I have yet another family wedding this afternoon as my wife's sister gets married in our local church and we head to Bray for the reception in the hotel next door to the supporters club. I hope to be able to sneak out at some stage and see a little bit of the game against Wolves which kicks off at 5.30 and is live on ESPN. I'll be wearing my red shirt and Arsenal socks as lucky omens and I'm hoping for a performance to cheer us into yet another interlull.

With Rosicky and Nasri available again the boss has a few selection headaches before the game and I'm sure Eduardo will hope that he can start too. I expect Sagna to play at right back again as Eboue seems to have that berth for the Champions league and with Almunia, Gibbs, Gallas and The Verminator he will make up our defence. Cesc and Song will play in midfield I'm sure and I would be surprised if RVP and Arshavin don't strat up front. That leaves 2 places in the team between Diaby, Nasri, Rosicky, Eduardo, Eboue and Ramsey and good luck to the boss in keeping them all happy. To be honest I don't know who will play but I suspect that Diaby will be in the team with Nasri playing too.

As long as we approach the game the right way we will be too good for a Wolves team who their manager says wil attack us because there is no point in defending against us. He will learn that it's an even bigger mistake to attack us and I see a 4-0 win for Arsenal on the horizon with RVP, Cesc, Arshavin & a centre back scoring our goals. If we get that win we go 2nd in the table for 1 day at least and Manure will need a point at Chelsea tomorrow to overtake us and they will find that very hard to come by.

Sky have chosen to show 2 of our games live in January and the the games away to Bolton on January 17th and at home to Manure on January 31st will both be shown. It looks like the Everton game I am hoping to go to is safe to be on Saturday January 9th and we just have to wait for the tickets to become available early next month now. I uppose even if ESPN take the game it will just mean it will be a later kick off so I have to say I'm delighted with that. That's all for today as I have busy day ahead.

Here's a clip of what Arshavin can do.

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And to finish today's title track from Lloyd Cole which is for Mick McCarthy who is hopefully going to be heartbroken tonight.

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See You Tomorrow.

RVP reckons the players are having fun at the moment and who can blame them as they have won all 10 home games this season and 4 of their 8 away games as well. When I think about it that means I have got my prediction about Arsenal's games right 14 out of 18 times this season as any regular readers will know that I always forecast an Arsenal win. In fact we should have won our 2 drawn away games and possibly our 2 lost games as well but that's water under the bridge and I'm drifting away from all the fun the players are having. It's obvious that they are enjoying their football at the moment as the goals are coming thick and fast and only Notts County can match our haul in league goals in England and they have played 5 goals more. Besides the goals though we are also playing some beautiful football and the so called experts are changing their minds about our chances of winning a trophy at a rate of knots.

We all know how fickle these so called experts are and when I hear Eamonn Dunphy on Irish television saying that we are better than Barcelona and we will win the Champions league I realise how stupid they are too. I'm not saying we won't win it but there's a long way to go and anything can happen between now and Saturday May 22nd when the final is played. There are bound to be disappointments between now and then and the strength of the team will be judged on how we react to those disappointments in my opinion. We bounced back from our defeats in Manchester with 6 wins in a row and after our slight dip with the successive draws we easily beat The Spuds and then played exceptionally well against AZ on Wednesday night. 

The boss has spoken about how good Cesc is and how good he can become too. At only 22 years of age there is not a better player in English football at the moment and he has just won the PFA player of the month for October. The boss believes there is a lot more to come from him as long as he keeps the attitude that he has now. I know that means that Barcelona will be sniffing around more than ever and in his present form he's better than Iniesta and Xavi so let's hope that he can realise all of his footballing desires at Arsenal. He also said that the Merida deal is ready to be signed and there is a verbal agreement with the player but certain clubs are trying to destabilise him as they know he is on a free transfer in the summer and he can agree a move in January. He also said that he is not tempted to rotate his centre backs which is good news as it keeps Silvestre out of the team. The understanding that Gallas and The Verminator have developed is very good and the boss realises how important it is to keep them together. The only thing that will break up the partnership is injury or suspension but let's hope that neither thing happens.

Yesterday Stan Kroenke increased his stake in the club to 29.9% and he only needs 0.09% more before he has to make a bid for all the other shareholders' stakes but I don't thik they're obligated to sell unless his stake reaches a fairly high percentage. Peter Hill-Wood sold him 100 of the 200 shares he bought which shows the current board are happy with the possibility of him taking control of the club. As it approaches I find myself not too sure if it is the right thing for the club but I do think it is the lesser of 2 evils with Usmanov as the option that I would not like to see anywhere near the club. I just hope if Kroenke takes over that he doesn't do what the Glaziers did at Manure and basically use the club as a tool to buy itself and leave him with no debt and the club with a huge debt. The rumours are that he doesn't intend taking over just yet but it does look like it's a matter of when and not if any longer.

Here's Cesc's goal against The Spuds last Saturday again and he certainly seemed to be having fun.

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And to finish here's today's title track from The Fun Boy Three. According to RVP the players are having all the fun. As a dedicated life long fan I'm enjoying it too.

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See You Tomorrow.

This week is a very strange one for me. I have been due a lot of time off work and I started taking it last Friday and I will have this Friday off as well. I also have my 3rd or is it 4th wedding of the year to attend on Saturday afternoon when my wife's sister marries a fellow Gooner and fan of The Specials. The wedding reception is next door to the Arsenal supporters club in Bray but the match against Wolves may not be on in the supporters club as they have an issue with ESPN of which I'm not sure of the details. If the match isn't on in the supporters club the chances are that a good few of the members will make a trip to Gibneys in Malahide to watch the game out there. We went there last season for the league game at Manure and it was a great day out which was our version of a "Jolly Boy's Outing". I really hope that I don't have to miss out on the trip because I've being looking forward to it since last season's trip. On top of that I'll have to work out a way to keep up with the score of the match while I'm at the reception without anyone noticing. Thankfully my phone has great internet capability at a very cheap rate and I just have to remember to keep the silent mode on.

There isn't a whole heap of news to report before we play AZ tomorrow night but 1 man who has been in the news is Eboue. He made what sounded like a come and get me plea to PSG as he said he would not break his contract at Arsenal but he would like to play in Ligue 1 some day and he has always admired PSG. He apparently said that if they were to offer him a deal the reply would be positive but for now his is focused on this season for Arsenal and next summer we will have to see. Am I right in saying that he only signed a new contract a little while before the end of last season and if so we could get a transfer fee for him. I could live with selling him as in my opinion he is our 2nd choice right back and no more but I don't see anyone else coming through in that position and that is an issue that would have to be addressed if we were to sign him.

RVP has spoken about how great his family life with his wife and 2 kids is and how it makes him stable and gives him a good basis to perform. He also said that he was struggling physically after the birth of his second child recently but it's better now. If that's how he plays when he's struggling I can't wait to see what his form will be like when the baby is sleeping through the night. It was also great to hear him say that he would love to play against Man City in the quarter finals of the Carling Cup but I have a funny feeling that he might have a little bit of revenge on his mind. We all know he has an edge to his game at times and I think we can more or less guarentee sparks will fly when he next plays against he who shall remain nameless. The fans love a player who feels the same sort of emotions as they do and he added to that by saying that it was great to beat The Spuds at the weekend and he always enjoys hearing that they have lost but it's even better to beat them ourselves.

The bad news is that our reserves lost their unbeaten start to the season last night as they lost 2-0 at home to Portsmouth in a league game. I had a quick look at the reserve table and I realised that The Spuds pulled their team out of the league. With such a strong squad as they have(Robbie Keane couldn't be wrong could he) it's strange that they don't want to give their fringe players a few games so that they can remember what it's like to play the odd game. Who knows they might have had the oppurtunity to get beaten by our reserves so that they could feel just like the first team players. On a Spuds note I saw the picture below on Twitter last night and from what I can see it's a genuine DVD which can be bought from their club site in the true tradition of their DVDs that are released after they manage not to lose to us.

That's it for today.

Here's Jay Emmanuel Thomas's first senior goal on loan from Arsenal to Blackpool.

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And to finish today's title track from Black Uhuru. It's good to hear RVP coming out with the right stuff that us fans want to hear.

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See You Tomorrow.

The Spuds came calling yesterday with their claims of being the North London team on the up and by the end of the game the difference in class between the teams was there for all to see. I spoke yesterday about how good Cesc, Arshavin and RVP were and how The Spuds had nobody to match them and by the end of the game that was evident too. RVP was excellent and so was Cesc and even though things didn't quite work out for Arshavin he gave it everything he had. To be honest the 3-0 score line flattered The Spuds and they could have got a real hammering. Our unbeaten league run against them now stretches to 20 games and 10 years and the bragging rights belong to all Gooners yet again.

I arrived at the supporters club in Bray about 10 minutes before kick off and the first thing I heard was that we had drawn Man City away from home in the last 8 of the Carling Cup with the game to be played on December 1st or 2nd. I then found out the team that had been selected and it was as I had predicted with the exception of Bendtner playing wide right. It looked a strong enough team and with Defoe and Lennon missing for them my only worry was the threat posed by Crouch. To be honest our defence dealt with him fairly well and he never really got a free header in on goal in the whole game. The only time we looked vulnerable was when he laid the ball off for Keane or any of their midfielders coming forward but all in all besides a few crosses to claim Almunia had very little to do on his return to first team duty.

We started brightly and after less than 5 minutes Bentley deliberately handled the ball in our half to stop us breaking but the referee decided to ignore the rule book and didn't even bother to lecture him never mind show him a yellow card. Only a few minutes later he came in late on The Verminator and caught him right on the shin. By the laws of the game he should have being taking an early shower as it was clearly another yellow card offence but the referee again chose not to issue a card. Even Andy Gray agreed that Bentley was a lucky man to be still on the pitch. At that stage we all agreed that the most likely player to be booked first would be wearing red as the referee clearly didn't want to book anyone too early in the game because he would have had to issue a yellow card for almost anything after that.

We had our chances in the first half and the best of them fell to Cesc when his shot from inside the box was very well saved by Gomes to keep the scores level as halftime approached. The game seemed to be petering out in that first half until we won a throw on our right about 10 yards from their goal line. Sagna threw it to Cesc and he passed it straight back to Sagna who stopped the ball and dispatched a cross towards the near post. It looked to be going nowhere but RVP gave it all he had to beat his man to the ball at the near post and Gomes seemed to be surprised at the shot coming in and was beaten at his near post despite getting a hand to it. The stadium went mad and we were all pretty happy in The Strand too as we looked to be heading to half time with a 1 goal lead that didn't appear likely only moments earlier. 

As we watched the the replays of the first goal again and again on the TV the camera suddenly switched to Cesc as he buried the ball in the keeper's right hand corner of the net and after a slight pause we realised that we were 2-0 up as we had scored straight from their kick off. A misplaced Spud pass hit RVP on the knee I think and rebounded to Cesc in the centre circle and he proceded to run straight at them and beat 3 players before sticking the ball in the corner of the net from 18 yards out. Half time came soon afterwards and we found ourselves with the same lead we had at West Ham last week and we knew that we could only beat ourselves at this stage.

A short while before we scored the first goal Bendtner signalled to the bench that he had to go off as he had what appeared to be a groin injury and we were treated to the bizzare sight of him attempting to run around the pitch for what seemed like at least 3 minutes as the ball stayed in play. Why he didn't go down and demand treatment or to be helped off I don't know and we were lucky at one stage that we didn't pay the price for it. Corluka had not got forward at all but it was blatantly obvious that if he did Bendtner could not track back so he obviously pushed forward. As he ran past him Bendtner called Clichy to cover the run as he couldn't but nobody did and we were only saved because The Verminator did very well to intercept Corluka's cross. It was very unprofessional of Arsenal to allow that situation to develop with a player clearly injured and Bendtner should have gone down or we should have put the ball out when we had the chance. Thankfully we didn't pay the price and hopefully we will learn a lesson from it.

At half time I commented on how Eduardo had changed the game when he came on but he hadn't had any part in either goal at all. I did think that the second half was ideally set up for a player like him who could time his runs to perfection behind a defence that was pushing forward to try to get back in the game. A little while later I was proved right as Diaby played a lovely ball through for him and I was certain he would score as he was 1 on 1 with the keeper but he got it just wrong and the keeper just about stopped it. We did manage to get a 3rd goal when Eduardo broke down the left and he was scythed down by one of their players. As we all waited for the referee to blow for the free with the linesman flagging he in fact waved played on and even though Sagna stopped he still had the ball when he realised that the game was still going on. As the Spud players had stopped too he crossed it along the goal 6 yards out it seemed that the keeper and defender had it covered but it somehow squeezed between them and there was RVP to tap in his second and our third.

After that it was just a matter of how many and when Cesc played Eduardo in again he ran with the ball from the half way line and approached the keeper who had left his box. When he placed his shot we were certain that it was going to be 4-0 but inexplicably it went wide and the scoreline stayed the same. We saw out the rest of the game with ease and our 3rd clean sheet of the season was a welcome extra to the game. The manager got very frustrated when we were 3 up and he said afterwards it was because he couldn't communicate properly with his players and he felt it was very important for us to get the clean sheet. He's right in that because after letting our lead slip against West Ham and AZ it was important to defend properly and keep that clean sheet. We moved up to 2nd in the table until Manure and Chelsea got their wins later but with Liverpool losing again and Villa drawing we are putting ourselves further ahead of the pursuing pack whilst keeping up with the pace setters. All in all it was a great day and a nd showed The Spuds that they have a long long way to go to reach our level.

Here's the goals from yesterday.

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And to finish here's today's title track from The Wedding Present which is for Robbie Keane because everyone thinks he looks daft after his claims about how good The Spuds are this week.

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See You Tomorrow.

In just over 5 hours time we will be kicking off against our fiercest local rivals at The Emirates. The Spuds come to visit us in a lofty position of 3rd place for them and considering that they were rock bottom this time last year it's an excellent improvement. We have had to listen to their captain saying that their team is as good as ours and their bench is better but I think he may have forgotten that we have 2 players nominated for the Balloon d'Or and they have none. The 2 best players on the pitch today should be our captain Cesc and Arshavin and in my opinion RVP is not far behind them and the only thing that has held him back so far is the amount of injuries he has had in previous seasons which has slowed down his development. I doubted if he could lead the line in the true tradition of a centre forward but our new formation suits him as it does so many other players and I am happy to admit that I got it wrong. His form at the moment is top class and he is scoring the goals that you would expect from a player of his ability.

Ahead of the game the boss has said that the team with the most quality will win and in my opinion he is stating his belief that we have that quality and we will shove his words back down Robbie Keane's throat. He said that once they have had 12 consecutive years in the Champions league then they can compare themselves to us but they have a long way to go to get ther. He also stated that he knows who his keeper will be but he isn't going to tell us beforehand. He claims that Almunia was sick for a long time and it takes some time to come back from that. By now you will know my feelings on his "chest infection" but I doubt if we will ever know what went on. Their manager thinks that they are better than us in certain areas and we all know he means that the 6' 7" streak of misery Crouch has done very well against us at times in the past. No matter how well we play at the back it's hard at times to defend against that sort of heigth but we need to keep the chances he gets to attack high balls into the box to a minimum. Other than that they don't have a single player in their team that we would want in our team and that in itself is enough for us to control the game and take it to them from the start.

Ahead of the game it has to be remembered that they have not beaten us in our last 19 league meetings and the last time they won a league game away to us was in May 1993. We were on our way to an FA Cup final at the time and George Graham certainly was concentrating on the bigger picture. That was also the last time that they won away to any of the "big 4" and to be honest that's not exactly the form of world beaters. I have a funny feeling that Almunia will play and to be honest whoever does play in nets that has to be the weakest point in the team. Let's hope that the keeper on the day can play at his best and do everything that is expected of him. The defence picks itself again with Sagna, Clichy, Gallas and The Verminator all certainties to start in my opinion. In midfield we will see Song, Cesc and Diaby more than likely with Arshavin, RVP and A.N.Other as the front 3. I hope that we will see Nasri or Eduardo fill that position but I have a funny feeling that the boss will pick Eboue. When we managed a 0-0 draw at their ground last season we had to play for an hour with 10 players as Eboue got himself stupidly sent off. Let's hope he doesn't get the chance to do it today. Another player who could do a great job for us is Vela but it appears he has a knee injury and we might see him back next weekend.

Between the 2 teams there are only 3 clean sheets in 18 league games and we have 2 of them so I expect both teams to score today. I think we will win but it will be close and I'm going for a 3-2 win with RVP, Arshavin & Cesc scoring for us. This is the type of game that Arshavin is usually up for and a little bit of his magic could work wonders today against a pretty poor Spuds back 4. We need to play with pace and precision from the first minute to the last and impose our game upon them. We need to concentrate really hard at set pieces and defend them as if our lives depended on it. Hopefully Song can have a great game in his defensive midfield role and snuff out the threat of their players coming on to balls laid off by the stick insect. Don't forget that the draw for the quarter finals of the Carling Cup will take place at mid day and it doesn't matter who we get as our kids are afraid of nobody.

I'll be watching the game in the supporters club in The Strand in Bray but I'll only be having a couple of minerals as I have a night out planned tonight and if I have a few drinks during the game I usually drink at double the usual pace due to a mixture of excitement and nerves. We should get a very good turnout for what is a very important match and hopefully we will be cheering that victory. A few friends of mine will be at the game and again I hope Lady Arse, EduardoIsInnocent(he's due a name change) and Garantia have a great day and see a great victory for us. When they return I will be getting my Wengerball designed by Lady Arse sent to me in the post and I can't wait for it. Don't forget you can order yours too(and many more) here. That's it for today. Come on you Gooners.

Here's a look at what RVP did last season when he was fit.

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And to finish here's today's title track from the late great Mikey Dread. The positive reality of today is that we are better than them so we just have to play our best to win.

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See You Tomorrow.

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.

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

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See You Tomorrow.

We travel to the east end of London today for a 4.15 kick off against West Ham. It's the second of eight London derbies this season with our 1-0 victory at Craven Cottage against Fulham a few weeks ago being the first. That was a very important and hard fought victory as we weren't at our best and today we will need to fight just as hard against a West Ham team who are 19th in the table. They have always played attractive football and under Zola that has not changed but their financial difficulties are making things harder for them at the moment. A win against a top team like Arsenal today would be the tonic they need to help them climb out of the relegation zone and get their season on track so we will have to make sure that we start off at the right pace and punish them for every sigle mistake they make.

The manager doesn't have too many options when it comes to team selection as we still have a host of injuried players out. I would imagine that we will see the same team starting as we did against AZ on Tuesday night although as I have said 1,000 times before I would love to see Vela get a start for a change. Eduardo is the only player available again after injury but I would imagine that he will be on the bench as he will be reintroduced slowly for obvious reasons. I predict a 2-0 win with the goals coming from RVP & The Verminator but maybe that's because they're both in my fantasy team and I need a few more points this week to stay ahead of the posse. We are better than West Ham and a win is a must as we bid to overtake The Spuds in the league table for the first time this season following their home defeat against Stoke yesterday. Depending on the result of the Liverpool and Manure game beforehand we could find ourselves in the position where no other team in the league has dropped less points than us after this game which will shorten our odds to win the league no doubt.

Usually I would go to the supporters club in The Strand in Bray to watch the game but as it's a long weekend I'll be watching the 2 games in my local with some family and some Liverpool & Manure supporting friends. I'll miss the half time preview of The Gooner Review which the club are showing but unfortunately it can't be helped and I'll have to make sure I go out to watch the midweek Carling Cup game against Liverpool in the club. There's a bit of transfer speculation about today but I'll deal with it tomorrow as time is of the essence and roast beef doesn't cook itself. That's it for today.

Here's a clip of what Vela can do given the chance.

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And to finish here's today's title track from The Smiths. We have 8 London derbies this season and if we can win at least 6 of them I think we will win the league.

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See You Tomorrow.

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.

We have a home game at 1.30 this afternoon against Blackburn and it's live on the TV which gives our players an oppurtunity to show the world how the game should be played against a team put together by a man who would like to show the world how football should not be played. We beat Blackburn 4-0 at home and away last season and we have won our last 6 home league games against them with Blackburn failing to score in 5 of them. All that adds up to a belief that we should give them a good hiding today.

With Almunia unavailable due to sickness still it means Don Vito will remain in goal and hope to keep yet another clean sheet. The defence picks itself in my opinion but it is interesting that Eboue has played both Champions League matches this season but as Rock The Casbah said Gibbs has not got a look in. In midfield we will see Cesc and Song I'm sure and more than likely Diaby will play too but it would be nice to see Rosicky play alongside Cesc. RVP will lead the attack I'm sure and Arshavin will play too which probably means Bendtner will play on the right with Theo coming on at some stage for his comeback. I'd like to see Vela get another run out too and of course it would be good to see Jack and Rambo get some game time.

I can see Blackburn doing everything they can to frustrate us and we're bound to be kicked from one end of the pitch to the other in typical Allardyce fashion but it's up to our players to keep playing football and the chances will come. We have the fire power to cause them real problems and Paul Robinson dreads playing against us as he nears 100 career goals conceded against Arsenal. I predict a 3-0 win for Arsenal and I think RVP will keep up his recent form and goal scoring record against Blackburn by bagging at least 1 of the goals. A win will put us back in the thick of the race for the league as Manure got a lucky draw at home to Sunderland yesterday and Chelsea play Liverpool directly after our game today.

In other news our youth team got another league win yesterday as the beat Crystal Palace 1-0 with Nigel Neita scoring the only goal. There isn't too much else to say today except that I'll be watching the match in the company of my fellow Wicklow Gunners in The Strand in Bray before I join some friends in my local to watch Chelsea play Liverpool and I don't know who I want to win that one. Maybe a draw would suit Arsenal best. 

Here's a clip of the type of start we could do with against Blackburn from Arshavin in this fixture last season.

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And to finish here's today's title track from Jimmy Cliff. Blackburn may think they are hard enough to take us on but they are set for a football lesson in my opinion.

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See You Tomorrow.

We played Olympiacos last night and in the football circles in which I mix when you murder the opposition it means you have given them a thrashing. We completely outplayed them but for a long time it looked like even though we had murdered them the body had gone missing. However, with 12 minutes to go we finally found the net after a lovely move involving Cesc and Eduardo which was finished off by RVP. Then with 4 minutes left Arshavin got on the end of a pass from Cesc to back heel home the 2nd despite being offside. Overall it could and probably should have been a lot more as we created chance after chance but failsd to add the finish  to our excellent approach play. 

In the first half Cesc hit the bar and Rosicky, Arshavin & RVP all came close to scoring but a combination of poor finishing and excellent goalkeeping kept the scores level at 0-0 at the break. Olympiacos had a chance or 2 but Mannone was never really bothered until he had to make a good save from a corner early in the 2nd half. To listen to the so called experts on the TV you would think we had a very poor defence but to limit our opposition to very few chances at this level is no mean feat. Liverpool went by the wayside last night and we'll see if Manure and Chelsea can prevent the opposition from having a single effort on goal tonight.

Overall last night I thought we played with the pace and passion that was needed and we were back to our very best. Song looked very strong again in the centre of midfield and Cesc and Arshavin were almost at their very best as they tormented Olympiacos at times. Eboue, who seems to be a permanent fixture at right back in the Champions League, played very well too but I still would be worried about him in that position against a better team. Mannone kept his third clean sheet in a row and even if Almunia is fit again for Sunday he deserves to keep his place now. It was good to see Vela make an appearence and let's hope we see a lot more of him very soon. We are 3 points clear of Olympiacos and 5 ahead of both Standard & AZ after only 2 matches and we next face back to back matches against AZ. If we can get 4 points from those 2 games qualification should be more or less guarenteed and we can concentrate on other priorities.  

The boss organised a match yesterday morning between our reserves and Olympiacos' reserves to give Theo a run out and he got a good 60 minute workout in a 3-1 win in which Sunu, Frimpong & Murphy scored our goals. I mentioned yesterday that Merida had scored 2 goals for Spain against Nigeria in the under 20 World Cup and you can see them here. Our next match is against Blackburn at 1.30 on Sunday afternoon and I hope to be watching it in The Strand in Bray along with the rest of the Wicklow Gunners. That's it for today.

Here's the highlights from last night.

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And to finish today's title track from The Clash. Olympiacos weren't quite murdered last night but they should have been. Hopefully we saved a few of the goals for Blackburn on Sunday.

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