This time next week we'll be waiting anxiously for news of all our players who have played either 1 or 2 games for their countries and hoping that they have all come through them intact. I'll know if Ireland have managed to overcome the odds and qualify for the World Cup by beating France over 2 legs no matter how unlikely that may seem. I read a statistic that France had 47 players playing in the last round of Champions league games and Ireland had John O'Shea and no body else. To be honest I have some interest in the games and I will watch the Saturday night match with a few beers but if they don't make it I won't be too upset. The up side of Ireland qualifying would be a summer off for Clichy, Sagna, Gallas(if he stays with us), Diaby and Nasri and it would mean we have some important players properly rested unlike players who have been to the World Cup.

One player who will be at the World Cup is Cesc and he has won the club's player of the month award for October with RVP coming in second and Song third. The form shown by those 3 players combined with The Verminator and Gallas has been the backbone of our team so far this season and hopefully it will continue right up to the end of the season. Another player on his way to South Africa is Bendtner who apparently has a 5 year plan for world domination which includes becoming 1 of the best strikers in the world and scoring 25 goals in a season for Arsenal. It also includes making himself a permanent fixture in the Arsenal team and he has started a high percentage of games this season when he has been fit but I wouldn't say that he would be part of our ideal starting 11. He does add a certain physicality and ariel ability when he is in the team that we are sometimes missing without him but his touch isn't quite at the level of the very best players we have in my opinion. I don't doubt his workrate or his committment but I think he looks lost on the right wing at times.

The meaning of Eduardo's message on his t-shirt on Saturday has been revealed to be about gang warfare in his old neighbourhood in Brazil and he was lucky the referee didn't book him at the time as that sort of celebration is supposed to be an automatic yellow card. Young Jack Wilshere(he will always be young to me as my son is older than him) has spoken about his hope to be fit for the Man City game in the Carling Cup on December 2nd and how it was frustrating to miss the Liverpool game because of his injury. He hopes City play a full team and he thinks we can beat them and that the competition will be wide open and we can go all the way and win it. Our ladies managed a 2-0 win at home to Sparta Prague in their last 16 game in the ladies Champions league which gave them a 5-0 aggregate victory. They will learn who their opponents in the last 8 will be when the draw is made on Friday.

Finally for today as promised I'll have a brief look at the fantasy football standings and how I'm doing in my own Oleole leagues as well as a few other ones. My overall position is 12,613 out of over 2.1 million teams which isn't too bad but I'm hoping to improve. If I'm going to improve I'll have to catch IAWWT first as he currently stands 17 points and 7,00 places ahead of me. I'm third in the Oleole league with IAWWT 2nd and Football Guy's friend Amer still 1st as he has been from day 1. He's 34 points ahead of me and in the top 2,000 overall but I am catching slowly but surely. I'm back on top of the Oleole head to head league with 11 wins in 12 matches but IAWWT is breathing down my neck with 10 wins and 1 draw so he is only 2 points behind. A narrow victory over Lady arse last week helped me to regain top spot as the previous leader(my wife) slipped to a heavy defeat. Speaking of Lady arse I'm currently 3rd in her league too and IAWWT is at the summit of that. I think if I manage to pass him I'll be well on the way to my best finish ever. Tomorrow I'll give my updates on what players are doing well and what ones aren't and my tips for transfers and tactics over the coming weeks. That's it for today.

Here's a bit of Bendtner doing what he does best.

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And to finish today's title track from The Ramones. I Wanna live a normal life again and that will only happen when the interlull is over.

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See You Tomorrow.

The interlull continues today at an ever decreasing pace as the amount of news to report begins to lessen by the hour. What we are going to do for the next week and a bit is anybody's guess but at least it takes up 2 weeks of November which has been a bad month for us at certain times in the past. It means we have only 3 games left in November and with 2 wins under our belt already we are off to a very good start. After the interlull we have a tough trip to Sunderland in the league, with Liege following the Champions league and then Chelsea pay a visit to us in the league to finish off the month. That game is already being built up as a huge game for us as we look to keep Chelsea in our sights this early in the season. At times they have looked very good but in their defeat at Wigan they were very poor and when they lost to Villa they were poor also but they were thwarted by a great performance by Brad Friedel also. He's a goalkeeper that I have always rated and I wish we had signed him a few years ago as I think he's far better than our current options in that position.

The boss spoke about our trials in November in the past and he said that a lot of it was down to injuries which tend to kick in at this stage of the season. This season the injuries have been there from day 1 and his hope is that the interlull will improve matters if all our players come back in good shape and a few of the injured players come back into the squad at their projected return dates. We'll see what team we're able to put out against Sunderland on Saturday week and who is sitting on our bench that afternoon too. Maybe it will be a pointer to how the rest of the season will go. We should have won our game away to them last season but in the end we were rescued by an injury time header from a corner by Cesc.

Nicklas Bendtner has been voted the Danish player of 2009 and he also won the award for the best goal for his country in 2009 when he scored against Portugal for Denmark to help them on the way to the World Cup. The news on his groin injury is that he has undergone his surgery and he will be out for 3-4 weeks according to the club. With our record that could of course mean anything from 3 weeks to 3 months but hopefully it will be the former. Speaking of Nicks the author of my favourite football book ever, Nick Hornby, has said that Arsenal fans are spoiled by the success that the boss has brought to the club and he has a point. We have seen and are seeing the best football that I can remember in my 39 years of supporting Arsenal and during that time there have been far worse barren spells without trophies. We won trophies for a long time while opponents fans sang "boring, boring Arsenal" and they were justified in singing that. At the moment we are widely recognised as the best footballing team in Europe and despite the high prices to get in to The Emirates I don't think that we aren't getting value for money. Of course it would be great to add a trophy to that football and at the moment it looks like we are really close to doing that and if we continue to play the way we are now I genuinely believe we will end that drought this season. That's it for today. I will write about the current state of the fantasy football tomorrow and maybe preview the upcoming games and choice of players to put in your teams.

Here's a clip of the goal Bendtner scored against Portugal.

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And to finish today's title track from Morrissey. November has been the month that has spawned the monster of failure for us in the past but hopefully it will be different this season.

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See You Tomorrow.

We have officially entered the interlull and for the next 11 days the amount of club football news available will be at a premium as we all search for a few scraps of information on our beloved Arsenal to report. I will attempt to make this time as interesting as possible for anyone brave enough to keep reading as I run through our season so far and all the current standings in the fantasy football. I'll also keep an eye on our players as they ply their trade for their countries and we all hope that they come back in 1 piece.

Speaking of our players we have 15 of them away on international duty although only 5 of those players have truly competitive games to play as they attempt to qualify for the World cup. The other 10 have friendlies or in the case of Eboue they are playing a qualifier having already made it to the finals. If it wasn't for our glut of injuries we would have a lot more players away this week but I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Anyway it would seem that Wacott, Wilshere & Fabianski will be back when the interlull is over and Denilson and Clichy should follow soon afterwards. Bendtner however looks like he will have to have an operation on his groin injury and the length of his absence isn't certain yet. I can't find anything telling me how long Vela will be out and he isn't reported as being away with his country on the club site either. Is it just me or is he fast becoming the forgotten man at Arsenal.

Our captain has spoken about the players' fear of our fantastic goalscoring run coming to an end at some stage and he says that the fear of that is what is keeping the players focussed as they know they must keep it up to win the title that they want. A lot has been made of all the goals we're scoring at the moment and how they are being shared around the team. It is great that we have a threat from almost any player in the team(with the possible exception of the goalkeeper and the full backs) and it makes it harder for our opponents to defend against us. No team has ever scored 100 Premier league goals since it's inception in 1992 but at our current rate we will blow that completely away. However as our captain says that could dry up as it did last winter when we had that terrible run of 0-0 draws in a row but we were missing him at the time and playing without any confidence.

There's plenty of talk about Darren Fletcher saying that our boss has made him a marked man by referees and his manager is again blaming referees on their defeat to Chelsea. It's funny that Manure are a little upset by losing 2nd spot in the league to us and in my opinion Fletcher is getting what he deserves. How he ever got away with the challenge on Arshavin at Old Trafford without giving away a penalty is still a mystery to me and I'm sure any referee who saw it will have taken note of it and also his miopic manager claiming it was a fair tackle afterwards. They may have had some decisions go against them recently but these things tend to balance out over a season and we haven't had a penalty, that I know of, since Eduardo's "dive" against Celtic but I don't hear our manager complaining. As long as Manure continue to fade we will hear more and more from their manager complaining about all and sundry. Long may it continue. That's it for today.

Here's a little bit of our Russian maestro.

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And to finish today's title track from The Cure. No matter how many goals we score it's never enough as I always want more.

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See You Tomorrow.

The unbridled joy after our win against The Spuds on Saturday has subsided a little this morning as the harsh reality of returning to work after having had 3 days off sets in. With our position as North London's number 1 club no longer in any doubt(not that any Arsenal fans doubted it anyway) we can now forget about The Spuds and concentrate on a week that could be very important for us.

First up we have AZ at home on Wednesday night in our Champions league group and a win in that game will mean that they cannot catch us in the group. Olympiacos travel to Liege on the same night and it's a win win situation for us if we can beat AZ. If Olympiakos win or draw we will have qualified but if Liege win we will only need a point at home to them in our next game to qualify and a win in that game would win us the group. After that we travel to Wolverhampton for an evening kick off next Saturday in a game that will see us go 2nd in the league if we win. With the 2 teams ahead of us playing each other on Sunday afternoon it means we will make up ground on 1 or both of them if we can beat Wolves. In fact if Chelsea win it will mean that a we would keep 2nd place ahead of Manure with a game in hand and Chelsea would have a 5 point lead over us with us having that game in hand too.

A few weeks ago I said that 4 wins in a row would have us on top of the table as the next international break kicked in and we have got 2 wins and a draw in the first 3 of those games. A win at Wolves will make it 10 points out of 12 and with all 12 points our worst possible position would have been 3 points behind Chelsea with that game in hand. That draw at West Ham and the manner in which we threw away the 2 points really grates but after Saturday we look to have put it behind us.

So as you can see 2 wins this week will leave us in a real healthy position going into that dreaded interlull and I fully expect us to go out and get those wins. Our ladies beat Keynsham 4-0 yesterday to reach the semi final of the Premier league Cup and continue yet another great start to their season. The reserves have a home match against Portsmouth tonight at 7 and our youths lost 3-1 at West Ham on Saturday with our goal coming from Chuks Aneke. The Carling Cup quarter final trip to Man City has been set for Tuesday December 1st and as of yet it is not scheudled for TV although that might change. As far as I know the TV companies have not picked their live matches for the new year yet but as we're in November I would imagine they will have to do it very soon. I certainly hope so because I want to go to the Everton match which is set for Saturday January 9th but having seen the other fixtures that weekend I have a horrible feeling that our game might be switched to the Sunday. I can still go but the sooner I find out the better as the flights are so cheap at the moment.

On the injury front it seems that Bendtner will be out for at least a month with the groin injury he picked up on Saturday and we are now on top of the physio room injury league table with 9 players out at the moment. Of those 9 players 4 of them are listed as being down for a return next Saturday and we could certainly do with Rosicky in the squad at the moment to put some pressure on Diaby who didn't have the best of games at the weekend. The other 3 due back are Wilshere, Vela and Traore and they will at least increase the options the boss has for the trip to Wolves. Finally for today I read an article yesterday that said the reason that Almunia was out for so long was due to a family tragedy and if it's true my sympathies go out to him and his family. These things can be very hard to cope with and if it effected him a lot the boss was right to wait until he was ready to return. It certainly makes more sense than the "chest infection" story. That's the lot for today.

Here's the highlights from Saturday's victory as I only showed the goals yesterday.

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And here's today's title track from Jah Lion. The boss commented on all of The Spuds claims about being our equals or even betters in some cases by saying that the talking would be done on the pitch and he showed that he was the one with the wisdom and they were full of hot air as we suspected.

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See You Tomorrow.

We played Liverpool last night in the last 16 of the Carling Cup at The Emirates and it was a very enjoyable match to watch. The boss went with the expected team more or less with the inclusion of Eastmond the only real surprise. We played some very good football at times and the new system seemed to suit Nasri very well. He seemed to be at the heart of everything that we did throughout the game and he lasted very well considering that he had only played an hour of football before last night.

To be fair to Liverpool they played with 10 different players from their team on Sunday and we went 1 better by playing a completely different team. In the first half our 2 full backs looked a little lost at times and Gibbs in particular seemed to be caught out of position a lot but in the 2nd half they managed to up their game and Gilbert got in some very good tackles and interceptions with Gibbs also improving. Senderos had a fairly solid game with 1 or 2 lapses and to be fair to Silvestre he had a good game. Fabianski got his first game of the season and despite some good takes on some crosses he was still reluctant to come off his line too often and his kicking of back passes was not great either. In midfield I already mentioned that Nasri had a very good game in my opinion and Ramsey did quite well although he was careless in possession a few times. Eastmond played the holding role and he had a good game before coming off near the end looking absolutely knackered. Merida played well enough too although I would have liked to have seen him do a little more on the ball. He took his goal really well and he has a lot more to offer in the future I'm sure. Eduardo looked lively throughout and it would have been nice for him to mark his comeback with a goal but unfortunately he never really got any of the clearcut chances that fell to others. Bendtner had a very odd game as his passing at times was awful and he completely switched off as Liverpool equalised but he made up for it by taking his goal very well.

Early on there were chances at both ends ad Degen missed from 10 yards out for Liverpool and Bendtner from even nearer for us after some very intricate play. Our opening goal came when Eastmond won a tackle just outside the Liverpool box and the ball ran to Merida who buried it from the angle of the box on the right side into the top corner of the net on the keeper's near post. It was a great goal and I hoped that it would spur us on to more but Liverpool came into the game a lot more after that. A high ball was played to Babel who headed it back to Insua as Bendtner daydreamed and he ran forward and buried a fine shot over Fabianski to even things up. It stayed that way until half time and as the teams came off I was looking forward to more of the same.

In the second half Arsenal continued their good attacking play along with their sometimes nervous defending and eventually we retook the lead when Bendtner took a ball off Ramsey's foot in the box and turned and fired it into the roof of the net. As the game wore on Liverpool brought on Benayoun and Aqualaini to try to salvage something and they put us under a lot of pressure. At times we tried to over complicate things in defence when we should have cleared the ball but tried to be too clever. There was a good shout for handball against Senderos late on as he blocked a shot with his hands but it did seem like ball to hand to me. We brought on Randall, Watt and Coquelin for Eastmond, Bendtner and Merida in the second half and we managed to take the ball into the  corners to run the clock out which was thouroughly professional if a little unArsenal like.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable game in which Liverpool played their part and our youngsters now face a quarter final tie against one of Chelsea, Manure, The Spuds, Aston Villa, Man City, Blackburn or Portsmouth. It's unusual to see all Premier league clubs only in the Carling Cup at this stage but it appears that the competition is being taken a little more seriously this season. I would imagine the quarter final draw will be on Saturday on Sky as usual and it means our rearranged league game against Bolton on December 2nd will have to be rearranged again.

Ahead of our Saturday lunchtime game against The Spuds Robbie Keane has been claiming that they have a better squad than us. I wondered to myself if they have any world class players in their squad and I realised that they don't but we have Cesc, Arshavin & RVP who are all far too good for them. We also have Gallas, The Verminator, Rosicky, Theo, Nasri & Eduardo who would all walk into thir team. He can talk all he wants about how good he thinks they are but our players will do the talking at 12.45 on Saturday as we put them in their place as also rans in the race for the league title and the bragging rights in North London. That's it for today.

Here's the goals from last night.

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And to finish today's title track from The Smiths which is for Robbie Keane and his big mouth.

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See You Tomorrow.

It's Saturday morning again and the start of a long weekend here in rainy Dublin. I had to work until 7 last night and played football at 7.30 which was no mean feat as I had to travel 7 or 8 miles and collect 2 people on the way. We were a little late starting but that doesn't make much difference usually as there is no one playing after us and we can play on until 9 if we like which we always do. Much to our surprise at 8.30 we had to leave the hall as 10 basketball players appeared from nowhere and our game was over. It left us all with a very strange feeling of not having finished what we had started. Needless to say from here on in I will make sure that everybody is there well before the appointed time and we get full value for our money.

Anyway that's enough about my petty trials and I'll get down to the important business of Arsenal and all that is happening in the world of Arsenal. Unfortunately there isn't too much to report before we play West Ham tomorrow at the unusual time of 4.15. I haven't made any plans yet but I imagine that I will be watching the game in The Strand in Bray as per usual with my fellow Wicklow Gooners. The club have said that Eduardo will be available again after his injury as will Senderos as well probably but Rosicky won't make it and a decision on Bendtner will be made after training today. The real dilemna for the boss is in between the sticks as he has Almunia, Fabianski & Don Vito all fit and raring to go but only 1 of them can play and 1 more can sit on the bench. That means that we will have 1 very unhappy goalkeeper sitting in the stands and knowing that he will probably play against Liverpool in the Carling Cup next week but wanting to be in the first team squad. In my opinion he will stick with Don Vito and Almunia will warm the bench again with Fabianski starting on Wednesday night. I'll preview that game on Wednesday morning and I'll preview tomorrow's game tomorrow morning when there will hopefully be a little more to report. Finally for today Henri Lansbury bagged himself a brace of goals for Watford last night in a 4-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday. That's the lot for today.

Here's a little tribute to Eboue.

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And to finish today's title track from Bob Marley. Time will tell who our best keeper is but personally I'd prefer a new keeper to arrive in January who is genuinely world class.

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See You Tomorrow.

There was an awful lot written yesterday about the 13 years the boss has been in charge at Arsenal and most of it was very complimentary but there were  a few people out there who couldn't resist having a go. I was on Twitter last night and somebody linked an article about Arsenal and when I opened it I found it was by Myles Palmer on Arsenal News Review. It's a site I used to quite enjoy reading even if I didn't always agree with his opinions but somewhere around a year or so ago he appeared to lose the plot and now I don't even consider reading what he has to say. It was actually amusing to see how anti Wenger he appears to have become and I now know that I have missed absolutely nothing of any interest whatsoever.

Ahead of our match with Blackburn on Sunday we found out yesterday that Theo and Bendtner will both be available again but Eduardo has had a slight recurrance of his thigh muscle injury and he will be out for a couple of weeks. He was risked when he came on as a sub on Tuesday night and that risk backfired although he did create the opening goal so it may well have paid off in fact. I wonder will he be available for his country over the next 2 weeks as we face another international break. Ahead of that break the boss said that we should see both Nasri and Fabianski very soon afterwards and that's very good news indeed. Almunia will be assessed today but the boss doesn't think he will be quite ready to face Blackburn and we should see him after the break again. Can somebody please tell me what was wrong with him as I have heard he had a chest infection among other things. I think 3 weeks is a very long time for a player to be out with a chest infection although I do realise that Arsenal players seem to recover slower than players at other clubs.

I'm sure the boss will have a lot to say today about our match on Sunday and our opponents too. If I recall correctly we have beaten them quite easily in recent seasons and of course it's always nice to put a few more goals past ex Spud Paul Robinson. I think he has conceded something like 450 goals against us in his career so far and long may it continue. It would be nice to give Big Fat Sam another stuffing too but luckly we won't have a game for 2 weeks afterwards as our players are bound to be kicked up and down the pitch and the standard of refereeing this season has been awful in the Premier league.

Thierry Henry said yesterday that he still loves Arsenal and he will come back one day as he feels he belongs with us. He would like to return to work with the boss and I'm sure all of us fans would love to see him back too although I'm not quite sure what role he would fill. A team mate of his at Barcelona, Xavi, has said that he would love Cesc to join him over there as he is a footballer with Barcelona DNA. They didn't think that when they let his contract run out in 2003 before he joined us and in my opinion the DNA here stands for "do not appreciate" as in we do not appreciate their continued statements about our captain. With all the money we have available(it must be at least £70 million) we should start asking about their players just to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Henry could show any player how to act towards a previous club and speaking of which it emerged yesterday that he who shall remain nameless got a 2 game suspended ban and a £25,000 fine for his goal celebration atgainst us last month. I hope that's the end of it but I suspect we might hear a bit more from his big mouth prior to their trip to The Emirates in April. That's the lot for today and I'll preview the Blackburn tomorrow I suppose or maybe even on Sunday. By the way I have just realised that we have 5 games in 15 days after the international break and that certainly will keep things busy here.

Here's a clip of 1 of my favourite moments under Arsene Wenger as Leahmann saved a last minute penalty against Villarreal to put us into the CL final in 2006.

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And to finish today's title track from New Model Army. As the saying goes "No pain, No gain" and we have certainly had the pain with all the injuries so it's time for the gain now.

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See You Tomorrow.

The club announced record profits for the year ending 31st May 2009 yesterday. The profit of £35.2 million was accumulated in a year when we bought Arshavin for a reported fee of £20 million and the boss has said that he is very happy with it. If you consider that we have made a profit of another £30 million at least on transfers since than it shows you how much money is available to the boss to improve the team if he wants to. However, he has made it blatantly obvious that he is happy with the squad he has at the momentand he doesn't see the need to spend any of that lovely lucre. I still think we could do with another defensive midfielder in January and I'm also a little concerned at our goalkeeping situation but that does seem to be improving at the moment.

We play Olympiacos tonight in our second game in our Champions league group and it appears that our injury jinx has struck again. Denilson has been ruled out for 2 months with a small fracture in his back and Bendtner was involved in a minor car crash on Sunday and he won't be risked tonight. Theo won't play either as he lacks match fitness but the boss intends remedying that before Sunday and he should be available for that game as should Bendtner too. Thankfully Eduardo will be available and hopefully he will feature in the starting 11.

The goalkeeper and defence pick themselves and Cesc and Song are bound to play in midfield. I would like to see Rosicky alongside Cesc with RVP, Arshavin & Eduardo up front but I have a bad feeling that Diaby will get a game from the start. Olympiacos have Olaf Mellberg and Matt Derbyshire in their team and they have had a good start to the Greek league as they are in 2nd place with 13 points from 5 games. Greek teams are notoriously bad away from home in the Champions league and if we can press them from the first minute we should be able to win and win well. I'm predicting a 3-0 win for us as we set ourselves up to win the group. Tonight is the first of 3 home games in a row for us and 3 wins would be absolutely fantastic and with Blackburn & Birmingham to come in the league we are well capable of it.

Our Carling Cup 4th round match at home to Liverpool has been confirmed for Wednesday October 28th and not the day before as previously announced. Our ladies started their league campaign on Sunday with a 1-0 win at Birmingham. Our youth team won 4-2 at Fulham on Saturday with 3 goals from Afobe and the other from Garantia's new favourite Ozyakup. Spain's under 20s beat Nigeria 2-0 at the under 20 World Cup with both goals coming from Fran Merida.

The match is live on the TV tonight and I would love to be in The Strand in Bray watching it with my fellow Wicklow Gunners but I have to go to yet another family wedding. My uncle is getting married tomorrow evening and it looks like the meal will be during the Arsenal match so I'll be lucky to see any of it. It's in a very posh hotel so the chances are that the bar won't even have a TV with the football on which means I'll be relying on my phone to keep me up to date via Twitter. To make matters worse my uncle is an Arsenal fan as he went to college in London in the 70s and he sent me over a lot of arsenal programmes at the time.

Finally for today the boss becomes our longest serving manager ever this week and he has spoken about how the club appointed him in the first place. He said they were probably crazy to do so but he then qualified that by saying they were more brave than crazy. He was interviewed for the job a year earlier when it went to Bruce Rioch and he reckons the highlight of his time at Arsenal so far was the unbeaten season of 2003/04 and I wouldn't dare to argue with that.

Here's the highlights of our game in Liege 2 weeks ago.

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And to finish today's title track from Space which i put together myself. We made a record profit in the last year but the boss is resisting the temptation to spend it.

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See You Tomorrow.

Well my prediction for last night's game went out the window before I had even made myself comfortable on the sofa to watch the game. Arsenal were caught like a rabbit in the headlights and found themselves 2-0 inside 5 minutes after two defensive blunders. First of all Song put the ball out for a corner under no pressure as he seemed unsure of letting it run through to Mannone and when the corner was cleared Eduardo inexplicably back heeled it just outside our box and a Liege player pounced on the loose ball. As he closed in on the Arsenal box nobody closed him down and he shot low into the corner on the keeper's near post. In hindsight Mannone should have covered that post but he took one step in the wrong direction and was beaten by a well placed shot. However he could also have expected a little more protection from the players in front of him.

After such a disasterous start we needed to get a foothold in the game and the only way to do that was to get our passing game going and concentrate hard to ensure there were no more stupid mistakes. However Eboue managed to miscontrol a pass on the halfway line and as Standard charged forward we retreated to the penalty area. The Standard player ran towards the penalty area and as he turned inside Gallas he was upended by a sliding foot from Gallas right on the line of the penalty area. It was impossible to tell if he was in or out of the area but the referee gave the penalty and it looked right at first as the player fell into the area. We were a little unfortunate to concede the penalty but that's the way our luck has been going recently. The Standard player got up and stroked the ball into the corner of the net to make it 2-0 and Mannone picked the ball out of the net for the second time with only his second touch of the night.  

After that we struggled to play any sort of cohesive football for the rest of the first half and the delivery from our free kicks and corners was very poor at best. It was starting to look very dodgy as the only Arsenal players on the pitch that were playing well were Vermaelen and Rosicky. All that changed in the last minute of the first half when Diaby eventually did something good. He turned on the halfway line and beat his man and sprinted forward with the ball. As he reached Standard's penalty area he played the ball into the right hand channel for Bendtner who did very well to hold off the defender and turn and shoot between the keeper's legs from a tight angle and in to the far corner. Suddenly we had a lifeline and the complexion of the game had changed completely.

The second half began much like the first had as Arsenal were slow out of the blocks and Standard almost scored again. However by this stage Mannone had grown a little in confidence after the 2 early goals and some dodgy kicking and he dealt pretty well with anything that came his way. He managed to control his penalty area far better than I have seen Almunia do in recent games and Arsenal gradually started to gain control. We had a few half chances but as the clock ticked towards 80 minutes it was starting to look like Standard's defending was going to pay dividends.

We got a free kick on the left as Eduardo was held back and Cesc floated the ball towards the far post. Eduardo tried to head it but missed and the ball carried through to Song at the far post who looked a mile offside but as it turns out he wasn't. However he did stop the ball with his arm before poking it across the goal for The Verminator to stab it home from 1 foot out. We must have had 5 players in the six yard box when the ball went into the net and it was obvious that the players wanted to get a result even if they were playing very badly.

Suddenly the pendulum had swung in our favour and Standard were all at sea. We won a corner on the left and as the ball came into the six yard box from the corner two Standard players failed to cut it out at the near post and Eduardo somehow managed to get a knee to the ball and divert it into the goal. You could see the relief on the players' faces and we only had 9 minutes left to defend our lead. Ramsey was on at this stage for Rosicky and Sagna was on for Eboue and we Ramsey won the ball just inside their half and surged forward. If he had played the pass to Bendtner a little softer or if Bendtner had trusted his left foot enough to try to trap the ball on it we might have gone 4-2 up but neither thing happened. Standard tried to throw everything forward at as the end approached and Clichy made a fantastic tackle just before the end to stop what looked like it might be an equaliser. It might well have been the only good thing he did all night as he had another nightmare. He wasn't the only one though as passes were misplaced and possession given away all night.

However, we got the away win we wanted and a lot of drama with it too and we brought our losing streak to an end even if we were very lucky to do so. My prediction was a 3-0 win for Arsenal with Eduardo getting on the scoresheet and if it wasn't for the first 5 minutes I had it exactly right. The plusses on the night were the performances of Rosicky and Vermaelen and also Mannone after his uncertain start. Bendtner said he would score if he was played in the central position and he lived up to his own billing which is another plus for us. On the negative side Clichy looked very poor yet again and Song seems to have lost the intensity he had at the start of the season. Gallas had a dodgy night too and I couldn't understand how Eboue was in the team ahead of Sagna. Diaby was at his frustrating worst at times and we again gave away 2 goals rather than having the opposition make them.

From here we move on to a home league game against Wigan at the weekend and we should have RVP and denilson available again. We have to get our tempo and concentration going from the kick off as we need to get some Premier league wins under our belt after 2 straight defeats. I'll be watching the match with the Wicklow Gunners in The Strand in Bray as it's live on Setanta and I'll be looking forward to it as I couldn't make it last night as I'm still unwell. I am feeling a lot better today and I'm sure I will be up to a beer or 2 by Saturday afternoon. My sister and her boyfriend will be over from Dubai and they're both Arsenal supporters and they intend coming to the supporters club with me. I'll have to be on my best behaviour as he's a season ticket holder at The Emirates and you never know when that might come in handy. That's the lot for today.

Here's the highlights from last night.

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And to finish here's today's title track from Radiohead and it was used because we were lucky to get out of the hole we had dug ourselves.

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See You Tomorrow.

ps Happy Birthday to my yougest son Sam who is 14 today(enjoy the chocolate cake).

The international break is over at last and now we can get back to another month of real football before we break for internationals again. In that time we have 7 matches in 23 days starting with our trip to Man City on Saturday and finishing with a home game against Blackburn in the league on Sunday October 4th. In between there are league games at home to Wigan and away to Fulham, Champions league games away to Standard Liege and at home to Olympiacos and a chance for the kids in the Carling Cup at home to West Brom.

These are all games that are winnable for us if we can keep our momentum from the first 5 games going and the defeat to Manure has not affected us. I think the manner in which we played at Old Trafford will stand to the team as we were by far the better team and we were missing our captain and star player. With so many games in quick succession it is important that we get as many players as possible back from injury and to that end it was good to see Rosicky played almost an hour for his country last night in a 7-0 win over San Marino. Cesc also started for Spain and he got their first goal in a 3-0 win. Bendtner managed to get on the scoresheet again for Denmark as they drew 1-1, with Eduardo netting Croatia's consolation goal in their 5-1 defeat against England. As of yet there are no reports of any of our players being injured and I'll keep my fingers crossed that it remains that way. Theo and Nasri were reported to be training this week and Vela and Fabianski can't be too far away either and all 4 of them would be very welcome additions to the squad. If we can get them all back it will leave Djourou as our only long term absentee and the chances are we won't see him again this season even though there has been no official word from the club yet.

With the players coming back to the club today after their various trips around the globe the manager will assess their bumps and bruises before he gives his customary press conference on Friday. In that I would imagine he will tell us the situation with Djourou and also update us on the return dates for our injured players. Some of our players have done very well for their countries this week with Bendtner getting 2 goals and RVP, Cesc, Eduardo & Ramsey all managing 1 goal each. Let's hope they can continue that form against City on Saturday as we show Adebarndoor the difference between a football team and a team of mercaneries. That's it for today as there is still very little to report.

Here's a clip to prove that class is permanent as Denis Bergkamp scores for Ajax seniors(thanks LA).

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And to finish here's today's title track from New Model Army. Today is a good day as the international break is over. Let's hope it stays that way and we get all our players back in 1 piece.

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See You Tomorrow.