We made the short trip to Upton Park yesterday to play West Ham in the league and after Liverpool had beaten Manure beforehand it was an ideal oppurtunity for us to put ourselves in a position to really challenge at the top of the league. Last season we rued dropped points against teams in the lower regions of the league and we hoped that it would be different this season but unfortunately we threw away 2 points along with a 2 goal lead.

The manager was able to name an unchanged team for the first time since August although that We started well and by half time we were 2-0 up coutesy of a tap in for RVP and a header from Gallas. At that stage I was very confident of us going on to win by even more but we somehow managed to hand them 2 goals from defensive errors. The free kick for the first goal should never have been awarded but when the free came in Don Vito should have pushed it away from the goal but instead he pushed it right into the centre of the goal and Cole reacted fastest to head home. Suddenly we didn't look so secure and West Ham got a penalty when Cole went down very easily under a challenge from Song. It was put away and West Ham were level much to my dismay. Right at the end I thought we had snatched a victory as a header from RVP seemed goalbound but Green saved it with his foot to deny us a victory that seemed certain at half time.

Unfortunately it would appear that the players thought the victory was certain as well and they let the game get away from them with some lazy play. We should have wrapped up the 3 points and these are the type of points that we will regret dropping in the long run. We could have been 1 point behind Manure with a game in hand and with far superior goal difference but instead only Chelsea and Liverpool managed to get a win with all the other challengers dropping points. It's dropped points like those that cost us dearly last season and for all the manager's talk of learning lessons afterwards it appears our players still need some time in the classroom. I hope that we don't end up regretting those 2 points that got away from us yesterday when the tophies are handed out at the end of the season.

From here we move on to a Carling Cup match at home to Liverpool on Wednesday night and I'm sure we will see a very different Arsenal team in that match as the manager gives the youths and reserves a run out. After that it's The Spuds on Saturday at The Emirates in an early kick off that is an absolute must win game for the fans and players. Lady Arse, EduardoIsInnocent & Garantia will all be at the game and I hope they have a great time and see a resounding victory for us. I'll be joining them all for the home game against Everton on January 9th hopefully although to the best of my knowledge the TV schedules for the new year are not set yet and that game could be switched to January 10th. That's it for today.

Here's the highlights from yesterday's game.

LINK 

And to finish today's title track from Suede which is self explanitory.

LINK

See You Tomorrow.

It's Tuesday morning and the international break drags on ad nauseum. How I wish it was over and we could get back to talking about real football fixtures and Arsenal's possible team to face Birmingham at The Emirates this Saturday afternoon. Instead we have to wait until tomorrow night's matches are over and hope that all of our players come back safe and sound. As I have said time and again it's very frustrating and with the hold FIFA and UEFA have on football I can only see it getting worse in the future.

The good news for today is that we have apparently bid our whole transfer kitty of €75 million for Messi and Barcelona are considering the offer as they feel it would be unfair to keep the player at the club as he is not a Catalan. They also are of the opinion that he would improve as a player if he were to play alongside Cesc and they now realise that the only way that will happen is if Messi joins us as we will not sell our captain to them. To be fair to Barcelona it's good of them not to stand in the way of the progress of a player who could become so much better with the right manager and the right players around him. I have it from an impeccable "source" that Messi is very keen on the move himself and it could happen as soon as January. 

We are also rumoured to be on the trail of Gokhan Inler again and a new name to emerge is Stefan Kiessling of Bayer Leverkusen who tops the scoring charts in Germany at the moment. Personally I think the boss is quite happy with his attacking options and he won't be buying a striker in January. We are also linked with a trio of Italian defenders as January creeps nearer and nearer. Firstly there's Angelo Ogbonna of Torino who is an under 21 international for Italy and then there's 2 defenders from Bari called Leonardo Bonucci & Andrea Ranocchia. With the money we have available we will be linked with anyone and everyone from now until January 31st but if we sign anyone I think it will be a defensive midfielder and no more.

The boss has said he is delighted with the form of Gallas and that he will talk to him about a new contract before the end of the year as his contract runs out next summer. He's delighted that the partnership with The Verminator has gelled so quickly and he thinks it's partly because Gallas is getting to play on the right side of central defence where he is more comfortable and partly because The Verminator has adapted so quickly. Between the two of them the centre of our defence looks stronger and they pose a very real goal scoring threat as well. That's it for another very quiet day. If there are any reports of Messi's agents being spotted at The Emirates you will see them first hopefully.

Here's a clip of the 2 goals Senderos scored for Switzerland on Saturday.

LINK

And to finish today's title track from New Model Army. We are supposedly in the hunt for just about any player with 2 legs because the boss hasn't spent the money he has available yet but the one we really want is Messi.

LINK

See You Tomorrow.

It's Monday morning and I'm a little late with my blog again today after a couple of drinks on a Sunday afternoon ended up in a round dozen and a very deep sleep. It appears that we will find out the full extent of Cesc's hamstring injury today with various reports stating that he will be available for Celtic on Wednesday night right up to he will be out for 3 weeks. I think we can cope without him on Wednesday night but I do hope that he is available for our trip to Manure on Saturday as we will definitely need him for that one.

The boss has spoken of how the team need to win a title at our new home to make the fans feel the history of the club has been transfered to The Emirates. He said that there was a lot of scepticism about the team before the season started but with our good start some of that has disappeared and those same people are now saying that we will see what happens when we go to Manure next weekend.

Arshavin has urged the club to buy some top class players before the transfer window closes regardless of their age as he believes our squad is too small at the moment and we will find it hard to cope with injuries and suspensions later. I agree with him wholeheartedly as I have said all along that we need at least 2 more players. It does look less and less likely by the day that we will sign anyone though. There is only 1 week left and the rumblings about potential targets have almost completely stopped. Quite a number of fans have remarked on how little we have seen from Arshavin so far this season and it does seem like he hasn't got going yet. Hopefully he can remedy that on Saturday. There is very little else to report today and I'm feeling just a tad tired so I'll leave it at that.

Here's a clip of how to score from a corner - Bergkamp style.

LINK

And to finish today's title track from Madness which is for Gallas as he was lucky that the referee got the decision not to award a free against him on Saturday and then send him off right. It could have led to a very different outcome and we might have had to see Silvestre playing on Saturday against Manure.

LINK

See You Tomorrow.

Good morning to everybody on a Sunday morning with Arsenal on top of the league again. That may not last too long as both Chelsea and the Spuds can overtake us if they get a point or more today but they will have played a game more. We have now played 2 league games and scored 10 goals so I think we can take it with an average of 5 goals a game we will end up scoring 190 league goals this season. Of course that will also mean that Gallas will end up with 38 league goals as will Cesc & Diaby but it also means we will concede 38 goals.

Back to reality and yesterday's match was again a good performance from Arsenal and despite the fact that we took our 4 goals very well we also could have had an awful lot more. The fact that Portsmouth managed to score too is not lost on me and the manner of the concession of that goal was a little bit worrying. I have never been Almunia's greatest fan and I thought that he should have won a ball that was 2 yards from the goal line but he waited for it instead of coming and claiming it. However, many people have said to me this season that the way we are attacking that we will score more than we concede. I'm not too sure that that theory will hold up over the whole season and I do think the defence looks a little stronger than last year. We are still susceptible to a ball straight down the middle as was proved on a few occasions yesterday but I do believe the inclusion of Song will help to cut that out as we didn't have a defensive midfielder in the side today.

The goals we scored yesterday were excellent in the main except for Gallas' goal which was the pick of the bunch The way he managed to flick the ball from his foot to his face to finish off the move was pure class and it was up there with the flick off his backside on Tuesday night. Our strikers may not be scoring at the moment with only 1 goal in 12 coming from them but the fact we have scored 12 goals already this season is the most important point. In particular I was very impressed with Eduardo and his intelligence on the ball. At times his play was exceptional and I am looking forward to him having a place in the team on a permanent basis.

In other news the youth team started their season with a 1-1 draw at Sheffield United with Roarie Deacon scoring Arsenal's goal. The boss spoke about the game yesterday and he isn't too bothered about about the lack of goals from the strikers so long as the team is scoring. He said that when the strikers start scoring it will be even better as we are scoring at the moment when they are not. From here we move on to Celtic at home on Wednesday and hopefully Cesc was brought off at half time today as a precaution and he will be OK for Wednesday night. If he can't make that game we really do need him for our 5.15 kick off next Saturday against Manure and I'll be looking forward to watching that in The Strand in Bray next week. That's it for today.

Here's the highlights from yesterday.

LINK

And to finish today's title track from Madness. The critics who have written us off this season can all "Shut Up".

LINK

See You Tomorrow.

It's Thursday already and our next game is only 2 days away. We play Portsmouth at home at the traditional time of 3 pm on Saturday afternoon. The bad news from my personal perspective is that the game wonn't be live on the TV in Ireland which means I won't be watching it in the local supporters' club. I'm sure I'll find some sort of stream on my computer and spend almost 2 hours straining my eyes to see if we can continue our fine start to the season against a team who don't have a point or even a goal to thier name yet this season.

After the 6 midweek games we find ourselves in 3rd place with only The Spuds and Chelsea ahead of us virtue of the fact that they've played a game more and have 3 more points as a result. We are still ahead of Manure after they were beaten by Burnley last night and it was blatantly obvious that they missed a certain diving cheater. The Spuds had a very good 5-1 win at Hull and the only consolation to be drawn from it is that they beat Phil Brown's team in the process. I was amazed in the Manure game last night that the referee saw Rooney's challenge that he got a yellow card for and chose to only give him a yellow card. It was a straight red card offence and the referee obviously chickened out. That directly affects us as a 3 game ban would have ruled him out of our trip to Old Trafford at the end of the month. When will referees be prepared to give Manure players like him the same treatment as other players?

In transfer speculation we supposed to have made a formal offer for PSV winger Balazs Dzsudzsak who is 22 years old and has an eye for goal with roughly 1 goal every third game. Hangeland has spoken prior to Fulham's Europa Cup qualifier about all the speculation regarding him leaving Fulham and he said he thought about it when it was all over the papers but all the indications now are that he will be going nowhere. Some people seem to think that we don't need to bring any players in as we have Song and Vermaelen playing so well but we will lose Song for 6-8 weeks at the turn of the year and there is no obvious replacement for him in our squad. We would be far better off improving the squad now as the injuries are mounting and it is looking very thin this early in the season. After Tuesday night's win we are 90% of the way towards qualification for the Champions League and if it's true we don't budget for this competition this adds a further £20 million to our already bulging transfer kitty.

Vermaelen, or The Verminator if you prefer, spoke on the club site and he said that the experience of Gallas is partly to thank for his promising start to his Arsenal career. He said that he is settling in very well and he likes the English way of football with it's atmosphere and desire. I have to say that their partnership seems to be blossoming and it's good to feel a little bit of confidence in our defence. That's it for today and I'll update the Fantasy Football tomorrow as they are still having issues with the amount of traffic on the site as it's popularity grows by the minute.

Here's a clip of a great goal from Bergkamp against Leicester.

LINK

And to finish today's title track from New Model Army. If this team can believe it we can really challenge for the league this season starting with a performance of the intensity of the last 2 games on Saturday.

LINK

See You Tomorrow.

It appears that we will be without Gallas for the rest of the season with a medial ligament injury picked up in the first half of the match against Villarreal on Tuesday night. It's a blow for us as he has being playing better since he was stripped of the captaincy and it leaves us with Djourou as his direct replacement and then after him it's Silvestre who is next in line. We have to hope that we don't get any more injuries in the centre of defence because as I have pointed out before our recent good defensive form has coincided with Silvestre's absence from the team with an injury. We have not conceded a goal at home in the Premier league this season which is not bad by our standards of earlier in the season.

I blame myself for his injury as I put him in my fantasy team last Saturday and I suffered the same fate with Cesc & Adebayor earlier in the season. I've tried putting top players from our opponents into my team but all they do is get me lots of points as I continue my quest to finish in the top 10,000 out of almost 2,000,000 teams.  In slightly better news Almunia thinks he might be able to play against Villarreal next Wednesday but if he can't I won't be too worried as I think Fabianski is a very good replacement. We have had a torrid time with injuries this season and just as it seemed we were getting all our players back we are losing players at a rate of knots. Hopefully we can get RVP & Diaby back for the weekend or even for Villarreal on Wednesday night.

Speaking of injured players it appears that Rosicky will be playing for the reserves tonight against The Spuds but I won't actually believe it until I see it. Ahead of the Villarreal game Adebayor says that last night's goal was his best but that it is of no use if we don't make it to the semi finals. If all goes well we could be in the final of the FA Cup and the semi final of the Champions league and have 4th spot more or less tied up within 10 days. That is a best case scenario and I'm sure even if we do manage it there will be numerous ups and downs in just those 3 matches. 

After last night it looks like Chelsea & Barcelona are more or less certain to meet in the semi final so if we can finish off Villarreal and then beat the winners of Porto/United(you can do it Porto) we could be on course to gain revenge over Barcelona. I can dream can't I.

Here's a clip of what Rosicky can do just in case you have forgotten.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z417NyyyVZs

And to finish today's title track from Tears For Fears for all of our injured players.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KJIzIZGXAc

See You Tomorrow.

The fallout from last night's FA Cup win against Hull cotinues unabated today. Appearently their assistant manager will be reporting Cesc to the league managers association for spitting at his feet. Cesc denies it completely and utterly and puts it down to Hull losing to a dodgy goal. Cesc also says he has never spat at anyone but there's a clip doing the rounds of him spitting at Ballack which in my opinion is perfectly allowable. I won't put that clip on here but he does seem to spit at him in it. There is no doubt the goal should have been disallowed but these things happen in football and it wasn't the first time and it won't be the last time that a referee or assistant has got it wrong. Look at the Diouf challenge on Almunia at the weekend and you will see how wrong a referee can get things. By issuing a yellow card it means the FA can take no further action against the player. Maybe we should report him to the league managers association for all the good it would do. Our boss also didn't shake hands with their manager after the game which I'm sure he had his reasons for and the least of them was probably that he's Big Fat Sam's lovechild. He is under no obligation to shake his hand but he probably should have done so as it just gives the begrudgers more ammunition. I have just read that he said that he went to shake hands but that there was nobody there. He said why should he wait for him and he has a point as we spent the whole night waiting for Hull as they wasted time at every oppurtunity.

As for the match itself. We didn't play well at all in the first half and we could have been further behind but we picked up the pace in the 2nd half and deserved our win in the end. RVP took his goal well after good work by Bendtner & Arshavin and the winner was offside in my opinion but the manager claims it wasn't as it hit the keeper last. He could be right. Their goal was deflected which left Fabianski with no chance at all but the best part of it all was that we managed to come from behind and get the victory which we have found it hard to do this season. Another replay would have made our run in even trickier. I didn't think any particular player was outstanding for us and a few had a bad game but as we're through to the next round that easily enough forgiven.

In other news our youngsters have the first leg of their FA Youth Cup semi final at Man City tonight and let's hope they can come away with a good result and set themselves up for the return leg. There are reports that Milan are after Clich and Inter are after Diaby. I am sure that neither of these players will be going anywher unless the boss decides to offload them. Finally for today I have added Hull to the list of teams I would like to see relegated. It now includes Blackburn, Hull & Stoke so that's all that I can fit onto it unless they change the rules. We have played Blackburn & Hull twice already and we have Stoke at home on the last day of the league season. It would be nice to send them back to where they came from as a final day present to the fans.

Here's a couple of clips of Paddy Vieira which I probably should have put up on Paddy's day but I didn't see that Boxofficefootball had suggested it to me until today. Thanks anyway.

http://www.boxofficefootball.com/blog/the-perfect-patrick-for-st-patricks-day-patrick-vieira/

And here's today's title track from Radiohead. The title is dedicated to Hull's manager and his paranoia. He is robotic in his reactions like his mentor and they can enjoy each others company in The Championship next season hopefully(if they don't get the sack).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szdWPWnnNls

See You Tomorrow.

Tonight's game at home to Roma is all about survival in my opinion. We have a much depleted squad and if we can get through tonight without conceding a goal I will be very happy. My prediction is 1-0 to us but to be honest I would take a 0-0 draw and hope we will have enough players back for the return leg in Rome to cause them some problems over there when they will really come at us. If we can manage that 1-0 win I have a sneaky feeling that Gallas might be the man to get the goal. Having said all that it will probably end up 4-2 to us and Gallas will be an unused sub.

The manager seems to think that Roma will fancy their chances and come at us and that it might be a good thing for us as we will get space to play in. I hope he is right but if they come at us they might punish us as we have a soft centre in midfield anyway. We will have to be careful of Totti dropping off and controlling the game for them. The boss has a lot more to say about Cesc, RVP, away goals in Europe, Julio Baptista & our exit to Liverpool last season in this competition and it's all to be seen on the official club site. Unfortunately I can't comment any more on it today as I'm in a big hurry work wise. I'm on my lunch break now but it's liable to be cut short at any time.

I'll be watching the game with the supporters club in The Strand in Bray tonight but as I'm driving I'll be drinking minerals only and I hope to post a review after the match when I get home so long as I don't decide to drown my sorrows if we lose. If anyone is going to the match I hope you have a good time and see a fantastic display of attacking football(by Arsenal) with a superb victory. If you're not lucky enough to be going enjoy the game anyway and keep the faith.

Here's a clip of how to win in Italy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omlMHRGBx1A

And to finish today's title track from Bob Marley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgP8Gah8c9A

The good news is that Arshavin is appearently going to sign for us today according to all and sundry. I know he's flying in from Dubai but the title comes from the fact that he's a Russian and appearently it's a bit chilly over there sometimes. I am at work at the moment and I am writing this as fast as I can off the top of my head on a very short break so pardon me if it's jibberish. Work has been so busy recently that it's hard to keep up with everything here on Oleole. I have a lot of blogs to catch up on and comments to post.

I have just seen our team for today and RVP & Djourou are both out. I can't believe that we are playing Kolo and Gallas against Carlton Cole. Has Wenger learned nothing from our mistakes of the past. As for RVP being out. If he's not injured(and I don't think he is) what the hell is Wenger playing at. He is our best player and inspiration at the moment and we need him on the pitch for every minute of every game. Without his goals and general play at the moment we are nothing special at all. I hope this doesn't backfire on the manager because a draw or a loss today would be a disaster and West Ham are playing very well at the moment. I hope they come out and play football but they didn't do that at home against us so I have my doubts today.

Finally today, as work calls, young Henri Lansbury has joined Scunthorpe United on a month's loan. We have so many players out on loan at the moment that it could effect our chances of winning the FA Youth Cup but I hope not. I do hope the month goes well for him as he is a very good prospect and unusually for Arsenal he's English.

If you didn't see my prediction yesterday I said we would win 1-0 and RVP would score. He will have to do it from the bench if I am to be proved right. At least Song isn't playing though.

Here's a clip of Nasri who will be very important today with RVP out.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=lAO9Pp-iko8

And to finish the title track from the late, great Bob Marley(he had better join us now as I was saving this title for him for the last month).

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=lAO9Pp-iko8

See You Tomorrow.

Last night I ended up being happy with a point from a game that we needed 3 points in. We were very poor throughout virtually the whole game and RVP's equaliser only papers over the rather large cracks. He has become our saviour since Cesc got injured and if anything were to happen to him right now I think our season could implode entirely. Besides RVP not too many other players excelled themselves although I thought Gallas had a fairly good game for the most part. Sagna was subbbed during the second half and I hope he isn't injured. The starting team was more or less what we expected with Gallas in for Toure for some strange reason and Denilson, Diaby & Song in midfield alongside Nasri. Does the boss really think that we can win the Premier league with that midfield.

He said yesterday that we are in a healthy position in the league, Champions league and FA Cup and we are contenders in all 3. Does he still think we can win the league today with a 5 point gap to the cherished 4th place never mind United being 8 points clear with a game in hand on us and 11 clean sheets in a row. As I have said from the close of the transfer window in August we have to try for 4th place and also aim for the FA Cup. That 4th spot is looking more and more difficult by the week. I know we are unbeaten in 9 league games but we are still totally unconvincing when we play. We have a tough game at home to West Ham on Saturday as they are playing very well at the moment and we then have Cardiff 3 days later in our FA Cup replay. These are 2 more must win games for us but I really don't know if we can do it.

The boss said a few weeks ago that other teams have survived not qualifying for the Champions League such as Milan and Bayern and it really looks like he is setting us up for impending massive disappointment. I think has been fantastic for us over the last 12 or 13 years but I am questioning him this season more than all the others put together. Some of our players are not good enough and some more look like they don't care about the plight of the club at all. Forinstance Adebayor seems totally disinterested at the moment. He makes statements in the press about needing to believe and so on but he barely tries a leg at times on the pitch. We all know who the players who aren't good enough are but they seem to be favourites and they play week in and week out regardless.

In other news the boss has appearently said that the Arshavin deal is 90% done but I have serious doubts at this stage. I think we are playing hardball with him and Zenit over price and wages and I think it will backfire but hopefully I am wrong. It has been reprted that Theo will sign a new long term contract soon and that is just about the only good news today. I'll leave it at that and I hope against hope that things will improve from here on in.

Here's the goals from last night with thanks to Boxofficefootball again.

http://www.boxofficefootball.com/ukbox/football-update/everton-1-0-arsenal-premiership-highlights/

And to finish the title track which is in honour of the player we all thought was another sicknote but is proving to be our saviour at the moment(it's from The Stone Roses).

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=e6QnK0yql8s&feature=related