I think the first thing that needs to be said about yesterday's result is how much we clearly missed Adebayor and Toure. It might have been eight with them and you know goal difference might just be the difference between winning and losing this league. Wenger out.

But seriously, what a way to start the season. A truly fantastic performance against a very good team. Don't let anyone tell you it just was down to Everton being bad. Everton were bad because we made them look bad. We harried, competed, won tackles and headers and the only little spell of pressure they had in the game, some time in the first half if I recall correctly, was when we stood off them. Once we snapped out of our doziness Everton were under the cosh again.

The goals were awesome. I love goals. Three in the first half, three in the second. The first came from Denilson after great work by Bendtner and the Brazilian's finish from Cesc's lay-off was outstanding. More of that please, Den. 

Impressive debutant Thomas Vermaelen got number two. In the pub I was commenting how the lad likes a header. He was jumping and leaping and doing somersaults and everything. Robin van Persie's free kick found him at the back post, his jump was perfectly time and the headed finish was outstanding.

William Gallas wasn't to be outdone by his new partner though heading home a Cesc free kick and then the captain took over. The fourth goal was just an Arsenal goal. From back to front, great passing, about three nutmegs (including the finish) and just beautiful to watch. He got his second, dedicated to Espanyol captain Daniel Jarque who died last week, when Everton just stood off him and allowed him to run all the way from our half to the edge of their box. It would have been rude of him not to finish it the way he did.

And there was still time for more. Andrei Arshavin's toe-poke hit the post but master poacher Eduardo scored on his first Premier League appearance since having his leg shattered by that almighty cunt Martin Taylor. He is back. For once viral media didn't lie to us. And because we felt a little bit sorry for Everton and the 12 fans that remained in Goodison Park we let them score one. A clean sheet would have been nice but I'll concede every single week if we get 6 up the other end.

Overall it was a truly outstanding way to start to the season. A really solid team performance, we were good defensively, Vermaelen looks a player, obviously we clicked as an attacking force and the new formation seems to suit us very well indeed. At one stage towards the end of the first half we attacked down our right, crossed the ball to the back post and there was Cesc Fabregas looking to score with a header. It seems fluid and effective and it's very encouraging for the rest of the campaign.

Scoring 6 at Goodison Park is no mean feat, it's a statement of intent for the season ahead and I'm absolutely delighted. It's brilliant preparation for the big game on Tuesday too.

Afterwards Arsene Wenger said:

It was a good team performance. I feel overall there is still room for improvement, not on the scoreline but in what we did today. But overall I am very happy with the team attitude basically, and we look like we have matured. And it’s a good basis to continue to improve and to work on what we want to do.

Frankly, we can't have any complaints whatsoever with how we opened our season. I'd have been happy with 1-0, to smack 6 past a good Everton side is fantastic. And may, just possibly, have contributed to my hangover this morning.

I could go around the other news this morning but what's the point? Is anybody interested in anything Cashmaneul Moneybayor says about Cesc? No they are not because he is a big stupid cunt who is about as interesting as watching toe-nails grow. 

All the talk this morning should be about our team because they deserve all the praise they get today. Football's back, the Arsenal are back, and I love it.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm going to sit in a chair and shake for a while.

At the beginning of yesterday's Arsecast (you can listen on yesterday's blog) I tried to sum up what the summer meant. All the talk meant nothing, all the waffle, the spin, the bullshit from the managers and players is not so much secondary to why we love football as a distant cousin third-removed who eats with his fingers, always has lumious green bogies crusted around his nostrils and bangs his head against the wall when he's upset about stuff.

It's only when the lads are on the pitch and we're in the height of a game that things really matter. It's the football that gets your heart racing, makes you bite your nails, revert to stupid rituals and superstitions even though you know your lucky socks/beer/chair or whatever is nothing of the sort. It's the goals, the missed chances, the last gasp tackles, the pieces of individual brilliance and, more than anything, the sight of your team truly clicking, a cohesive, dangerous unit, that provides us with moments of sheer joy that keeps us coming back.

Back-heels, nutmegs, towering headers, crunching tackles, one-twos, crossfield passes, amazing reflex saves, aggro, yellow cards, red cards, annoying refs, playing well and losing, playing like a pack of one-legged Carlton Palmers and nicking a win, miscued clearances, perfectly judged through-balls, 30 yard rockets, tap-ins, cock-ins, taunting, mocking, jeering, seering ecstasty, crushing agony, disbelief, drama, tedium, penalties, free kicks that never were, free kicks that were but aren't (please refer to annoying refs), and so much more make up the game that keeps us coming back, week in, week out.

And it's back. Today's the day. And that's just from a fans point of view. What are the players feeling today? What are they looking to do this season? This exclusive video from Nike has me even more excited. 

Eduardo "I'm back". FUCK YEAH. Yeah, you're back. Yeah, you are.

"5 goals, 1 game". Bring. It. On.

It's the opening day of the season and whatever you think about the state of the squad if you can't be excited and nervous and jittery and just full of love for football then there's something wrong with you. The manager is talking about winning the title, the players want trophies, the fans want trophies, but maybe it'll take a combination of all of us to make it happen.

Fans have a part to play. Sure, expectations are high but a crowd that is behind its team will have an impact. Imagine playing away from home and hearing home fans barrack their players, what a boost it would give you. I'm not suggesting people become cheerleaders or anything like it, but encouragement might just give the team the impetus it needs in a game, calling them useless cunts, it's fair to say, probably will not. It's a two-way street, no doubt, but it's worth thinking about. It's a new season, a clean slate, everybody starts afresh, players, manager, fans, everbody.

Going through fallow times really makes the good times more enjoyable. And while the last few seasons haven't been as bad as people might say (there's no doubt that a trophy this season would feel all the sweeter because of what has gone before it. I did love this from Dara O'Briain in today's Guardian:

I did my time in the early 90s when it was John Jensen and Eddie McGoldrick, and we couldn't buy a goal. And you want me to tear my hair out now, when I've got Fábregas and Arshavin in front of me; and Wilshere and Vela sitting in the wings?

I understand perfectly that fans are frustrated, we all want the team to win and be successful, but we've been a whole lot less successful in the past and a lot less interesting to watch (Chris Whyte at centre-forward anyone?). Up and downs, swings and roundabouts, peaks and troughs, whatever you want to call it.

Liverpool, the mighty, untouchable, Liverpool, the team that plagued my life when I was growing up, watching the Mugsmasher enjoy league wins that he didn't really appreciate because he was still a little cunt going around getting run over by cars and crashing his BMX into things, have not won the league since 1990. Not that I give a fish's tit about Liverpool but there it is. It'll be 20 years in May. A lot of people have tipped them for the title, fair enough. Sky Sports don't think we're even going to be in the top four by the look of this image. 

Grand, we're done. Written off. Citeh's millions, Chelsea's millions, United's pedigree and the media's cock-sucking love-in with Benitez and Torres and we're also-rans, out of the equation, yesterday's news. Suits me. We'll show them. Because we are the Arsenal. 

There's a whole pile of stuff on the official site from the manager's press conference yesterday. Go read. The team news for today sees Diaby and Walcott miss out, they join Nasri, Rosicky, Djourou and Fabianski on the sidelines. If I had to guess at today's line-up it'd be:

Almunia - Sagna - Gallas - Vermaelen - Clichy - Song - Denilson - Cesc - Arshavin - van Persie - Bendtner

On the bench: Mannone - Gibbs - Traore - Eboue - Ramsey - Eduardo - Vela

At 5.30 the 11 boys in red and white will kick off the new Premier League season. They'll have to play well, Everton are a really good side, we know they're difficult to beat, but I think we can do it. I will have a pint of beer in front of me, my iPhone for some in game Twitter, and my heart will be beating just that little bit faster because at the end of the day it's the football that counts.

Not the talking, not the analysis, the 'experts', the arguments, the optimism v pessimism, none of that matters. 

Only the football. And I love it.

COME. ON. YOU. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOONERS.

When you step back and look at it a point against a very good, very resilient Everton side, at Goodison Park, is not the worst result in the world.

However, when you step back into it again you land right foot first in the steaming dogshit that was our performance last night. Yes, I was elated when Robin van Persie provided our only moment of quality in the game to equalise in injury time, but anyone who watched that and wasn't hugely concerned about this team was looking at a different game than I was.

Let's make no bones about this - last night's game was as important a game as we've had this season. Villa had won on Tuesday night so it was crucial we matched them. And in big, important games this season we have responded and pulled a good result out of the hat.

The win against United came on the back of that horrendous Sp*rs game and an away defeat to Stoke. The Chelsea win came after successive defeats to Aston Villa and Man City. Both times the team rose to the occasion and put in performances which got us results which were absolutely vital. The Everton game may not have come on the back of such poor results but it was just as important. The way we played you wouldn't have thought so.

A couple of Denilson shots aside we created virtually nothing. Emmanuel Adebayor won over many Arsenal fans with his goals but many more through his enthusiasm and willingness to work hard on the pitch. That work ethic has gone, diluted by his enormous pay packet, and last night's performance was pretty hard to stomach. He can do much, much better than that but it's almost like it's beneath him now.

That said, the strikers got little or no service from the midfield, and it's hard for a midfield to be confident and creative when they know they've got a defence behind them that can concede at any time. Everton's goal was inevitable. Tim Cahill, who even Stevie Wonder can see is the dangerman, was left alone by the two centre-halves and he easily beat Gael Clichy to head home the goal. Look at the replays though, the amount of time the Everton player had to cross the ball was just ludicrous. Poor defending all round.

I have to say I really didn't think we were going to score. I know we've got a habit of late goals, and credit where it's due for that, but we find ourselves too often in a position where a late goal is an absolute necessity and not simply the icing on the cake.

Without the contribution of van Persie in the last couple of months I shudder to think where we'd be. He's carrying the team and his goal was top class. Diaby had to get something right, the law of averages dictated that, and his diagonal ball was chested down and slammed past Howard to salvage a point I'm really not sure we deserved. I'll take it, of course, but that game was hard going and once again exposed all the problems of this team.

Problems I, and countless other Arsenal fans, have been going on about for quite some time. We don't defend well enough, we have a big need for a centre-half and there's a serious lack of quality in midfield.

Without Cesc we have no creative spark, the midfield is just collectively poor. Song did reasonably well last night but is still nowhere near good enough, in my opinion, Diaby can't dictate a game, Denilson is no right winger and Nasri is still finding his feet away from home. As a team we passed the ball poorly, even simple 10 yard balls were going straight to Everton players.

Would Arshavin make a difference? Probably, he's a good player, a better option than any else for the right hand side at this moment in time, but you just wonder if we're going to spend £15m in the transfer window (if we do splash out, of course), that we might be able to spend it better. At this moment in time Arshavin feels like putting brand new leather seats into a 1979 Skoda.

Afterwards Arsene was full of the usual stuff about spirit and character, which is his stock response to games like this. I don't really pay it any heed because we've been hearing it for the last 12 years. I don't know why anybody expects any different. But when asked about if the arrival of Arshavin was imminent, he said:

No not at the moment. We have a good squad, we have many players as well out injured and they will all come back. We hope that Walcott, Fabregas and Rosicky will come back to the squad very soon and that is for us like buying players.

Now that's annoying. Cesc isn't due back until April, Rosicky we hear might be 8 weeks - if he 'survives' more physical training - and Theo will be back soonest but to pin our hopes on an exciting, but still raw, 19 year old is madness. Those players are not like buying players, they're like getting injured players back. Nothing more. You can't expect players who were part of a struggling team to come back from injury and make the difference as if they weren't part of things to begin with. It's almost insulting.

That said, I've heard and read a lot of things said about the manager in the last few hours, and it strikes me that some of our fans have little respect for him and what he's done for the club. To me that's sad, that they can be so vitriolic and angry towards him after everything that he's done for Arsenal. I can completely understand people being frustrated with him, I am myself, but I have to say it makes me feel funny just how much some fans have turned against him.

I'm not going to pretend I don't have issues with him, I think he's got things wrong this season in a way he's never done before. He didn't strengthen properly in the summer, and when the evidence of that decision has been clear as day to everyone, he hasn't done enough to address it in the January window. I thought we needed a good central midfielder before Cesc got injured, we certainly needed one when he did, but we've taken the easy option to rely on players who have done nothing to suggest they're good enough at this moment in time.

We've needed a centre-half for a long time, according to Alex Fynn on the Arsecast a couple of weeks ago that was something he made clear last summer, yet we haven't brought anyone in. And maybe it's just me but I refuse to accept that Arsene, with all his famed scouts and knowledge, couldn't find the right players at the right price. I think he took a gamble, hoping some players would come good, but the gamble has backfired and that's evident in our league position. A spur of the moment signing like Silvestre summed it up - no real plan, hope things work out and you get Flamini-esque improvement from a couple of players.

However, I do find it hard to take when people are so vehemently against him these days. I think he's made mistakes, and I really struggle to see the sense of many of his recent decisions, but to pour such spite and bile on him, even though it might only be on internet forums and comment boxes, is wrong. By all means criticise, he's left himself open to it, but have a bit of decency and respect for what the man has done for this football club.

But that's not to take away from the paucity of quality we possess at the moment. We hardly made a chance all night against Everton, we struggled against Cardiff on Sunday, and on Saturday we play a West Ham side full of confidence. Yet, yet, yet, we're unbeaten in our last 9 games, unbeaten in the same amount of league games, and that's a reasonable stat. It makes my head hurt, kind of.

The fact is we have a real fight on our hands to get in the Champions League positions next season. People might say Villa will drop points but if we play like we did last night, which is hardly a one off this season, then so will we. This is not like the season Sp*rs imploded, or their arses exploded, Villa are much better than that.

I really can't understand why he hasn't moved heaven and earth to bring in more players during this transfer window. It's obvious this team needs freshening up, it needs the a bit of a spark, something different, and that does not come from players coming back from injury. I know we're on our best run of the season but the problems are still there, the issues of quality and consistency still affect us, and while I will absolutely agree that the chequebook is not always the answer I firmly believe that in this case it is.

It's unlikely to happen though. If there's any spending it will Arshavin and that's it. The central midfielder won't be coming and we'll muddle through the rest of the season with the centre-halves that have struggled since the start. And maybe it will be enough to finish in the top 4, I sincerely hope it is, but I can't say I'm overly confident.

I realise this morning's blog is a bit gloomy but it's borne out of genuine concern for our team and the way we're playing at the moment. We have 15 games left this season, it's a cliché but every single one of them is a cup final. We have to approach them with that kind of mindset. There really should be no more talk of the title, that's quite obviously a pipe-dream, but finishing in the top 4 has got to the primary aim, followed by putting things right in the summer by adding players to the squad.

Right, that's about that. More, and an Arsecast, tomorrow.

It's still all up in the air regarding Andrei Arshavin, but the whole thing now appears to be down to a payment made by Zenit to Arshavin when he signed a new contract in 2006.

Zenit want some of that money repaid, Arshavin is looking for Arsenal to pay that money or incorporate it into his wages (which would push them above our ceiling) and unless some kind of agreement is made then this most tedious of transfer sagas will continue for the rest of the window and ultimately fail.

Arsene Wenger denied that any agreement over the fee had been made between the two clubs but Arsene has tried his best to say as little as possible about the transfer. It's no surprise he's giving nothing away even now. 

Zenit's chief executive said:

I can understand Arshavin's issue with the fee – I'm sure if I had a big fee like this I would not like to give it up. The future is in the players hands. But I don't see why Arsenal should pay this money, it was not a signing-on fee. It was for him to play for Zenit for four years. Arsenal have been simple and straightforward to work with.

While Arsene Wenger said our wage structure would not be broken:

The players who come in here are all on a wage structure or they do not come in. It's as simple as that. Nobody will come in above the highest level we have here.

One of the other issues is, apparently, that Arshavin's current salary is paid net, whereas he'd be liable to pay a lot more tax on his earnings in England. So compromise is the key here and if Arshavin really wants to leave Zenit and really play for Arsenal then he's going to have to accept that he's moving to a football club and not some magical land with money trees out the back for him to pick £50 notes off.

There does appear to be some urgency now with Zenit saying that in order for work permit papers to be issued in time there would have to be a full agreement by 2pm today. Now it's all down to Arshavin, it seems. To be honest I'm completely ambivalent towards the transfer now. If he signs, good. He'll offer something a bit different to the team. If he doesn't it's hardly the end of the world.

Anyway, with all this transfer talk the game against Everton tonight has been somewhat overlooked. Obviously it's a hugely important game, made even more so by the fact that both Manchester United and Aston Villa won last night.

Everton are a very decent side and although they're struggling for strikers they have dangerous players, none more so than Tim Cahill. He's caused Liverpool all manner of problems in the two Merseyside derbies recently so our defence, not exactly renowned for its ... erm ... defending, will have to be on their toes. They pose a huge threat from set-pieces and that's an area where we've struggled in recent times. They'll be looking to expose that.

The manager has hinted that William Gallas could come back into the side but wouldn't say for who. The obvious choice is Kolo Toure, after Arsene raised doubts over the Gallas - Toure partnership, but to be honest I'd leave Gallas on the bench.

Midfield will be interesting. Obviously Denilson will come back in and it'll be interesting to see how the rest of the midfield lines up. He may play Diaby on the left and Nasri on the right to allow Song to partner Denilson, mindful of the physical threat Everton pose. Obviously that wouldn't be ideal but with Eboue really struggling for any kind of form it might be the lesser of two evils.

One thing is for sure, we need to play a lot better than we did against Cardiff and with Villa winning we need three points tonight.

In other news he spoke about Eduardo, saying he needs a couple more games before he can be considered for first team action. He suggested a behind closed doors game might take place next week and with Croatia playing an international friendly the following week that should get him up to speed. Although I'm somewhat scared of what international duty might do to him. 

And there's news of Theo Walcott whose contract expires next summer. There appears to be an issue over image rights but Arsene says:

We are not against granting players image rights. Theo wants to stay, we want him to stay so we should find an agreement.

Hopefully this is right at the top of Ivan Gazidis's agenda and something can be done ASAP. It'd be a good boost to know he's on board for the foreseeable future.

So there you go. Tonight is going to be tough against Everton. Fingers crossed, toes crossed, everything crossed. Some more van Persie magic and it would be nice if Adebayor decided to have a good game because he could make the difference.

Till tomorrow. 

Good Monday to you all.

Barely a day of recovery for the lads before they fly out to Turkey for tomorrow's game against Fenerbache. As yet there's little or no news about who's going to be fit but it looks like we'll be without Kolo Toure following his shoulder injury on Saturday. We await news of Samir Nasri and I do hope he'll be fit. He's had a niggly start to his Arsenal career. Almost every good thing has been balanced out by a little injury and you suspect that if we are to win anything this season we need him fitter more often.

The travelling squad is usually announced the day before the game and it'll be interesting to see who makes the trip. The players are under no illusions about how tough it's going to be with Robin van Persie saying:

It will be really tough out there. I experienced it a few years ago and the fans are amazing. It was really aggressive. You have to deal with the atmosphere. It’s not nice but if you play for Arsenal, you have to adapt and just play your game.

More on that game tomorrow. Robin has also been talking about the comeback against Everton and he reckons the side is 30-40% mental. Or something. He says:

The way we came back was fantastic. Once we scored, you could see the heads of the Everton players go down. In football, the mental aspect is really important, maybe more than 30 or 40 per cent. Sometimes it is more important than the way you play.

I'm not sure where he gets his figures from but he does have a good point. An unwillingness to be beaten is what separates good teams from great teams. Having the mental strength to dig out a result when you're playing poorly is a brilliant thing. So while the result against Everton was great you do wonder where that mental strength was against Fulham and Hull. It's too early to say we've turned any kind of corner yet. The proof will come with the results in the next few weeks. We've often been a team that thrives on momentum but so far this season we have failed to get that going. Fingers crossed we can do that as there are some big games on the horizon.

Perhaps the incessant Interlulls haven't helped us and, in today's blog brought to you by the letters R, V and P, Robin says:

We were fantastic for three-quarters of last season and then suddenly everything fell down. We have learned a lot from that. I prefer it when you can have a good long run with your club team, get together and get results.

Obviously what they've learned is that in order to not make the same mistake as last season they've decided not to have a good run until a quarter of the season is over. Revolutionary thinking, I like it. That said the disappointing results this season have come pre-Interlull when the squad has been together and not post, as you might expect. Maybe they've all been thinking about how many pairs of underpants they have to pack before they go away. They need to be more focussed on football and less on underpants.

You can read more Robin, and Arsene saying he doesn't know what kind of car Theo Walcott is, here. There's a thing - what kind of cars are our players? I don't know enough about cars to even try although Eboue could definitely be a clown car. 

Right, nothing else to report. Have a good Monday. More tomorrow. 

Three points. Not the most convincing three points we've ever won but three points all the same.

We started with a strange formation, the manager preferring to use Alex Song at right back instead of Eboue, a more natural right full. Song struggled and when Everton opened us up way to easily to score the first goal his effort to get back and defend was, at best, idle. I think perhaps he's a victim of nobody knowing what his best position is. Maybe he doesn't actually have one.

Everton had one cleared off the line as our weakness from high balls was exposed again while van Persie had our best chance of the first half, Twitchy Tim making a good save. At half-time there was a chorus of disapproval from the home fans, those that had stayed to watch the end of the half anyway, and it was very worrying.

The manager said something though at half-time and in the second we were much, much better. Theo Walcott came on for Kolo Toure who had injured his shoulder and his presence on the pitch certainly unsettled Everton. We scored quite quickly too. Just three minutes after the restart the ball fell to Nasri just outside the D and he low shot nestled in the bottom corner. Just what we needed. Walcott created a good chance for van Persie but he whacked it over with his right foot.

There then followed some aggro with Arsenal player aggrieved at Tony Hibbert's tackle on Denilson. The Everton man came flying right through the Brazilian. He may have gotten the ball but it was from behind and dangerous. When confronted by Gael Clichy he then grabbed our left back by the throat. The result, a yellow card. Shit refeering from Peter Walton. Hibbert should have been sent off. Arsenal's mood was not helped when Walton gave a goal kick when van Persie was obviously pulled down in the area - a more stonewall penalty you won't see this year.

But van Persie had the last laugh when, after Adebayor's clumsiness saw him spurn a chance and Cesc's subsequent shot was saved by Howard, he nodded home from 6 yards to put us in front. We then lost Nasri to a thigh injury with Abou Diaby coming on in his place. The game was made safe right at the death when some nice interplay between Walcott and Diaby saw Theo arrow one between Howard's legs to make it 3-1. Relief all round and the three points secured. Afterwards Arsene Wenger said:

What was very important today was that the team has shown personality by being 1-0 down. We played our season today, we could not afford to drop a point. The way we responded when we were 1-0 down was of course vital. I wasn’t nervous at half time because I had confidence and belief that we would change the game.

I think he must have been the only one who wasn't nervous. The fans were and you could see some of the players were too. Defensively we have some real issues. I think Sylvester did pretty well for the most part, after a shaky start but some of the problems we have are just down to doing the basics. Look at Lescott's header which Clichy cleared off the line. Everton played a short corner to Baines who had all the time in the world to drop in his cross. Why did nobody pick him up? Why was nobody awake to the threat in the first place?

The way we were opened up for Osman's goal was very worrying too. It wasn't like it was incredible forward play. It was simple pass and move stuff which we didn't cope with at all. Osman won't score an easier goal in his life and you have to wonder how we'll cope when we face teams whose movement and interplay in the final third is so much better than Everton's.

It does seem churlish to criticise after a win so I'm not going to say a lot more that's negative. All I will say is that I wish Bendtner was fit because I'd like to see him get a little run of games ahead of Adebayor whose form is clearly not as good as it should be. I'd also prefer to see the manager play players in their best positions and not hope to muddle through using utility players to plug the gaps.

On the positive side Nasri got another goal (perhaps balanced by another injury) and again he looks, to me at least, like a much more productive player than Hleb ever was. Theo scored and caused all kinds of problems to the Everton defence and, of course, to come back from 1-0 down at home and win is always a good thing, even if being behind in the first place is hardly idea.

The three points yesterday were absolutely vital though with United, Chelsea and Liverpool all winning. If we can sort ourselves out against the so-called lesser lights of the league then it's going to be the games against these sides that sort out the title.

We go into Tuesday night's game with something approaching an injury crisis though. It seems Kolo's injury is ligament damage to the shoulder and according to the boss it doesn't look good. We may have Djourou back and Bendtner so that'd be something but the already thin squad is really being stretched at the moment. We'll find out more in the next day or so about the Champions League game.

In a quick Sunday round-up the News of the World reports Cesc has turned down an improved contract from the club, 'paving the way' for his exit at the end of the season. Shut up, News of the Cunts and stop trying to ruin my Sunday. Normally you'd dismiss the stuff from the NotW as bollocks but with his agent now Dein Jr and the fact they have a little bit of history in leaking stuff to papers for their own benefit I'm slightly less dismissive about it. Anyway, the bottom line is this: the best way for Arsenal to ensure Cesc stays at the club is to build a team capable of winning trophies. If we build it he will stay.

Update: Cesc is the most awesome human being on the planet. The ink is barely dry on the News of the World's first edition and he's already dismissed it as 'mischief making', saying:

A newspaper report suggesting that I have rejected a new contract is untrue. The article is just mischief-making. Everybody knows I have a long-term contract and that I am happy here. I'm focussed on doing my best for Arsenal.

Even Ming the Merciless would make this man captain of the universe. 

Julio Baptista talks about his time in London and at Arsenal. 'The Beast' will play for Roma against Chelsea this week. May he score many and injure many.

And that's really about it. It's good to get a win under our belts, no matter how nerve-wracking it was. Onwards and upwards, arsechums.

Morning all, I have the most outrageous hangover considering I didn't have very much to drink. I think one of the bottles of Paulaner must have been triple distilled and then condensed like orange juice. *boilk*

So, on the Arsecast yesterday we were wondering how Arsene would have spent his time during the Interlull. What would have been on his mind? How would he approach the Everton game? Well, he's been talking and he sounds positively bullish about the team, insisting they can get the big prize this season (the league title). He also addressed the lack of experience in midfield. He said:

We have talent, we have youth, therefore I believe we have enough quality to do it. We lack experience in some areas, I would not deny that. But you can’t have everything. I believe we can compensate for that with desire to win.

It is right we are young but I don’t believe we lost hard games because we were young, it was because of defensive mistakes.

That's absolutely true. It was the experienced players that caused us problems so far this season but my counter argument to that would be that with a better midfield it gives you a better to chance to recover from those mistakes. But that's neither here nor there and we've said as much as we need to say about that in the last little while. 

If we can cut out the mistakes at the back then we're going to be in a much better position to win, or at least not lose, games. With Gallas out for the next two games it means a chance for Sylvester to come in and add some open-mouthedness to the centre of the defence.

It looks as if Theo is going to start from the bench after playing two games for England. Arsene says:

Theo came back from England available to play but I might rest him. We play Tuesday again, that’s four games in 10 days. I felt that Walcott went away with England already tired after the Sunderland game. He’s the kind of player who plays with a lot of energy. Every time he goes, he goes 100 per cent.

From the way things are being reported on the official site it looks as if Denilson will move to the right hand side and Alex Song will play in the middle alongside Cesc. It does leave us a bit unbalanced but we've often seen Arsene play a central player on the right of midfield. Cesc has done it, I remember a time when Gilberto was played out there quite a bit. 

Nevertheless the boss has been bigging up Theo, saying he's more advanced at his age than Lionel Messi was and that he's much stronger than he used to be. The comments about Messi will raise some eyebrows no doubt. The boss cites Theo's movement off the ball as being better than the Argentine but Messi is outrageously gifted with the ball which, I suppose, more than makes up for it. It's exciting to think that Theo might develop into a player as effective as Messi though. I'm a little wet thinking about that.

Both Cesc and Robin van Persie are available today and we need our strikers to step up. The form of Adebayor and van Persie has been somewhat patchy and we really need them, as two of the more experienced players in the team, to find their not just their shooting boots but their hard working boots too.

Three points are absolutely vital today, that almost goes without saying. As the manager says we've given ourselves a bit of a handicap in the race for the title and he knows we can't have any more slip-ups. Especially at home. As the Breakfast Club said we have to get right on track. And words of wisdom from the 80s don't come any more succinct than that.

Celtic's Peter Lawwell explains why he turned down the chance to become Arsenal's Chief Exec. I suppose as a Celtic fan it must be hard to think about leaving. I'd be more interested in hearing his explanation about why he feels the need for two Ws in his name though. Talk about ostentatious.  

The Mirror links us again with Welsh goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey. He currently plays for Wolves.

Right, well that's about that in terms of news. It's all about positive thinking and getting those three points on the board.

Till tomorrow.