After last season's exit from the Carling Cup at the hands of Spurs, where the scoreline was more painful than the actual result, expect a fierce response from the players when they welcome the same team to the Emirates Stadium. With Berbatov and Keane no longer at the White Hart Lane club, the Gunners should really just thump Spurs and make them eat humble pie. Even the appointment of the maverick Harry Redknapp should not be enough to prevent another loss on the cards for the clown act of the English football season.

Perhaps Adebayor and Bendtner can continue to put aside their reported differences and put on another double act on the pitch. The big guy came on on Sunday and changed the course of the game at Upton Park, a nice win for a change and credit must go to him. He took some stick for not scoring earlier this season but things are starting to look up for Ade again. If he can contain his growing ego and work even harder for the team, playing with either Bendtner or Van Persie will provide different but just as deadly options for us.

And either combination should also be enough to rip Spurs apart at the Emirates today. Wenger bless the guy will not probably bring up last season's humiliation, but he should. Gee up the boys and let them loose on the sorry troops from White Hart Lane. Smother the threat of Modric in the 'hole' and show Bentley that he was wrong to defect, even though he left us a long time ago. Champions League football with Spurs? Could have been better sitting on the bench with us. But credit to him for doing what he wanted to further his career.

The fans will be out in full force for the game. Hopefully some of the guys working late tonight can catch some live football online with Arsenal meeting Spurs. Staying in touch with Liverpool and Chelsea will be important, but with the former you know it will not be too tough as the season wears on. They seldom last more than half the season with a run before crumbling again under the weight of expectations. Arsenal might not have done much better but at least we might be much closer again this season.

Another week, more of the same. This time, it was "10 men behind the ball" Sunderland that frustrated us and left Arsene Wenger feeling more than a little hard done by. There were the usual "goal that should have been" complaints, and our old failings have been exposed again. It was obvious that they never really did go away, despite claims by Wenger that the kids were now physically tougher to balance their footballing talent.

Many of the players are simply not good enough to win anything, other than a trophy for eye catching football. Wenger must do more than getting his players to stick to a beautiful game philosophy, that having the mentality to kill off games would also be required if they wanted to end years of frustration and trophy-less woe.

We also cannot expect teams like Sunderland to allow us to play our football, or even try matching us on the field by passing it around instead of putting 10 men across their goalmouth to protect it. Some of the complaints and frustrations voiced by Wenger have bordered on the immature and naive, and he must be really losing it if he were to believe teams with limited resources and playing ability would try to beat us at our own game. Their priority is to survive and hang on in the English Premiership, not to please students of the game.

There are reasons to be optimistic about the result though, disappointing to say the least. At least the lads did not give up and managed to secure a point. But honestly, there isn't anyone, apart from Wenger, who seriously believes that we can still win the league this season. He could adopt a softer approach and just praise the players for their efforts after a good game, and not blow it out of proportion each time when that situation comes along, by telling every reporter in the room that we can still win the league. Or is Wenger trying to do a Mourinho now and deflect attention off his underperforming players?