second was more of the same. Arsenal dominated possession, the Greeks pushed so far back into their own half that all they could do was hoof it back upfield and give it straight back to us. There were a couple of hairy moments defensively but eventually the goal had to come. Just moments after his introduction Eduardo was fed the ball in the box by Cesc, the timing of his run was perfect giving him the space to cross for Robin van Persie who slammed it home from close range.

The second came from Andrei Arshavin and although he was more than a bit offside when he scored it the build-up play to create the chance was sumptuous. Nice interplay between the Russian and Cesc, Ramsey played it back to the captain who fizzed it across goal and Arshavin's backheeled finish was sublime. Offside, yes, but no less than we deserved. Forget Zico's bizarre post-match comments about the officials being French, classic deflection tactics to take the focus away from just how bad his team were. And they were bad.

Conversely Arsenal were very good last night. I always thought we'd get the goals although I was just beginning to get a bit anxious before RVP's opener. That said I think everyone knew we'd score. Sometimes you can hear the tension quite clearly as we fail to take chances at home but the crowd were right behind the team and I think that helped.

It was good to see Cesc back to his normal self. He bossed the game and was involved in almost everything good we did. Tomas Rosicky's rehabilitation continues and he showed the kind of craft and endeavour that our midfield has been missing at times, while Alex Song mopped up everything that needed to be mopped up. There's no doubt van Persie deserved his goal, his all-round play and movement were fantastic, Arshavin looked sharp and fitter than he has been and in general it was the kind of performance we were looking for. Sometimes it's easy to get dragged down to the level of your opponents but we played well for the whole 90 and it was good to see.

Afterwards Arsene said:

I think we dominated from the first to the last minute. What I liked in our performance tonight was that we always played with a desire to keep the discipline in the team because that is very satisfying. We did not do anything crazy. We have matured and a game like that shows it.

After a late evening game against Fulham on Saturday, which really was a hard fought three points, it was good to see the team do it for the whole game. There was no first half hangover, no late lapse in concentration. Of course some of it is down to Olympiacos being as poor a team as we've played in the Champions League for years but I'd rather talk us up than them down.

I think the key is that the big players performed. Defensively we were solid again but Cesc, Arshavin, Rosicky, van Persie and co all played well. Keeping them fit is going to be the key to winning things this season. With Walcott and Nasri still to return there's still something to be added too, so fingers crossed.

Speaking of Theo he played for an hour yesterday in a game against Olympiacos reserves. We won 3-1, he wasn't on the scoresheet but hopefully that 60 minutes is enough for him to push for a place in the squad for Sunday's game against Blackburn.

So all in all a good night's work for the Gunners, onwards and upwards. Till tomorrow.

When Arsenal won against Standard Liege, having come from 2 goals down, the performance was poor but I thought the way we won the match was important. We played poorly and managed to produce a comeback from a couple of goals down. Every team needs games like that to give them the belief they can salvage something when things are going wrong.

Yesterday's game was similar. Vito Mannone was by far the busier of the two keepers, yet Arsenal left Craven Cottage with three points thanks to Robin van Persie's goal.

The first half was Arsenal at their most frustrating. Simple things seemed beyond them, our passing was off and our left side looked vulnerable, which Fulham exploited. It was the home side who threatened most, Mannone making a great double save from Andy Johnson and Clint Dempsey's follow up. He saved again from Zolton Gera's low shot, pushing it out for a corner with Zamora lurking for a rebound.

The best chance of the half fell to Andrei Arshavin after nice play between Robin van Persie and Cesc on the edge of their area but it looked as if the ball bobbled and his close range shot went well over the bar. We were better in the second half, sharper, had more of the ball, but again we struggled to create clear cut chances.

Seven minutes in though we got the goal. Cesc, who really didn't have a good game at all, showed why he's so important to this team with the kind of pass that our other midfielders can only dream about making. He chipped it over the Fulham defence into the path of van Persie whose left foot control and right footed finish were first class. 

Fulham rallied and showed why they were good value for their 7th place finish last season. They work hard, they don't waste the ball that often and we had to defend well. Again Mannone was the key man making a couple of good saves, the pick of the bunch from a Zamora header. The young Italian can rightly feel proud of his day's work.

Late on we might have had another goal as Fulham pressed. Bendtner had a couple of half chances while Eboue screwed one wide after being put through by Cesc. We held on though to win at the Cottage for the first time since 2006 the last time we won there, man of the match was clearly the goalkeeper, but it might just be one of those wins that does wonders for a team.

Maybe I'm trying to be too positive here but this is exactly the kind of result that pundits laud United for. They didn't play well, the opposition had a plenty of chances, but they won the game. We ground out three points yesterday and it's not something this Arsenal team is renowned for doing. Mostly because we don't do it that often and I think a bit of that is that we don't believe we can do it. Hopefully yesterday will go some way to instilling that because it's such an important ability.

Pretty football is lovely but ask anyone to choose between a pretty draw and an ugly win and there's only one answer. Afterwards Arsene Wenger said of the win:

It is good for us to know that you can win that way. People always want us to play well and dominate but when we do not win they are not happy too. Today I am happy.

Quite right. There's much to be said for winning games at a canter but you have to be able to win games like yesterday's the way we did. On the keeper the boss said:

I believe we will give him 10 out of 10 because everything he did was right. For a goalkeeper that is most important. He stopped everything he had to stop, didn't make any wrong decisions and overall he has shown he has the potential to be a very good goalkeeper.

You have to be pleased for the young man and when you consider that is only his fourth professional appearance it's great for him. You also have to laugh at the interviewer on ESPN who asked him 'Is that the best day of your professional career so far?'. He's only played four games! And I would say we should laugh at Chris Waddle but he's shot right into the top 5 of most irritating co-commentators/pundits of all time. It's bad enough hearing anti-Arsenal stuff but hearing it from someone who can barely speak English is another thing entirely. Honestly, he sounds as if his signature is a paw print. Moron.

Anyway, it was a good three points, an invaluable three points given the other results, and while we'll all hope for better performances in the future there's a lot to be said for the way we won that game.

In other news the draw for the 4th round of the Carling Cup took place yesterday and we've got Liverpool at home. I imagine they'll be keen to make up for the last time we played in that competition when Julio Baptista got four at Anfield and even Alex Song scored so it should make for a good game.

Gael Clichy talks about William Gallas's new found partnership with Thomas Vermaelen and the fact that Kieran Gibbs wants his place in the team.

And that's about that. Time for some patented Sunday lying around going 'Urgh'.

Hello there, Fulham today in a late kick off and a chance to put last season's debacle behind us. The second game of the season gave us an unseemly taste of what was to come.

I remember later in the season reading some quotes from Robin van Persie about how the team were on the bus afterwards and he was thinking 'How did that happen? That is not Arsenal'. I've tried to find the exact quotes, but can't. Anyway, that was not Arsenal but it was the Arsenal we got for an extremely damaging period last season.

This season Robin is aware of how important games like today are. He says:

If you look last year, the way Manchester United became champions was against the 'smaller' teams. They won against all the teams from 19 to 10. That is why they became champions. So it is very important to win these games.

Last season we had a pretty good record against the other top 4 sides. A win and a draw against United, we beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (I'm forgetting the home game), and two draws against Liverpool, but that period when we lost to Fulham, to Hull, to Stoke, to Man City and Aston Villa is what blew us out of the title race, shattered any confidence we might have had and left us playing catch up until almost the end of the season.

There was a home game against Fulham last season which was almost as painful to watch as well. It came during a series of games where we couldn't score to save our lives, we drew 0-0 with them on the day and we were awful again. Danny Murphy, who is in the papers today saying we've 'lost the fear factor' and all that, bossed the midfield and when we should have been bombarding Fulham at the end of the game we couldn't even get the ball back from them.

So far this season against 'smaller' teams we have done a lot better. 4-0 against Portsmouth, 4-0 against Wigan perhaps shows there's been a change in mindset. That we don't simply go out expecting to win, we go out knowing we have to perform to get the three points. 

Now, I rate Fulham a lot higher than either of those teams, Woy Hodgson has done a great job since he arrived there, but the 6-1 win over Everton shows we can do it against the bigger of the 'smaller' teams too. RVP is right, these games are the bread and butter of the title race, if you don't win them then you're making life extremely difficult for yourself.

I reckon today's team, based on who's fit, might look like this:

Mannone - Sagna - Gallas - Vermaelen - Clichy - Song - Cesc - Rosicky - Arshavin - van Persie - Bendtner

I've gone for Rosicky ahead of Diaby although the boss might prefer the Frenchman, which to me is a bit like preferring a lump of charred armadillo to a succulent fillet steak but there you go. With Theo back and hopefully on the bench it does boost our attacking options should we need to change things, with both he and Eduardo a threat.

In other news Robin van Persie talks about 'exaggerating contact' as opposed to diving and also lauds the team spirit at the club, saying:

I really love Arsenal and I want them to succeed.  I do feel our team spirit is at a higher level than most other clubs. Other clubs have lots of egos. We have egos here but the whole squad has good egos and good characters. That is not the case at many other clubs.

You can't help but think he's highlighting that in the wake of a certain recent departure who he comically calls 'Mr Adebayor' in this piece. 

He does talk a good game, does Robin. What I'd like to see now are his boots do the talking, his good leg or his chocolate leg matters not a jot to me. It's goal time, Robin.

Arsene Wenger tries to explain why he didn't spend the summer profit but really only confuses things. He says:

We sold Kolo and Adebayor but bought Vermaelen. That money is for me. I know how much I have and I am happy with it. But last week we played Wigan. We won 4-0 and on the bench I had Bendtner.  Walcott, Arshavin, Nasri, Denilson and Djourou were not playing.

That money is for me? He sounds like an Irish government minister there. And yes we won 4-0 with Bendtner on the bench but we lost two games in Manchester and he played them. How odd. I really think he should stop talking about the money we didn't spend, I don't want to hear about it anymore. It's still a bit of a sore point amongst fans and again I think it's one of those articles on the official site that doesn't really do him any favours. 

Anyway, it's all fairly irrelevant so long as the players we do have do the business on the pitch starting today at Fulham. As it's my birthday today I'm expecting at least 8 goals (Arsenal goals) as a present. Come on lads. Do it for me!

Till tomorrow.

Funnily enough I was dreaming this morning that I was away on holidays and Tom was supposed to be writing the blog. It was one of those very real dreams so that even when I got up to go to the bathroom I lay back down thinking 'I wonder what Tom is going write about'.

Sadly, I am not on holidays, nor do I have the pleasure of reading what Tom wrote whenever he got around to actually writing it.

We have an interesting week ahead. A Carling Cup game against West Brom tomorrow night will provide an opportunity for the likes of Senderos, Wilshere, Ramsey and others to get some playing time. There'll be more team news and a preview on tomorrow's blog.

In the meantime Robin van Persie has been singing the praises of Thomas Vermaelen. They had a little spat during the Amsterdam Tournament a couple of summers back (it was this which brought him to the manager's attention apparently) but all is rosy in the garden now. Robin says:

Now I'm happy he is on my side. In training everyone mixes up so I play against him. He is tough and it's good because I am training against proper defenders.

And of his goals, he said:

The first one showed he is very, very strong from corners and free-kicks and that is very important for us. Even if we play badly we can always score from set-pieces.

I would have been proud of his second goal.

The set-piece thing is by far the most important to me. At times we struggle to break teams down, to have that added threat is a real bonus.

The manager has been talking about teams who foul a lot. It was clear against Wigan that part of their game plan was to disrupt the flow of our football. A succession of fairly innocuous fouls prevented us really getting into our rhythm and Arsene Wenger said:

It’s a general thing. It’s the little fouls in the middle of the park. It breaks up the game from when you are attacking three against three, four against four and then you get a free kick and it’s ten against ten again.

All the work you have done is nothing. You start from scratch again. They have broken up the play. I think I will try to talk to the FA about it. It’s the same for Manchester United, Liverpool and for everybody.

If it's the same for everybody then we may just have to live with it. I can see where he's coming from. The football purist in all of us wants to see flowing moves and all the rest but stopping the other team from playing is part of the game. If you're playing a so-called lesser team you're going to have to accept that they'll probably be more physical, that they'll try and stop your more skillful players with little fouls which break up play.

I think it's just a fact of life. The only way you can stop it is to dish out more yellow cards and as it is I think players get booked too easily. On the flip-side I've thought for a little while now that we haven't had the kind of player who will commit that kind of foul to help us out when needed. If there's a break on sometimes you want to see your central defender or deep lying midfielder take the man out on the halfway line. That is a good yellow card, if it's given. Song does it, Flamini used to do it, but in the current squad we don't have enough players who will make that kind of foul - and sometimes fouling is as much a part of the game as anything else. 

If a foul on the halfway line prevents a three on two break then isn't that just good play from a defensive point of view? Frustrating for the attacking team, of course, we've been in that situation plenty of times. We just shouldn't be afraid to do the same.

The boss on Tomas Rosicky:

I am very positive. Touch wood his problem is sorted. He had not played a game for 18 months. Now he has played with the Czech Republic and us. I did not leave him out today because I was cautious. He was ready to play and for me he looks completely over his injury.

Touch wood. Light a candle. Lucky rabbit's foot. Charmed pygmy pelt. Blessed monkey scrotum. All the things we use for good fortune. I really hope he is over his problems and the manager hasn't just jinxed the ever-loving shit out of him.

With the Carling Cup on the agenda it seems Blackpool are going to ask for permission to marry play Jay Emmanuel-Thomas. His loan there has already been extended so it'll be interesting to see the outcome of that. I suspect we'll refuse, hoping to use him in later rounds if we get through.

Not much else happening from an Arsenal point of view. What about that Manchester derby though? While I would have much preferred a draw how hilarious was it to see Mary Hughes so grumpy at the injury time winner? All those times he played there benefitting from the referee's dodgy watches and he never had a complaint to make. Now, when the boot is on the other foot and the other foot is a great big cloppity foot like Christy Brown, he's annoyed by it. 

Most amusing. Then Craig Bellamy, the Gladstone Small of football, whacks a fan who came on the pitch. More FA madness. What's going to happen next? What was that film with the American football thing and maybe Al Pacino was in it and one of the players is running down the pitch and he takes out a gun and shoots the opponents out of the way to score a touchdown? That's where we're heading with Man City. I'm glad we're not playing them again until April.

Right so. Best leave it there. More tomorrow.