We travel to Alkmaar tonight with the news that Theo is out for 3-4 weeks and Rosicky is out for tonight at least but he should be back for the weekend trip to West Ham on Sunday. The boss has to make changes to the team yet again and I wonder will we ever reach a stage where all of our players are available at the same time. On the plus side we have Nasri and Fabianski making their comebacks for the reserves tonight away to Wolves and they are both very welcome back considering they haven't kicked a ball in anger yet this season between them. I haven't heard anything about Bendtner so I can only presume that he must still be injured and of course Djourou and Denilson are both long term absentees with Eduardo still suffering the effects of his exertions as a sub in our last Champions league match against Olympiakos. 

Team selection is not going to be as difficult as usual for the boss as his options are limited in quite a few positions. Don Vito will probably keep his place in goal and the 2 centre backs are certainties unless there are more injuries we don't know about. The 2 full back positions are interesting and it's anybody's guess as to whether we will see Clichy & Sagna play or Gibbs and Eboue or some other mixture of those 4 players. In midfield I can't see any other trio besides Cesc, Song and Diaby playing and the front 3 will more than likely be RVP, Arshavin and Vela with Ramsey, Wilshere, Traore and Silvestre on the bench. Of course Eboue could well play in midfield or up front if he doesn't start in defence and I imagine Almunia will be on the bench looking completely disinterested again. The rest of the bench will be made up by whatever full backs don't play from the start.

AZ did very well to win their domestic league title last season and qualify for the Champions league for the first time ever. They play an attractive blend of attacking football but they haven't had the best of starts to this season. They sit in 6th place with 5 wins and 5 defeats in 10 matches and they have only 1 point from their 2 Champions league games so far. Defeat for them tonight would more or less finish their hopes of qualifying for the knockout stages so they will have to attack us which is a very dangerous thing to do. However it did work for Liege at the start of our game away to them and we need to start with a lot more urgency tonight. Even though we're missing a lot of players we should still be too good for them and I predict a 3-1 win with RVP keeping up his recent good run of goalscoring form. I wouldn't be surprised to see Vela score too if he manages to get a start for a change. A win tonight would leave us 75% of the way through to the next round and able to wrap up our qualification in the return game against AZ at The Emirates on November 4th.

I'll be watching the match in the company of my fellow Wicklow Gunners in The Strand in Bray and due to a combination of the interlull and no TV coverage last Saturday I have not been there since October 4th. I'll more than likely be there on Sunday again as we play West Ham live on the TV again and it's a bank holiday weekend which means I will have the next day off too. As for tonight's match I'll be a little late getting there due to a prior comittment but I won't mind if we're a few goals up when I do get there. Hopefully the players can give the manager an early 60th birthday present as he turns 60 on Thursday. Their manager is Ronald Koeman and from memory I think we owe him a beating from his Ajax days when they held us twice in the Champions league under him although I could be wrong. It has happened before and I'm sure it's going to happen again at some stage.

Here's a clip of RVP's best bits from last season. I wondered at the start of the season if he could fit into the team as I didn't see him as a centre forward but he has proved me wrong so far and I hope he continues to do so.

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And to finish today's title track from David Bowie. We have to make changes to our team yet again and I long for the day that we will have every player available and be able to field an unchanged team for a change.

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See You Tomorrow.

Well the weekend's over and it's back to work for those of us who still have a job. At the moment in Ireland it's no mean feat to still have a job as unemployment soars and we suddenly find we have nett emigration again after over 10 years of nett immigration. It's amazing how quickly things can turn for the worse and how slow our pathetic excuse for a government have been to act on our problems. As you can probably tell by now I really wish that I could spend the day at home in the comfort of my bed but at least I know I can do that next Monday as it's a bank holiday over here. Anyway enough of the woes of the world and back to the important things in life such as Arsenal and the continued joy that us fans get from watching them.

We have 2 players on the shortlist of 30 players for the Balllon d'Or and it wouldn't take a genius to work out that they are Cesc and Arshavin. I would imagine that Messi has the award wrapped up but our 2 players have to be in the top 10 at the very least I'm sure. There is no news yet on whether Theo will be available for our trip to AZ tomorrow night but the manager doubts it. He says it's not a cruciate injury but we will have to wait for the scan on Theo's knee to see the extent of the injury or if it is just a kick. I hope it's nothing serious and we will see him next Sunday against West Ham but with the luck we've had with injuries over the last few years I won't be holding my breath.

There isn't too much else to talk about from an Arsenal perspective today but there were some interesting events over the weekend that merit a mention. The goal that Liverpool conceded to Sunderland was comical and the fact that a jolly Scouser threw the beach ball on the pitch in the first place only makes it funnier. I seem to remember Man City conceding a goal a few years ago when balloons were all over the penalty area and nothing was done about it at the time so Liverpool will just have to swallow their medicine. They are in a lot of trouble with 4 defeats in their first 9 games and my prediction at the start of the season that they would struggle seems that it might turn out to be true. In our match there was an indirect free kick given against Larsson when he intercepted a pass in his own box and it went back to the keeper who picked it up. It showed the standard of refereeing in the Premier league when the referee gave the free kick as it was clearly not an intentional back pass but the referee failed to understand that at all. I have mentioned the standard of refereeing this season a few times already but the referees just don't seem to be in touch with how the game is played or what players do on the pitch.

In the Fantasy football stakes I had another very good weekend yet again but there is one more match tonight before the final positions for this week are decided. With Cesc as my captain, goals from Dunne, Taylor, Bent & Defoe, assists from Cesc and Lampard and 10 bonus points from my players too I managed 63 points in total to move into the the provisional top 10,000 before tonight's match. With the Oleole leagues still being dominated by Football Guy's friend Amer I am managing to catch up on him slowly but surely and I'm nearly at the stage where I can challenge IAWWT for 2nd place. I gave a few tips on good players to sign during the interlull and Richard Dunne and David Dunn in particular lived up to my expectations this week. It's interesting to see what players are doing very well so far and Cesc in particular is far and away the best midfielder despite a lot less game time than most of his opponents. The Verminator is right up there as the 2nd best defender behind the afore mentioned Dunne. It's interesting to see Man City struggling to keep clean sheets since they sold Dunne and Dunne has settled in immediatly at Villa and raking in the bonus points as usual. RVP is slowly but surely progressing up the strikers list and he's in 4th place now and well worth buying. I've a funny feeling he will be featuring in my team very soon. That's it for today and I'll preview the AZ game tomorrow as we look to put ourselves in a position in our Champions league group that will leave qualification almost assured at this early stage.

Here's Man City's balloon incident from a few years ago.

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And to finish today's title track from Blur. We continue to play our great attacking football and outscore every other team in England. There's no other way that I would like to hae it.

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See You Tomorrow.

We kept our league form going with a 3-1 win against Birmingham at The Emirates yesterday. When we went 2-0 up after 18 minutes thanks to well taken goals from RVP & Diaby it looked like we would blow them away but we faded a little which was to be expected I suppose after most of our players had been away with their countries for the last 2 weeks. Other top teams struggled to perform with Chelsea & Liverpool losing, Everton and Man City drawing and Manure only just beating Bolton. It leaves us fourth in the table with a game in hand on all the teams ahead of us and we are by far the top scorers in the league. In all 4 divisions in England only Notts County have scored more than us and they have played 5 games more but only got 2 goals more than us. If it's entertainment you want we are the team to watch without a shadow of a doubt.

Theo had to go off yesterday after a heavy challenge and it looks like he might miss the AZ match on Wednesday in the Champions league but I would imagine that we will have Vela available again and hopefully Bendtner too. I was a little surprised to see Eboue starting instead of Sagna yesterday and I wonder who will get the nod for the right back position on Wednesday night. As far as I know Sagna was fit yesterday and he has been picked for all league games so far when he has been fit with Eboue starting in the Champions league. Don Vito kept his place yesterday and Almunia was on the bench looking, as Lady Arse pointed about, totally disinterested. I really do wonder what is happening with him and the "chest infection" story to explain his 5 week absence seems less believeable by the day. Don Vito was at fault for the goal that Birmingham scored to get them back into the game although I thought that the challenge on him by Larsson was unfair. He still should have dealt with the ball that looped up in the air off Diaby a lot better and it left us fans a little anxious for a while in the second half. Thankfully Arshavin got the third 10 minutes before the end after a great move on the break when he was set up by Cesc and passed the ball into the net. With 7 wins in a row we are really on a great run at the moment and any team who has to play us must be dreading the prospect.

In other news are under 18s drew 2-2 with Norwich yesterday in a top of the table league match. The goals came from Luke Freeman and Benik Afobe and those 2 seem to be banging the goals in this season. Our ladies won 4-1 away to Bristol academy today to continue their good start to the season and they have now won all 8 games they have played in all competitions so far. The boss has had a go at the Birmingham fans for chanting Martin Taylor's name as Theo lay injured on the ground after the challenge that ultimately put him out of the game. Unfortunately football fans chant the stupidest and most inane things when they see a chance to wind up opposition fans or players and I'm sure this was the case yesterday. It was obviously in very bad taste and I'm glad Eduardo wasn't on the pitch because that would have been hard for him to bear. Our new scout, Tony Adams, was apparently in Anderlecht to watch a 16 year old striker called Romelu Lukaku at the weekend. We are also linked with 19 year old French striker Yacine Brahimi who plays for Clermont but is on loan from Rennes. That's it for today.

Here's the highlights from yesterday's game.

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And to finish today's title track from Black Uhuru. The fans who aren't happy when we don't destroy teams like Birmingham should chill out and realise we can't always put in a perfect performance but we won and that's vitally important.

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See You Tomorrow.

England played their under 21 game against Macedonia last night and it was an eventful night for their 3 Arsenal players. The bad news first of all is that Theo Walcott got a dead leg and was taken off at half time as a result. Depending on the severity of the injury we may or may not have him available for the home league game against Birmingham this day next week. I've had a dead leg myself in the past and I did manage to play football a week later after working all week long so if it's not too bad it will be quite possible for him to play.

The good news from last night's game was the performances of both Gibbs and Wilshere. Gibbs scored the first goal in a 6-3 win and he was involved in the build up for 2 or 3 of the other goals. On the down side he also managed to put through his own goal but overall he performed very well. Wilshere also played very well and his talent was obvious for all to see last night as lesser players struggled to keep up with what he was trying to do at times. It's great to see how much talent both of them have and they have to be pushing for some more time in the first team. There is a school of thought that Clichy should be replaced by Gibbs as his form over the last 18 months has not been up to the standard that it was prior to that. There are also an awful lot of fans who would love to see a lot more of Wilshere as the manager continues to slow play his introduction to the team.

It's very strange heading into a Saturday afternoon and knowing there's no Premier league football to watch or listen to. I miss the good old days when internationals were played on A wednesday night and league games were played on the Saturday before and after. Now the players are with their countries for a week before a game is played but they only return to their clubs on a Thursday morning at the earliest before a Saturday afternoon match. It's a little bit crazy that the clubs pay the players wages and club football is far better and far more interesting to the fans but FIFA and UEFA continue to have so much control over every thing that happens. Of course they're doing it for their own interests as they continue to line their pockets and refuse to bring in technology that would improve the game for their own stupid reasons. I long for the day when the clubs that pay the players wages have more control over those same players and the amount of international games played is decreased but I can't see that happening in the near(or even distant) future.

I suppose I'll watch Ireland play Italy tonight as I'll be in a friend's house play some poker and I'm sure the match will be on. I have a few friends who are going to the game and they go to every home Ireland match in Dublin at least. I spoke to one of them after football last night and I told him I find it hard to watch Ireland attempt to play football after watching Arsenal every week. He agreed about Ireland's style of play but Trappatoni has a style of play with which he thinks he can achieve some level of sucess with a very average Irish team. If they make the runners up spot in the group they will have a good chance of making the World Cup next year and it will be one huge party over here when the World Cup is on if they make it. That's it for today.

Here's a clip of Alex Song showing how well he has started this season.

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And to finish today's title track from New Model Army. I betcha I'll end up bored to tears watching Ireland tonight and I also betcha that our bad start to this international break with injuries will continue.

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See You Tomorrow.

It's Wednesday morning and the international break is really starting to bite. There's not an awful lot going on but I'll try to report what little I can find. Young Theo Walcott was delighted to wear the number 14 shirt on Sunday in front of the man who wore it before him with such distinction. In fact he was so happy that he got Thierry Henry to sign a no. 14 shirt for him and he will treasure it forever. He was also fairly happy to get a goal in front of our greatest striker ever I would imagine. I said yesterday that I couldn't understand Theo being picked for England's under 21s but I have read elsewhere that the boss was eager for him to get a run out during the break.

Eboue spoke about teaming up with Kolo Toure for their country as they play Malawi on October 10th in a game where a point will qualify the Ivory Coast for the World Cup. He's looking forward to meeting his friend again and he said that Kolo called him before the Olympiacos game to wish him good luck. It was interesting to see the reception Richard Dunne got from the Man City fans on Monday night and it was also interesting to see that he wasn't too interested in celebrating his goal. He wasn't too happy with his treatment by the club but the fans still love him because he gave everthing he had to the club for 9 years. You could never say that he didn't give his all in a match and put his body on the line for his team and I'm sure he'll do the same for Villa. He could teach a certain ex Arsenal player a thing or 2 about respect and loyalty which are things that should work both ways but he thought should be given to him no matter what.

Speaking of "he who shall remain nameless" it would seem that he is now sorry for the stamp on RVP. Pardon me but I thought that he said it was an accident at first and then pleaded guilty to the FA charge. So it would seem that he now admits that he meant to stamp on an arsenal player's head for no reason other than the fact that we sold him. He went looking for trouble in that game and proceded to asssault RVP before acting the idiot in front of our fans after scoring. He also said that the reason he left Arsenal was because the boss told him he was one of the top earners at the club and the club wouldn't be able to pay him any more. Does that mean that he went looking for a pay rise after the season he had last season. In my opinion he should have been due a pay cut. We all know it was Arsenal's choice to sell him and that he would have joined any one of at least 10 clubs before City but nobody else wanted him. Overall it was a great piece of business for Arsenal as we made a large profit, cut the wage bill and got rid of a trouble maker all in one. His claims that the boss said the club was in the red and needed to sell him have been proved wrong since as we made a record profit before we sold him and we then sold Kolo too.

After reading yesterday that Sol Campbell might come back to train with Arsenal to get his fitness back I couldn't help myself thinking that I wouldn't like to see him do it. When he left Arsenal we cancelled his contract for him with the understanding that he was to join a continental club but he ended up joining Portsmouth. I was always fairly good at Geography in school and I thought that Portsmouth was on the south coast of England but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe The Spuds would like to see him train with them as he is an ex player of theirs too. Personally I think he let the boss down when he joined Portsmouth and I'd be surprised if we allowed him to train with us but you never know. Well that's the lot for today. I'll probably say a few words about the progress of the Fantasy Football tomorrow as there won't be too much else to report.

Here's a nice tribute to Paddy Vieira.

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And to finish today's title track from The Cure which is all about the torture of international breaks.

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See You Tomorrow.

I'm posting late again today due to circumstances beyond my control but I'll try to make sure that it doesn't happen again this week. After our thrashing of Blackburn on Sunday their manager wasn't too happy with the referee as he felt they should have had a penalty when we were 3-2 up and he is right as it was a penalty. He did however fail to mention the penalty we should have had later in the game when Gallas was bundled over in the box as he attempted to catch up on The Verminator in our goalscoring chart. There was also the small matter of the challenge(if you can call it that) by Dunn on Vito in the first half when he jumped into our goalkeeper as he came out towards the sideline to make a clearence. I know Vito should probably not have been there but that doesn't mean that Dunn can make no attempt to play the ball and jump straight into him and hit him in the head. If it wasn't for mother nature beating him to it he could have damaged Vito's good looks.

I have commented already on the refereeing this season and it seems to be getting worse all the time. It's not just decisions against Arsenal but decesions for and against most clubs in the league. There are some obvious exceptions and Manure's manager is one of them. Time and again he gets the benifit of dodgy refereeing decisions and time added on where it shouldn't be and he has the cheek to complain that things aren't going his way. You can count the amount of penalties given against the home team at Old Trafford on one hand in the last 10 years but the amount that should have ben given is a different matter. Time after time Manure players, such as Rooney, the diver & Scholes, get away with lashing out at opponents or with terrible tackles and he has the cheek to criticise the referees because his team couldn't beat Sunderland.

In other news our reserves beat Chelsea's reserves 2-0 last night with the goals coming from Craig Eastmond and Sanchez Watt. They have now won all 4 league games this season and they have not conceded a goal in the process which is quite impressive for an Arsenal team. Theo has been called into the England under 21 squad for their match against Macadonia on Friday night. Is it me or does anyone else agree that England seem to be the only country who call up a player for an under 21 squad when that player is already a full international. If Theo had more games under his belt this season he would be in the full England squad and that is what makes it all the more unbelieveable as it is of no benefit to him to play for the under 21 team. I thought players were groomed for the full squad in the under 21 squad but it seems that England want success at that level regardless. It would appear that Sol Campbell is looking to train with Arsenal to get some fitness before trying to find a new club and if the reports are to be believed Paddy Vieira might be joining Chelsea in the January transfer window. That's it for today.

Here's the highlights from last night's reserves win against Chelsea.

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And to finish today's title track from Visage. As we enter another international break all my thoughts of good football fade to grey for another week and a half.

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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.

There's a fair deal on the club site about the official opening of Highbury Square yesterday. If I won an absolute fortune on the lotto I think I would buy myself a penthouse apartment in the development and make London my second home but for the moment I'll have to make do with a couple of trips over each season. The manager was at the opening along with some current and past players and appearently some lucky people are living in the development already. They have the old Highbury pitch as their garden but I wonder if there's any chance of bringing a ball into the garden for a kickaround. With the facades from the East and West stands left in situ the place still has a look of Highbury about it and from what I saw when I was there last it looks very well. 

For some strange reason this season the manager has being have his pre match press conferences on a Thursday when we are playing on a Saturday. He has an awful lot to say for himself at these press conferences and this yesterday was no different to any other week. If you want to see what he has to say for himself it's probably worth subscribing to ATVO as they have the entire press conference. I'll give the few bits and pieces that are of interest in my opinion.

Firstly it seems that we will have Arshavin available for the trip to Fulham on Saturday evening and his return will certainly increase our attacking options. It would also seem that Theo will be available too as he has recovered from his back problem. It's good to get both of these players back and Nasri and Denilson aren't too far behind them in their comebacks. We could have a situation quite soon where we have most of our injured players available again and the manager will have a wanted headache for a change. It is also interesting to hear the manager say that Almunia still isn't available after his chest infection and I think it adds credence to my opinion that he was left out of the team. Mannone has been our keeper for the last 2 games but from what the manager said there is a possibility that Chesney will be between the sticks on Saturday.

According to the press we are again linked with Eden Hazard of Lille who appearently likes our technical style of football. Ahead of our game against Fulham we are again linked with a move for Hangeland as he has not signed a new contract with Fulham as of yet. The boss has called for some clarification of the amount of time that is added at the end of the game after the debacle at Old Trafford last Sunday. He has a point as nobody is ever sure what is taken into account to calculate the time but there seems to be a controversy about it every week. There's a picture doing the rounds of Sir shits his pants a lot holding up a sign for injury time which says something to the effect of "as long as we need" but I haven't seen it yet. If anyone has a copy will they please put it up on Oleole for me. That's it for today. I'll preview our trip to Fulham tomorrow and make a prediction on the score.

Here's a look at Arshavin's Nike ad.

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And to finish today's title track from Space. Highbury Square is a neighbourhood I could certainly imagine myself living in.

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See You Tomorrow.

So here we are on a Saturday morning and it's only a few hours away from our third match in 8 days. Portsmouth visit us this afternoon and they arrive on the back of two 1-0 defeats in their first 2 matches. They have had a very unsettled summer and virtually every single pundit has forecast their relegation. They still have some good players and we have to be careful not to underestimate them as we did with too many poor teams last season.

For that reason I think we need to play our strongest team and go at them from the very start with pace and passion. If we rest players it sends out the wrong message to their team and to our fans too. If Portsmouth need a reason to get themselves up for this match then we could just hand them that reason by underestimating them. The club are giving out free scarves to all fans today and they want the fans to get behind the team from the off but if we play a weakened team in our first home game of the season it gives the wrong message to those same fans. They have waited since last May to see Arsenal play again and a weakened team would be a slap in the face to them. I know we have Celtic at home on Wednesday but we need to take it one game at a time as the saying goes.

As a result I hope and think the boss will again play the same side that played in the last 2 games as the players all deserve to keep their places again. To be honest I'd love to see Eduardo play but his fragility is still all too obvious after his injury scare on Tuesday night. Diaby performed well enough when he came on but he still doesn't know when to release the ball or when to take on the 3 players that are surrounding him. Maybe 1 in 10 times he will beat them but that means he loses the ball the other 9 times. So I see the same team starting and I predict a 3-0 win for us. I hope Bendtner can get on the score sheet and maybe a goal from RVP & Arshavin would go down nicely too.

I mentioned yesterday that Vela had an ankle injury and it has now emerged that he will be out for a month with that injury. It's the same injury that he got in the first game of the Gold Cup for Mexico but he obviously came back too soon for his country and now we are paying the price. The same can more or less be said of Theo as his exertions in the summer with the England senior team and the under 21s have led to him having his current injury and he will now not be available for the Manure game next weekend. We cannot afford any more injuries as our squad is already stretched with Nasri, Rosicky, Vela, Theo, Djourou & Fabianski out.

The manager spoke about potential transfers yesterday and he said that he might still make a defensive signing but he thinks we have enough offensive options. If we get any more offensive players injured he might be forced to give young Jack Wilshere a run in the team and that might work for our good in the long run. He also said that we are not on Hangeland's case and I  think we can take it then that we will not be signing him. He said that like him the majority of managers are after a central defender or a defensive midfielder and he has had plenty of calls from other managers asking if he knows any players that are available in those positions. The manager thinks the transfer window should have sut when the season started and while I see his point some leagues have not started yet but others started 2 weeks ago so it has to close on a date rather than at the start of the season as this varies from country to country.

He also spoke about the fact that we are playing catch up in the league along with 7 other teams and he thinks fixtures should only be scheudled when all teams are available to play. The club also announced that they are in discussions with Bendtner over a new contract but that was no secret anyway. It was also announced that Henri Lansbury has joined Watford on loan until the end of the calender year and I hope it goes really well for him as he is a player I really rate. On checking the club site last night I saw that tickets for the Portsmouth match are still on general sale and that probably means that the stadium won't be quite full. It's a bit of a worrying development so early in the season particularly as we have started so well but it is an expensive day out. I also read last night that there will be a 33% rise in Champions league money from UEFA this season which makes our qualification for the group stages all the more important. I'll leave it there for today but don't forget that you have until 11.30 this morning to make any changes to your Fantasy Football team.

Here's a clip of a great goal from Bobby Pires.

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And to finish today's title track from Big Country. Hopefully it will be like "Wonderland" in The Emirates today as we give Portsmouth a footballing lesson.

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See You Tomorrow.