At about 21:40, on Wednesday 29th October, I was beginning to feel cautiously optimistic about our season. We'd had a cracking win in Istanbul the week before, making qualifying for the next phase of the Champions League a formality. We'd beaten West Ham away at the weekend without conceding. And although the other teams in the title race were winning, we were 4-2 up against a rejuvenated Spurs, and were cruising. A good win which would keep us nicely in touch with the leaders. The dark cloud on the horizon was that we'd made three substitutions, all defensive, leaving us with no-one on the wing or up front with any pace to chase any hopeful defensive clearances. The guys behind us started signing "Make it 5". I responded "We'll need to with Eboue on".

And so it came to pass.

The catastrophic (and to many neutrals, hilarious) draw that ensued has been analysed within an inch of its life. Suffice it to say that none of the three players who came on filled me with confidence; Eboue is random, Diaby never seems to know where he should play, and Song seems to be so excited by the prospect of being on football pitch that he forgets to do anything useful at all. So, when a normally reliable player makes a stupid mistake, no-one else bothers to mop up, so that twice the Spurs attack can simply waltz toward the goal and smack the ball into the net. Except of course, on the second attempt they hit the post, and naturally our defence had fallen asleep enough to not get to the rebound first.

The stock response from the club, that we would get through this setback, that the team will learn from its mistakes, that the team is young and inexperienced but talented and is still in the title hunt, was predictable. And with our next game against newly promoted opposition, you would expect a team that should be fighting for the title to go and win handsomely. A team hungry for success would thump the next team to cross their path. A team ashamed of their abject defending on Wednesday would tighten up, and give the travelling support something to sing about. You would expect that, but it didn't happen. Instead, a team that looked like it didn't really fancy it huffed and puffed against a hard working, physical team, and to no-one's great surprise lost. And worse, three of the team's more effective performers managed to get injured, and Van Persie stupidly got himself sent off. I noticed at the Spurs game that Van Persie had been very angry with Adebayor at the chances he'd missed; sometimes frustration seems to get the better of him, but knocking the keeper over like that was a remarkably stupid thing to do. He's now left the club with just Bendtner and Vela up front, and whilst Vela has looked good in the times we've seen him, Bendtner just seems a bit too clunky to be a great striker.

Worse was the story doing the rounds that Song has simply ignored the captain Toure's order to move back to defence whilst Toure went up for a corner. If this is true it shows a terrible lack of discipline within the team, and it has to be dealt with immediately. If a junior member of the squad ignores the request of senior member (the acting captain), that player needs to be dropped to pass a message - there is a chain of command. I simply couldn't see someone doing that to Adams, or Vieira, at least not without risking physical harm. And this, to me, is one of the huge problems with this team - there is simply no culture of effort, of respect, of fighting together. There is no leadership and when things don't go our way, it's tough and go whether the team will respond. I firmly believe that we'd have lost against Spurs if we played a few more minutes, there was such disarray in the team.

It's not as though any of this was unexpected.

The first day of the season normally sees thousands of people walk over the railway bridges to the Emirates in bright sunshine, in replica shirts and sunglasses, with a few people showing obvious signs of having overdone the sunbathing. You certainly don't expect, in mid-August, to have to wear an overcoat. And the unseasonable weather crept into the bones of the Arsenal team, who spent much of the West Brom match at half-pace. It was a strangely unsatisfying game. All the usual Arsenal deficiencies were there in their glory - the endless passing, the lack of defensive concentration, the chances wasted, the over elaboration, and the lack of conviction. An early goal by Nasri at least gave us a victory, but the hard-working West Brom team, with a classic little-and-large partnership up front, could have easily got an equaliser, given our defences polite style of defending ("After you, opposition attacker, after all you are a guest in our lovely stadium!"). Of all the players on the pitch, Nasri was one of the few who actually looked like he was enjoying being there, and seemed to have quickly struck up a good partnership with Clichy. He looked like he'd been playing for Arsenal for years. Only Sagna and Clichy looked like they were raring to go; the rest of the team seemed to lack concentration and effort. Walcott still looked more athlete than footballer; Gallas had one great shot just wide but seemed baffled by a long punt upfield; Bendtner looked like he's been taking anger management classes over the summer as he was apologising to his teammates when he fluffed his chances; Adebayor did some useful running but was wasteful with his chances. Business as usual.

As for the midfield, it was one of the more bizarre decisions of Wenger's reign to put Eboue in the middle. For a good ten minutes I couldn't quite work out what was going on; it was as though we were playing three on the right with just Denilson in the centre. In fairness, Eboue didn't play too badly. He worked hard and although he was prone to some of his usual histrionics, he took a couple of shots and it was a reasonable performance. But this is the kind of formation you play in the Carling Cup Fourth Round at home to Rotherham, when you've got some injuries in the middle of the season, not right at the start.

All in all it wasn't a great start to the season, but you can't argue with three points. What you can argue with is then travelling to West London, putting in a dreadful performance and losing to Fulham. That performance has been picked apart on Arseblogger (and other sites) well enough; I only saw the MOTD highlights and quite frankly, life's too short to want to see the whole game. Every season has games like this, when you lose a match where you have played dreadfully, and in the seasons when you win the league, you learn from them (the one exception being the unbeaten season, where a combination of a great team, sheer bloody-mindedness and a bit of luck helped us make history). Of course, normally these come in October or November - remember Blackburn or Newcastle? - and last season it came away against Birmingham, where we failed the test; I don't recall us losing a game so early on and then going on to win the league. This loss indicated that there is fundamental weakness in the team from the start of the season. If your first team are suffering injuries after a few months off (Fabregas excepted, he hardly had a break) then you have to look to replace those players. Diaby and Rosicky cannot be relied upon and shouldn't be considered first choice in their positions, and with no-one able to fill the defensive midfielder role that Diaby is ostensibly there to fill, we have a problem. I've gone on about this enough, as has Arseblogger and pretty much anyone else with any sense; but Wenger doesn't seem to see what we see and didn't make any significant moves in the transfer window. Maybe we need to be more trusting of him. After all, he is the man who has brought everyone from Vieira and Petit, to Eduardo and Sagna, via Henry, Fabregas, Van Persie and the rest, to the club.

One of those players he brought to Arsenal, without quite so much success, is Senderos. I was living in Switzerland when we signed him and a number of Swiss friends - from people I played football with, to people I watched the Arsenal with (hello to everyone at the Nelson in Zürich), to workmates, said at the time that he was a really good buy. One guy described him as a young Tony Adams and they had a point; never the most elegant of players, but with a natural ability in the air, good at reading the game, and able to come forward (for those of you who don't remember this, Big Tone used to be more of an attacking player until George Graham beat this out of him). He was also a good communicator on the pitch - I once remember him shouting at Pires to drop back and defend more, and Pires, never a player who seemed to like being told what to do, jogged back to a deeper position without complaint.

As the main blog mentions, he was seen at the club as future Captain material. Yes, he made mistakes, just like Tony Adams, but he learned from them. But he's suffered from some injuries and has been unfairly lambasted by many fans. Let's not forget the fantastic performances in the Champions League run and FA Cup Final, where he helped the team to the CL final without conceding a goal, and marshalled the Arsenal defence against a Manchester United team that were strong favourites. Sadly, he's another player Wenger bought 4-5 years ago that has gone, and like Flamini he's an unflashy player who can provide a valuable service on the pitch. He's intelligent and apparently popular with the other players; I once heard a story that he would speak to each player in their own language and can comfortably speak four languages (English, French, German and Spanish with some Italian). It's been curious to see how many people, on many blogs, have said "I know that other fans don't think much of him but I really rate him". AC Milan, who are no fools, obviously think the same. I was even considering wearing my Swiss Gunners Senderos shirt for old times sake (I stopped wearing it after the Chelski home loss three seasons ago). Again, like Flamini, I really didn't want to see him go but can totally understand his reasons wanting to move, and again I'd wish him the best of luck.

Wenger's answer to sending Senderos out on loan was to sign Silvestre. Football fans, though sometimes fickle, can be remarkably loyal people. Sol Campbell moved from our biggest enemies and whilst he never became a fan favourite, everyone knew that he was a great player, and appreciated that he'd made a difficult decision to move and respected his dignified manner (they didn't quite appreciate his bizarre departure from the club, but that's another story, and I've not heard the kind of disgraceful chants from Arsenal fans that Spurs fans have been singing). Fundamentally, fans want to feel the players at the club are their players, so that those who work hard, even when not gifted, can become heroes at the club (Ray Parlour and my namesake being two). You simply can't sign a player who has been at another club for ten years, and has headbutted one of our players, and expect the fans to take to him. You especially can't expect much when the player has spent the last couple of years on the treatment table and the bench and is widely considered to be well past his prime. He was a very odd signing and I'd have much rather us bring a young player from another English club (eg Micah Richards), or an experienced player from a European club. It'll take a hat-trick against Man Utd (as part of a 7-0 drubbing at Old Trafford, with Gallas getting the other four) to win the fans over with this signing. Scoring a goal against Spurs was a start, but then being in the central midfield pairing that conceded four goals cancelled any good feeling he may have earned.

The transfer season ended with a good win over Newcastle, and wins against old foes Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers (after conceding a stupid goal) followed. Then it all started to go wrong again. The Hull game again showed our familiar weaknesses, against a newly promoted team who were determined to not follow the script. So after going a goal up, we sit back and fail to defend again, and concede two goals without reply. Again we wasted chances, again we had lots of possession, again we are let down by a central defence that is happy to let people take pot shots from thirty yards without closing them down. On the bright side, at least we all saw a lovely goal; just a shame it wasn't by one of our own players. And the response to this game was to go up to Sunderland and let them do exactly the same - score a beautiful goal without bothering to close the player down, after a stupid mistake by Song in midfield. At least Cesc was lively enough to score a last-minute equaliser.

Following the international break, we got straight back into the rhythm of conceding stupid goals at home. Thankfully the response against Everton was better than at Sunderland and we came out convincing winners. And then came our fourth league clean sheet at West Ham, and the traumas of Spurs and Stoke.

Three defeats, two against promoted clubs, in eleven games, is just far too many. That sort of form would leave us ending the season losing ten games, putting us into mid-nineties territory. There's something very, very wrong with the club at the moment. I've already mentioned the indiscipline. The lack of concentration from some players - Song, Eboue, Diaby and Adebayor being the worst offenders - means that attacks break down and opposition attacks are not cut out quickly enough. The lack of effort gives an energetic opposition the opportunity to play us on their terms, not ours. And the constant passing ensures we lose momentum and gives the other team the chance to regroup and defend. We're simply not quick enough, with a poor workrate, to be able to break down teams that close us down and fight for every ball.

But for lack of concentration, there is one player who really stands out. Our Captain. At Fulham, he was responsible for the goal that lost us the game. Against Hull, he failed to track his player for Hull's winner. I think he's been directly responsible for nearly all the goals we have conceded from set pieces when he has been on the pitch. As a captain, you can get away with being unpopular but rock-solid (Vieira seemed to follow this; he lost his credibility when he started making mistakes and Lauren punched him one); popular but with making some mistakes (Tony Adams being occasionally mistake-prone, but able to own up to them and thank players who rescued him); the very best are both popular and rock-solid. Gallas is neither. Worse, it's not the kind of mistakes that any defender could do, such as losing a battle against one of the best strikers in Europe (such as Drogba vs Senderos); it's not being able to defend a corner against a team that struggled to stay in the league last season.

His good points, such as a fantastic tackle against Villa last season, are being lost by general ineptitude. Put simply, I simply don't think that Gallas is the man that can lead us to a league title (at best), or the FA Cup and top 4 in the league (which is the minimum that should be achieved this season). His injury came at a convenient time for Wenger to try other options, such as a Silvestre/Djourou pairing, which at least didn't concede any goals against Fehnerbache. For me, Gallas's time at the club is over; he is an experiment that has failed and he needs to be replaced in January. I don't think there are any Arsenal fans who would be sad to see him go.

But would Wenger do this? Would he effectively admit that bringing Gallas in and then making him captain was a mistake? Wenger's position is now starting to be questioned by normally sane fans. The upcoming match against Manchester United is one of the biggest of Wenger's career at the club, and a loss, especially a bad one, could make the calls for him to leave louder, and more convincing. Previously these calls would be correctly dismissed as being from the lunatic fringe, but given his reluctance to strengthen the team in areas in which it is obviously weak, they may start to appear more sane by the day. His outburst about Stoke's tackling was also bizarre and has got even his most ardent defenders questioning what his motives were; Stoke were physical, yes, but hardly Allardyce-esque, and Walcott's injury looked more like bad luck than anything. What is happening within the club is something of a mystery, but for me, it seems as though he's either not being challenged by his staff, or he's simply not listening. It's a dangerous situation and one which simply can't go on, not if the club wishes to stay in the top four. Wenger is one of the finest football managers ever and it's sad to watch the club start what could be a slide down the table if the issues with the team are not addressed quickly.

This is sounding very negative; there have been some great moments this season. It's been fantastic seeing Vela in the flesh (one of his goals against Sheffield Utd was a thing of sheer beauty, even against Championship opposition); Walcott is improving game by game and is beginning to look like the finished article; Sagna and Clichy are still looking very good (despite the mistake against Spurs); Ramsay has looked the real deal in some of his performances. When we do start really playing, we are incredible, as Bolton, Everton and Newcastle learned to their cost. And the crowd has been quite entertaining so far this season; the atmosphere against Spurs (at least until the closing minutes) was great, and some of the chants have been rather good, in particular those for the Porto player, Hulk - "You're only green when you're angry". "You're only here to see Eboue" made me laugh too, as well as the new Walcott song "He's an Englishman at Arsenal". It's nice when football fans make fun of themselves and the team - ok, these aren't quite Manchester City-esque "We're shit and we know we are", but you've got to start somewhere.

But this season feels like it's going very wrong, very quickly. As the great Wilco once sang "It's all beginning to feel like it's ending", and without some changes, this club could be on its way down the table, shedding the best players and with a manager unable to see what's wrong. I love this club, I've been supporting it for thirty years, and I don't want to be telling my son in ten years time about the great team Arsenal once were in the way that Nottingham Forest fans must do. I want to be telling him why Arsenal is such a great club. Arsene, think long and hard about what is best for the club and its fans; remember that no-one is untouchable; remember that teams need strength and fight as well as beautiful passing and skill; remember why you're the best manager in the country. Alex Ferguson was in a similar position a few years ago and he clawed his way back out with some good signings (both on the pitch and on the coaching staff), you need to do the same. As he's the only manager who ranks alongside you, learn from his lessons.

§Starting today.

Now that the flats conversion, that was once the home of football, is nearing completion, I am starting to feel actual pain replacing nostalgia. That once great edifice to the permanence of class is now a housing development flirting with credit crunch failure. The novelty of living there will be pretty comprehensively outweighed by chagrin if negative equity is involved (for the 35% of us that can still get a mortgage approved). Before the housing market slumped, only footballers could afford to live there. Now even they aren’t prepared to extinguish their smouldering pockets and jettison a few quid just to be nearer work. The only person who can lose that kind of money and not worry about it, these days, is Roman Abramovich.

In Huxley’s Brave New World the masses were content for three reasons; the absence of conflict over resources, a sense of certainty over your role in life, and masses of guilt free promiscuous sex. For the modern footballer read a great salary, a first team place and masses of guilt free promiscuous sex [Actually there was a fourth reason - everyone was stoned on mild hallucinogens, but never mind]. Across the railway tracks from our old home - out of the frosted bathroom window of one of those luxury pads in fact - can be viewed a gigantic symbol of the economics - and ergonomics - of modern football; a stadium purpose built to extract cash from supporters and convert it into ever more insulated cocoons for the players who grace its stage. Like the ring around a bath, there are the Alphas and Betas in the middle tier of corporate seats. Watching Arsenal is fast gaining on a round of golf and a few sherbets in the 19^th hole as a very good way to do business. Below them are the Gamma seats where the atmosphere is supposed to come from; in the very top Epsilon tier you need opera glasses to read the back of the players shirts, let alone yell something that anyone but the bloke in front can sing along to. Stodgy microwave pizza and bland plastic glasses of lager in the very model of a multi-storey car park only add to the half-time ennui. The one consolation, so far, has been that (apart from bloody West Ham) you won’t see Arsenal lose. You will have been richly entertained at TNHOF and you will not have felt very often that the display you were witnessing wasn’t worth every penny, no matter how huge the viewing distance.

It must remain so. Start losing games with the abject poverty of endeavour or intelligence, as we did against Fulham last weekend, and all the other things that rile you about Arsenal bubble to the surface. People will start to notice the emperor is stark Ballack naked only when the 11 men in Charlton Replica shirts no longer provide such elegant distraction. The true Arsenal fan lacks peripheral vision most of the time; the team and only the team is the focus of their undivided attention. Any unexpected failure, however, will cause us to speculate whether the problems are transitory or profound, and to try and hunt down a culprit. Before we start looking around us (and wondering if Arsenal is still the club we fell in love with, or a whether in fact she’s bought some new clobber, had a boob job and stopped caring that we don’t call to say we’ll be late), we should therefore look at the team for the source of the malaise.

Now Ade is staying, RVP is playing, Eduardo is praying and Vela is sashaying through defences, I’m thinking we’re a match for anyone up front. We have the two best full backs in the league too and a goalkeeper who many unfairly underrate and two decent understudies. Central defence is bit of a worry. Gallas is a much better defender when he concentrates on defending. Those silly captain’s gee-up talks are not getting him anywhere. But he, Toure, Djourou (and Silvestre, I suppose you have to say) are all very decent players, and Big Phil should come back a better player too.

Even as the role of attacking midfielder and striker becomes more blurred in the modern game, no one has yet posited the 4-0-6 formation. But Arsenal without Cesc resemble a polo mint, and not so much because they are a breath of fresh air. Where we are now seriously weak (apart from Cesc) in midfield, our three main rivals are strong. United can keep Scholes joints oiled for another campaign and let Giggsy have a run out when Ronaldo’s hair is looking tired, because they can count on England internationals Carrick and Hargreaves to make significant contributions. Park Ji-Sung has never let them down, Nani can cover both Ronaldo and Giggs (the showboating tw#t), and they can still bank on Anderson (who is Gilberto and Flamini rolled into one if you ask me, and Roy Keane niggly with it) playing a fair few games. In a long season, that kind of strength in depth counts majorly, and they hardly needed a genuine centre forward to win them the league and European Cup double last term as it is. Yet United know who the best two strikers available are - Rocky Santa Cruz and Dimitar Berbatov - and are determined to get one of them, despite having Wayne Rooney, Louis Saha and Carlos Tevez in their forward line. Their intention is to retain, in its entirety, their burgeoning central player roster and address their only genuine weakness in a profound and decisive way with serious cash. That’s strategic strengthening that you can appreciate far more readily than Chelsea’s boy-in-a-sweetshop incontinence or the revolving doors of Anfield.

Liverpool, the weakest of the three in this regard, can’t find a place for Xabi Alonso because they’ve seen Bareth Garry dovetail with Steven (he’s not bad is he?) Gerrard for England and want some of it (although it looks like rafa will have to wait for his bride). Never mind that their 41 strong first team squad also features Javier Mascherano, retains the services of the Flamini like under-20 Brazil captain Lucas and a goal-scoring version of Alex Hleb in Yoss “the Boss” Benayoun… they still want Gareth to be the Flamini to Gerrards Cesc. Gerrards injury last night might put paid to any move away for Alonso.

And Chelsea is a roll call of top class midfielders to the point where they’d consider selling Joe Cole and SWP. I think we should honestly think about rescuing one or other of them (Cole preferably). If we can extend the hand of friendship to an injured Mickael Silvestre, then why not give a first team berth to a less odious and not injured former rival player in an area of the pitch where we could really use the help? The reason Chelsea can afford to tout those two is because Ballack is now on song (and he is very good, however much you might dislike him), Lampard is fat but can score goals with balls that Hleb would have passed, and Essien is just plain class. With Mikel yet to fulfil his enormous potential, Malouda pounding down the wings and Deco the new darling of the Bridge, it does not matter that they can imminently call on near infinite resources to buy one or other of the best attacking midfielders in world football from two top drawer European opponents, they’d already be too strong for us in the middle.

I can’t remember a time when the motto “In Arsene We Trust” (adapted ironically from that on a one dollar bill) was more sorely tested than now. His stubbornness is virtuous, of course. But our cri de coeur is genuine as well. It’s not just the usual grumblings “about £30m players every time we lose” this time. Most fans appreciate that we don’t have those vast sums and that we’re not going to go to the crossroads and do a deal with the fat man to get them. If he has heard that view expressed at all, anywhere, it was down to David Dein and Usmanov lobby, not us. They want our club and they are using the disgusting profligacy of our rivals as an example, rather than a salutary warning. As my mum used to say "...And if he jumped off a cliff, would you do it as well? Stupid boy!"

Arsenal supporters are not an ignorant or unreasonable lot either. We know how few games Arsenal have lost in the last few years, playing attractive passing football. And we know a £30m prima donna wouldn’t necessarily have won us those games. But we also know about the precisely zilch, trophy-wise, that generally not losing has obtained for us. We don’t all cry over a £30m signing when we lose. We’d be happy enough with another of the £500k gems the boss so often unearths, so long as he is capable of immediately and fully replacing Flamini’s work ethic, Hleb’s trickery, and Gilberto’s nous and dedication.

Arsene Wenger, to quote Aldous Huxley, “would rather be himself, sad, than another person, happy”. His fiscal management may have earned the admiration of the more sober journalists, in comparison with the profligacy all around the Premier League and in keeping with these straitened times. But we need Arsenal to provide relief from our daily lives, not to chasten us further. When Deco sparkles for Chelsea we do notice. We’ll not be unconscious when Robinho arrives at Heathrow and begins his piffling £70,000 a week contract (I expect Rio Ferdinand to laugh in his face). We won’t be so absorbed in gas price deals on USwitch that we are not cogniscent of the day when Ronaldo gets fit and starts Michael Flatleying his way around defenders. Throw us a frickin' bone here, Arsene.

We're told to take solace in the potential we have, rather than the actual. Ramsey has great awareness. Denilson has captained Brazil at under 19 level. Wilshere looks special. Diaby, once he controls his limbs and stops playing like he’s in a practice match, could be the next Viera. Walcott est tres rapide. Nasri is the real deal (the next Pires even?). And Cesc is a phenomenon; already world class at such a tender age. In physics potential energy is stored energy. A body can sit with enormous amounts of stored potential energy indefinitely (for example at the top of a steep hill). But it needs outside impetus to convert that potential energy into kinetic energy.

I’m not maligning the players we do have. They did their youthful best last season. If they keep it up, then - in two or three years time, if events of the last few years are anything to go by - they will all be household names plying their trade in Spain or Italy. But what do we do right now? Right this minute we need to show a snarling set of bared fangs to the opposition, not a row of wobbly milk teeth. We need our main three rivals to know that they won’t have it all their own way and to tell the rest of the premiership not to even think about trying to break into the big kids club. Just one genuinely class centre midfield signing would send that message. It would also provide the leadership and organisation that those young players need. There is no specialist midfield coach or senior pro to guide any of our progeny right now, off or on the field (get well soon, Liam Brady). It would also mean that Cesc is rather less heavily tasked when he is available. He can get on with running the game rather than running after the ball. And if the Twente game showed that he makes all the difference; the Fulham game showed why we need options when he’s not around.

I only see my younger male cousins every few years and each time I’m amazed by the men that have replaced the boys I knew; a head taller than me, skirt chasers, beer drinkers, holders of responsible jobs with decent money, owners of their own flats and cars. One recently informed me that he supports Chelsea! They haven’t sat still. They’ve grown. I viewed Fulham until recently in the same light; tousle-headed youngsters who we could always best. Hodgson made a few good signings like Gera and Hangeland, makes Danny Scouse the captain, and all of a sudden they’re showing us clean pair of heels. You see, other teams aren’t trying to keep their hair straight when the zeitgeist blows by. They can’t learn anything from us anymore as we're no longer teaching them anythig new. Now we’ve gone off at a tangent that's hard to replicate. But you bet they were all paying attention when Chelsea got their windfall, and that club has proved a more seductive role model than Arsenal. We used to give guided tours to league managers with a commentary and pamphlets on the Arsenal way to do things, a complimentary towel and a packet of creatine chewy sweets. Now those league clubs have grown up, moved on, and we can’t take beating them every season for granted. And we must also expect twice as many of them are able to match us in the transfer market as could the last time we won the league.

Arsene Wenger was the unwitting midwife of the modern football world and so bears a little of the responsibility for how it has changed, really. His recent conservatism is understandable and noble, when the amount of money swilling about is inversely proportionate to the amount of common sense. It is as if he is Dr Frankenstein, shrinking in horror from his own creation though. It is misplaced conservatism not to strengthen the team at this moment. Selling the club to Dein and Usmanov, that would be a betrayal; getting hold of a decent experienced central midfielder before the close of the transfer window is just a necessity. He would not be dipping a toe into dystopia by doing so. But any more of this malarkey, and we’ll all be reaching for the soma.

So the new Premier League season is less than a week away, the transfer news is lukewarm, and Sky are hyping up our first game of the season, against West Brom. And for once, I’m not really all that excited. Sure, I’m looking forward to coming out of Arsenal tube at about 12:30 on Saturday, into a hopefully warm summer’s day, realising I’m going to be late if I don’t get a shift on. Then strolling up the stairs over the railway, surrounded by singing fans all celebrating a return to normality, seeing the stadium resplendent and the crowds outside, doing the usual queue hopping to get through the turnstiles as quickly as I can, avoiding the people who don’t know how the card system works (still, in our third season!).

Then there’s my two-steps at a time run up the stairs (a superstition) – just about the only exercise I get these days – a quick stop to grab a slice of pizza (another superstition), and then going through tunnel 102 to my part of the ground (yep, another superstition – for an atheist, I sure am superstitious, at least when it comes to the football) and the final, painful climb to the top of the stand. I’m now on my third season as a season ticket borrower - it’s not mine; I’m lucky enough to have a friend who’s sold it to me for the past couple of years - and it’s been nice to see the same familiar faces week in, week out, in the same seat, even if it is so far back it’s like watching ants run round after a poppy seed.

But the pleasure of the ritual aside, it’s been a bittersweet experience for the last two years, and especially the last few months of the last season. The Birmingham game, no matter what we tried telling ourselves in the aftermath, did end up defining our season. It was all there – appalling tackles from the opposition, bizarre refereeing, an inability to defend set pieces, an even more unforgivable inability to take chances handed to us on a plate, blatant penalties not given to us, and the mother of all strops from our Captain.

Ah, our captain. When we signed him a number of my Chelsea supporting friends believed they got the worse of that deal, and for the first six months of last season (his second, after his injury-plagued first season), I would have agreed with them. His equaliser against Man U at home was worth it alone. But since then he showed a worrying line in emotional outbursts, a lack of concentration on the pitch, and a general lack of leadership. By the end of the season it was pretty clear that it was Cesc that was the leader on the pitch, and indeed it’s been Cesc that has been making the soothing noises to the press, especially the comments about FC Barcelona’s behaviour. More about him later.

Back to Gallas; as other people have noted, he appears to be an experiment that went wrong (a bit like Frankenstein’s monster) and it’s a worry for the new season that Gallas is still captain. Maybe he’ll learn and grow from the experience, and I can’t imagine him taking demotion gracefully, so it seems like we’re stuck with him and hoping he has managed to suppress his emotional tendencies. Speaking from my own experience, you don’t become a good manager overnight, and last season could have been instrumental in making Gallas a great leader on the pitch. Even toward the end of the season, he was not congratulating Bendner for scoring a goal against Liverpool that could have revived our flaccid title push – behaviour that caused Cesc to go and have a word with him (and it didn’t look particularly friendly).

Anyway, back to Birmingham. The sheer ridiculousness of that game, which took out our best practitioner of our Plan B football, cast a funk over the team that took pretty much the rest of the season to shake off. The first half of the season could be summarised as large swathes of brilliance dotted by patches of idiocy, and the second as large swathes of idiocy dotted by patches of brilliance. Let’s not forget that in the second half of the season, Arsenal were beating, away from home, Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool and could, and should have, beaten all three fairly comfortably. We again showed we can outplay anyone, yet couldn’t win when we needed to. Of course, in all three games we can point to poor decisions (all three winning goals in each game came from dubious refereeing decisions, especially so in the Liverpool game), but we can’t ignore the fact that we fail to kill off games. And that’s not even starting on the appalling run of draws after the Birmingham game.

What stopped us from killing those games off? As ever, it’s the people we’ve got on the pitch. Our success in the first half of the season came down to the ability of some players to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and get goals. Two players in particular; Cesc and Eduardo (though Flamini did also contribute, again more on him later). Eduardo was a great buy last season and one of my favourite moments last season was at the West Ham game, where my erstwhile friend M (who’d missed most of the games thanks to working abroad, asked at the kick off “So what’s this Eduardo like then?” and I replied “He’s amazing, he gets the ball and he just knocks them in…..like that!” as he slotted a cross in.

We all just know that if the ball had been with Hleb, or Eboue, the ball would have been passed around until the defence got hold of it and it was hoofed away. Cesc scored some vital goals early on in the season. And Flamini got a few too; including one absolute blinder against Newcastle (definitely in the top ten of favourite Arsenal goals). But the problem of not scoring enough really could be down to two people – Hleb and Eboue. Hleb’s gone and whilst he’s a fantastically skilful player, he has almost no end product. Early in the season, he was looking like the kind of player that could make the difference, but he quickly fell back into his dribble, dribble, jink, dribble, lose the ball, run round like headless chicken style that so endeared him to Arsenal fans the world over. As for his attempt to say that he was tired of the hectic lifestyle and pressure for playing for a top club like Arsenal – frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard such total guff. He looks pretty likely to be yet another player to leave Arsenal and not fulfil his potential (from Anelka and Petit, to later departures such as Pennant and Bentley).

And Eboue. What is there to say about Eboue? He’s quite possibly the most unpopular player ever to play in an Arsenal shirt (at least whilst he’s still wearing it). Opinion on Eboue is divided; some Arsenal fans want him sold off immediately, others want him beaten up a bit first and then sold. I've yet to meet anyone recently who has a good word to say about him. His time had come at the Spurs game at the Grove; at one point, Robbie Keane brushed past him and Eboue took the opportunity to roll around on the ground as though shot. Keane wandered over to him to berate his gamesmanship, and Arsenal fans started shouting at Keane to give Eboue "a shoeing", "a kicking", and I heard one bloke shout "kick the diving cunt!".

Now, Keane isn't exactly a popular player amongst Arsenal fans but this is ridiculous; asking him to kick one of our own players must be unheard of. Random behaviour aside, he provides few goals, and few assists. Though assessments of a players performance can't be done solely from statistics, an attacking midfielder is there to create and score goals. He simply doesn't do this. Worse, his antics have caused the team to lose concentration at vital moments and we have conceded because he's too busy faking an injury than doing his job. And even worse than that, he often goes missing and doesn’t bother to track back and defend (which Hleb, to his credit, did do, and did more than Pires). I really can’t see why he’s still playing for us, except that maybe we can’t find anyone stupid enough to buy him. Maybe we should get him an English passport; some stupid club in the North-West would probably throw about £15m at us for him.

Whilst I’m on the subject of the playing staff, this summer has seen a hilariously inept attempt by Adebayor to boost his pay packet. Now, this seems to be over and he’s staying with us, but to try and engineer a pay rise from £35k a week to £80k by proposing a move to Barcelona, or AC Milan, whilst saying he needed it for his retirement (he’s 24), is up there with Ashley Cole’s “I nearly crashed my car” statement. Empathising with footballers is tough enough without them coming out with this sort of guff; do they not realise that almost all the people coming to watch them every week – and paying their wages through season tickets, Sky subscriptions, merchandising etc – earn less than that amount each year? How on earth can they even begin to get any sympathy (as this is an Arsenal blog, I won’t go into the Ronaldo transfer here, except to say that slaves generally didn’t get £120k a week and their pick of the prettiest prostitutes in Manchester)? Sadly, football being the way it is, he’ll score a hat-trick in the first game (to beat West Brom 3-2, our final goal coming in the sixth minute of injury time, of course), and everyone will be singing that bloody awful song again.

So these three players have contributed to making me wonder why I bother shelling out a grand or so to watch them, although one of them has moved on. Some people have said recently that the days of liking and respecting players have gone. I wouldn’t necessarily go that far; after all, Adebayor was a nightmare at Monaco and is a known troublemaker; Hleb has something of an interesting background (growing up in Byelrus with a father dying of cancer from the Chernobyl cleanup can’t have been a barrel of laughs), and I’d like to see a psychiatrist report on Eboue; I suspect it’d be fascinating reading. In some ways, I quite like the way Flamini left – after all, if the company I work for had tried getting rid of me a year ago after dumping me on the bench, then decided to keep me for a season, I’d be a bit wary of signing a new contract with them, especially if an Italian firm came in offering to more than double my salary and move me to a city with rather more sunshine (and better food) than London.

Let’s not forget that the Flamster comes from Marseille and would likely find the culture of Milan more to his suiting, and quite frankly I don’t blame him at all. He never slagged off the club, or London; he was gracious and thanked the fans; he finished his contract without any dark threats to play badly, and should we play him again at some point (assuming AC Milan actually qualify for the Champions League at some point) I’d happily applaud him.

But that’s not to say we won’t miss him. Flamini is one of those players that many fans like to see – like Ray Parlour, Oleg Luzhny, and going back to my namesake – that aren’t necessarily the most talented or skilful (in the case of Oleg, not talented or skilful at all), but make up for this with hard work, constant running, determination, and the occasional lovely goal (ok, Oleg didn’t do that either). They are the kind of player many fans can identify with. The question is now, who will replace him in midfield?

Diaby, whilst on a good day looks disturbingly like Vieira, is absolutely shocking on a bad day, and those bad days happen far too often. Part of that is that he’s been played out of his natural position out on the wing, but being on a strange bit of pitch doesn’t stop your ability to pass the ball to someone with the same colour shirt on, or stop your ability to run back up the pitch to chase the ball you’ve gone and lost. As for the other options, well, we’ve sold Gilberto, Alex Song is improving but still scary, and Denilson who’s not bad, but too much like Fabregas to make a good partnership, mean that we’re still lacking a strong core to the team. I can only hope that we’re about to make a move for a strong defensive midfielder or that Wenger has as trick up his sleeve. The fact that we’re only a few days away from the start of the season proper without a strong, tough defensive midfielder worries the pants off me, and the fact that we’ve not signed anyone yet, and not giving a new signing time to meet up and train with the team for a couple of weeks before the pressure is on, worries me more.

As for the question of killing games off, with Nasri and Walcott we’ve got some interesting alternatives to the usual pass pass pass pass pass pass shoot oh-no-it’s-been-blocked tactics so favoured of Hleb and Eboue. I hope that the lack of urgency and imagination was down to those players, rather than the training they were getting, but I’m not too sure. I believe that the team’s natural tendency to want to look good rather than want to win showed through a bit too strongly last season; hopefully the fresh blood of Nasri and Vela, and greater experience of existing players like Walcott, will tip the balance more in favour of actually winning.

Other than that, the season ahead could be an interesting one. Wenger’s been making statements that he’s trusting in youth, which is all well and good, especially since in recent years it’s the senior players who have gone bonkers – Cole, Campbell and Gallas, I’m looking in your direction. Just like the start of last season, there are fundamental weaknesses in the team, and again it’s not clear they have been addressed. And in general, there are things that concern me, both with the club and the game in general. I’m hoping for a season in which:

1. Van Persie stays pretty much uninjured. He’s fantastic; I really think he’s one of the most talented players I’ve ever seen in the flesh, and he’s also got what’s euphemistically called “character” – in other words, he’ll kick and fight to get his way, even if that means the occasional elbow. I personally think that those crazy Dutch people have cloned Bergkamp. But he keeps hurting himself in strange ways, which is no use to anyone. I said to a number of people at the start of last season "If Van Persie stays fit, he'll win the league for us, as he can do things no other footballer can do". But he didn't. So we didn’t. Let’s try again, shall we?

2. We stop making stupid defensive mistakes. Clichy and Sagna are fantastic, the best players in their position in the league (though Evra comes pretty close), but both Gallas and Toure make basic errors that they really shouldn’t be doing any more. Senderos still looks baffled on occasion, but is better than many fans think, and both Song and Djourou are too raw. But not conceding really, really stupid goals would help that panicky last twenty minutes that so enthralled us last season.

3. Rosicky plays some games. He wasn’t too bad, when his balsa-wood frame wasn’t splintering all round the pitch. He might even win some matches for us. Ok, that’s a long shot.

4. That we get Eduardo back. He really was something special before his horror injury, and let’s hope it doesn’t cause those knock-on injuries that have blighted Diaby, and that psychologically he’s ok. Saying that, he seems a pretty tough cookie. On that note, it’s interesting to find out that all the stories about Martin Taylor having spoken to him in hospital were totally fabricated; Eduardo himself was said to have responded “If he did come to visit me, I’d tell him where to stick his apology”. Good lad. Anyway, he seemed to be just about the only person in the Arsenal team who understood the fundamental, basic law of football – get the ball in the back of the net and don’t worry about the details. Some of his goals, such as the two against Everton, were wonderfully simple. Run faster than the defender, send the keeper the wrong way, that sort of thing. If we do get him back, fit and well, he’s our plan B and hopefully an inspiration to the rest of the team.

5. Nasri and Walcott fulfil their promise. Walcott still needs a bit more confidence in front of goal, but he’s fearsomely quick and seems to get on well with the team. Nasri looks like a good buy, but then again, as Arseblogger has pointed out, we thought that about Hleb. And Reyes. Let’s hope he’s more like Sagna or Eduardo.

6. Bendtner and Adebayor grow up and get on. I’m not asking them to be best buddies or anything, but acknowledging each other on the pitch would be a good start. Passing to each other might be better. At least we now know, with hindsight, that Bendtner might have had a good reason to be pissed off with Ade. Saying that, Bendtner does seem to have that special Scandinavian way of being able to enjoy making enemies (see Raikkonen).

7. That Adebayor realises what a twat he’s been, and makes up for it by scoring 60 goals. Ok, that’s another long shot. But improving his shots/goals ratio is vital, as he didn’t look too smart for large periods of last season.


8. That Eboue stops being a cock and puts all that energy he spends being a cock, with the falling over, pretending to be injured thing, into playing football as well as he possibly can. That’s a very, very long shot.

9. That Almunia carries on being quietly good. I suppose having a defence in front of him that remembers it needs to actually defend, rather than watch as opposition strikers saunter past them, then complaining it was someone else’s job to stop them, would be a help, but he hasn’t looked too bad. He’s certainly cut out some of the rash mistakes he used to make, but I’m still not quite convinced.

10. We buy a decent, tough, central midfielder. Barry would probably suit me fine, frankly, as he’d get the job done, but £18m is a ridiculous sum. Alonso’s just as good but he looks like his star is on the wane, and again, stupid money is being asked for. Speaking of which, there’s some really crazy money doing the rounds these days - £13m for Andy Johnson? £19m for Robbie Keane? I wonder what kind of drugs are being consumed in club boardrooms around the country. I’m beginning to wish I was a football agent.

11. Fabregas doesn’t get injured (see, I said I’d get back to him). He’s a gem, one of the players that comes along once every decade or so, that’s just so good he operates on a different level to everyone else on the pitch (our last one was Henry, so we’ve been pretty spoiled in that respect). His ability to make space with a quick turn, his rapid thinking and ability to pick out a player on the run, and his tenacity in chasing down the opposition make him one of the finest midfielders I’ve ever seen. I was lucky enough to see his home debut and still remember that after about ten minutes, people started turning to each other saying “He’s a bit good this one”. He’s also much tougher than meets the eye; he can bundle much bigger players off the ball, and then has the skill to get away from them. He’s the life and soul of the team, an example to the younger players, and represents what is good about Arsenal and Wenger’s philosophy. Please don’t get injured. Oh, and one more thing about Cesc – my favourite memory from last season was him telling Rio Ferdinand to "Fuck off!" after the equaliser at home to Man U, which was hilariously shown on the big screens to huge cheers. More of that, please.

12. Keep scoring goals from set pieces. We actually starting getting ok at this last season, to the point that a corner became a chance to get a goal rather than just a way of getting the ball back to the oppositions keeper in new and interesting ways. And, fact fans, apparently Bendtner has the record for the quickest goal by a substitute – 1.8 seconds, against Spurs last season. Bet you didn’t know that.

13. Someone sorts out the transport from Ashburton Grove. It’s ridiculous – 60,000 people into a couple of tube stations, all on the same line, just doesn’t fit. I suppose the East London extension (from 2011) should help out but until the Piccadilly Line can run more than one train every four minutes, we’re doomed to spend half an hour outside queuing after each match, and getting armchair fans complaining that everyone leaves early. I don’t leave early except under exceptional circumstances, and have supported us for long enough to know you should never leave a match early. Saying that, I understand why some people are tired of queuing. Maybe I should go down the boozer more, but I suspect family life might take something of a downturn.

14. And one last rant – referees. How can they ask for more respect, when on the first game of the new season, a Manchester United player grabs a Portsmouth player by the throat and doesn’t even get booked? It’s pretty typical now, and it’s one of the reasons why players simply have no respect for the referees. Why accept a decision against you when you’ve seen the ref ignore other, worse infringements? We’re so far behind some other sports now – such as Cricket, Rugby Union, American Football, Formula 1 – in using action replays that it’s making football a laughing stock. The more paranoid amongst you would say that this is done deliberately to favour certain teams, but you’d be a fool and a Communist to believe that the English game is in any way corrupt, unlike those foreign leagues in Germany, Spain, Italy and France. In any case, action replays aren’t totally foolproof, as shown in the Rugby World Cup Final in 2007 (in which the footage was ambiguous), or in Formula 1 (where the footage seems to be used to make preferential rulings in favour of one team, Ferrari). But they are still better than nothing; the modern game is too quick, the stakes are so high, and the pressure the players are under to perform, mean that it’s in players interests to bend the rules in their favour as much as possible. That’s not to say that this can be stopped – merely that when they do this, they should be punished, fairly and equally. Action replays can help cut out the more egregious refereeing decisions (Kuyt vs Phil Neville being my favourite from last season) and should be implemented as soon as possible.

15. That, this season, those worries we have had at the start don’t come to pass, and we win the league. Champions League I’d like, but frankly Liverpool winning it by being spawny gits debased it for me. We only failed by four points – four points! – and by stopping some of the basic mistakes we keep on making, we’d go a long way to winning the league. Four points really isn’t much, especially since Man Utd really struggle without Ronaldo and don’t seem to have done anything about a Plan B over the summer. And the Chelsea issue of trying to play Lampard and Ballack in exactly the same part of the pitch doesn’t seem to have been resolved, new manager or not, which could cause trouble on and off the pitch (as it did last season). So I’m hoping for a long-term injury to Ronaldo and another civil war at Chelsea.

So that’s my hopes for the season. Not much to ask, is it? So we start off the new season and I’m starting to wonder if it’s still worth it, what with the annoying players, defensive mistakes, the pass-the-ball-289-times-before-trying-a-shot-on-goal tactics, the lack of a killer instinct, and all those other faults, but then I know that as I finish my dodgy pizza, wishing they still did the smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels (on which note, why can’t they do those – they were fantastic and a nice little nod to the club’s largely unsung Jewish heritage), I’ll start shouting out the names of the players along with everyone else.

Maybe it’s that I’ve started to come back down to earth after ten years of winning something almost every season, and need to get back to where we were in the mid-nineties, or even to the eighties, where doing ok in the league with a good cup run would be the mark of a good season; back to where most football fans spend their lives. But then again, this is Arsenal – we’ve got the best manager in the world, a great board, a superb stadium, a mixed, generally easygoing and funny fan base (who, in fairness, are a bit quiet) and some of the finest young players in the world playing the best football you’re likely to see in this country. Keep working hard, play as a team, take the chances handed to us every game, cut out the stupid mistakes, hope that we don’t get too many injuries, and we can win.

We can do better than third, you know.

Hleb's parting shot to Wenger: I'm playing well but Arsenal have won nothing for three years so it's time for me to move on.

They quote from an interview Hleb gave. Or, should I say, selectively quote. Because if you see the full article you'll see he says:

I have also read that I wanted to move because Arsenal would win nothing, this too is nonsense.

Thus making the Mail look like the total chumps they are. As I said on the main blog I reckon Hleb will be leaving and I don't think he's handled the situation too well but we can't pass up the opportunity to have a go at the Mail - who seem to produce a lot of content very similar to that which appears first on blogs..

He currently plays for Lebanse side al-‘Awāsif and is well known for his crunching tackles and no nonsense approach to the game. His robust style has earned him the nickname 'The Madman' and last season alone he picked up nine yellow and three red cards.

A fee of around £1.5m has been reported and he is expected in London towards the end of the week for a medical.

His agent is quoted as saying 'I know the al-‘Awāsif fans are in the tempests saying this is the death of a prophet but it is merely the next logical step in Khalil's career. He has certainly got the vision to play for Arsenal'.

We'll wait and see what develops.

I don’t know why people want to put words in my mouth. As I said on Friday, I love Arsenal and I will be here next season. I am off to Togo tomorrow but will return to Arsenal for pre-season training in July.

It was a reaction to an interview which appeared in El Mundo Deportivo in Spain today. Here are some selected highlights.

El Mundo - Now you are happy at Arsenal, but I don't know if you know that Barcelona have made a bid for you.

To be honest, I only found this out from you. Nobody has spoken with me for now, neither the club or my agent. Maybe things will change tomorrow, I don't know. For the moment I must wait but it's clear that I would be very happy to play for Barcelona because it's one of the biggest clubs in the world. But now the most important thing is to keep working the same way on the pitch.

Nevertheless, you can't close the door on Barcelona.

I can't close the door because I don't know what could happen tomorrow. If Arsenal tell me I have to go then I will go. But for this to happen Barcelona has to make an offer. Meanwhile, I will not worry and I'll enjoy my holidays.

What things attract you to Barcelona?

Many things. If Barcelona made an offer to Arsenal and came to an agreement I would happy go to play there because Barcelona is one of the best clubs in the world. But today I am an Arsenal player. We have to wait for an offer and see what happens.

Would you like to have a reunion with Henry at Barca?

Why not? It would be a pleasure to hook up with him again. I went one to Barcelona to see him. He is one of my best friends, I would love to play with him again, but perhaps as well he might come back to play for Arsenal (smiles).

Would you be happy playing in the Barcelona system?

Of course. They play good football, lots of touches, very offensive. They've had great players like Romario, Figo, Ronaldinho ...there is no player who could say no to Barcelona. I don't know if it will happen now, in two or ten years, but I would really like to play there.

Do you know the city? Would that also attract you?

I came one time after 'Titi' signed. I liked the city. There's always sun, good temperature, the beach. I am African, these things I value a lot.

Do you believe that if Barcelona were to make a final bid for you to Arsenal that they would make it difficult?

If you are good they don't want you to leave. It's normal. It would be something between the two clubs and we would see what happens because Arsenal would ask for a lot of money to see if Barcelona would pay. After they could reach an agreement. Arsenal signed me from Monaco and gave me the opportunity to be in the first team. I am very grateful for that, so if I had to leave I would really like if it were on good terms.

-----

Source - in Spanish.

I know it hurts the players to lose. After all they sweated for it. But they also have plenty of ways to get a sense of perspective about it. Firstly they usually know, and often socialise with, members of the opposition team. I don’t. As soon as football conversation breaks out I get so partisan I’m impossible company. I’ve seen them shaking hands and catching up in the tunnel beforehand. I have to say it’s a nice aspect of the game, that sportsmanship and camaraderie. Shame that special bond they share across the divide might just as well be an athletic girl called Tina who does a peculiar trick with a brandy glass.

Second, in their mind it’s often just a bad day at work. For me it’s a bad day out - one which I had really been looking forward to and which cost me half a weeks salary all in. Or it’s a bad time down the pub - one which I had really been looking forward to and can cost a fair bit as well. Or, worst of all, it’s a bad day at home, which no one in my family looks forward to. Our new cat has learned to climb out the window when Sky Sports theme tune comes on.

Thirdly, can I just jump ship and be on someone elses side, like they can? If I was lucky enough to suddenly improve beyond my wildest imagination and get picked for Manchester City’s first team (yeah I know, but Ronaldinho though? It might as well be me) and we were drawn against Arsenal; I’d score in my own teams goal…repeatedly, and deliberately, as often as it was possible, until Richard Dunne chinned me. It’s not just Man City. That goes for any team that picks me. I’m a bloody liability if we come up against The Gunners.”Better off leaving me on the bench for this one, Gaffer”. I must admit at this point that I did go with some local lads to support Peterborough United in a crucial away tie at Milton Keynes Dons and was heard to sing some songs using more than one form of personal pronoun. But it doesn’t count because the Posh IS my local team and I DO want to see them go up (despite their coach being the allegedly wifebeating son of Beelzebub) and also because Milton Keynes is a made up town with a borrowed football team, and also because the coach down there was laid on free; kind of an obligation to bellow “Shoot the Cambridge Scum” out of the bus window…be rude not to.

And one thing I don’t get at work, if I fail, is such a huge fucking paycheque that I can outright buy a brand new Merc for cash at the end of my first week. It’s a truism but its true - supporters must be short changed if footballers are to be lavishly compensated. If someone offered me £100,000 a week for the next 10 years of my life to be their slave I would probably lap it up. That Demi Moore would be out on her backside and I’d be hoovering Robert Redford’s shagpile wearing nothing but a smile quicker than you can spell Woody Harrelson.

But suffer we must. The league actually is still a mathematical possibility as I write, but it’s daft to imagine the possibility. We failed to beat either Manure or Chelski and we’re behind them in the league. I absolutely detest Old Trafford by the way. It rains. It’s full of some of the worst people from Manchester and some of the worst people from Guildford. You’ll never get a fair referee, their fouls cost you double in injuries, yours cost you double in cards. The pitch is miles away. The acoustics are crap. That mancunian accent like they swallowed a wah peddle. Have I mentioned how much it rains? It really does. The Devils’ Urinal it is. Winning there was like needing the bull to give you an out when your opponent has three darts and just one double to aim at — it really wasn't on.

So my suggestion is to make your summer plans now. I have an allotment and that is a constant whirl of planning, digging, cursing and digging. Really I don’t have time to think. I also haven’t been fishing for a few years now, so that’s another one you could consider - although the reason I jacked it in is that too much time to contemplate your life near deep water is slightly tempting fate if you happen to go after a particularly painful defeat, so maybe not. The Mrs or Mr and and Masters and Misses in your life will be very grateful if you could turn your attention to booking a holiday, perhaps. My suggestion as a destination would be America. The dollars worth a pittance right now and there is guaranteed to be no proper football being played anywhere that you might accidentally wander in to and even if you did, no one will be talking about it.

If you really have to have a dose of sport up your schnoo, there are other sports you know. Not proper ones, but some of them help pass the time. For my part I was particularly cheered by the smack of willow on leather lederhosen that signaled the opening of the Formula One season. There motor racing is a loss leading sideshow to the main event — intrigue, perversion and greed that makes the Colby’s look like the Flumps. The sound of leather on polycarbonate encrusted stump camera will alert you to the fact that New Zealand are in town. The great thing about England v The Silver Ferns is watching two teams competitively outunderperform each other (there’s a word for Ian Dowie to conjure with). Keystone Cops Part Deux is brought to you in association with that luminous bat handle tape specially designed so that Chris Martin knows which end to grab. The county cricket season should be good too. Unlike in the football, the denizens of the more genteel side of Old Trafford are taken right to the wire and then ritually eviscerated every year by anyone who wants it. In the last couple of years it’s been Sussex who had not won anything at all before that, not even an egg cup, for well over 100 years and still managed to pip them. Martin Johnson is in charge of Englands Rugby Union team. There’s plenty of talent there but leadership is needed and Johnson could lead a bull elephant up a ladder (and if not, he could probably push it up). I won’t mention rugby league, since it is a northern pastime and therefore not a proper sport (and neither is sheep worrying or ladies tandem gruntfuttock, in case you ask, even if you play Keighley Rules). Forget Wimbledon. Footballers are selfish and egotistical enough without watching Andy Murray try to sulk the moon into orbit around his own head. And no one should have to listen to Cliff Richard whilst trapped on a cramped bench in the rain by a detachment of Royal Naval Reserves; that is a special punishment we ought to save for Roman Abramovich once someone finds out what he really did to get all that lolly.

The important things is not to dwell on Arsenal whilst they’re on a break. They won’t be thinking about you at all.

I don’t imagine that we’ll be buying any dream players, despite this season proving to most of us that a squad with two internationals in every position and a perversely risk free and conservative playing style is the sine qua non of Premiership and European success. This season really did Arsenal and us fans a big favour you see. My 10 reasons why this season was actually a success:

1. Adebayor came of age. Without Henry to hide behind he had just one season to go it alone front up or we’d have to rethink. He got it straightaway and is an absolute terror. Brilliant.
2. We had an easy fixture list at the start and a tough run in. We forgot that rather quickly in the excitement. A bit of realism is good for us. It is a long season.
3. Therefore perhaps we’ll get a deeper pool of talent to wallow in? I am fed up of looking at the benches of other no-mark teams in the Prem and seeing players who would so look the part in red and white. Big Club = Big Squad. That’s the maths. Maybe Mr Wenger has now to admit that paying £22m for a player of the class of Fernando Torres is NOT too much money and will take the plunge if someone that good and that young is in range next time. You have our money, use it with our blessing, Sir!
4. Flamini. We must sign him up for a new deal. The man sweats blood for us, runs like a Duracell bunny, never backs out of a challenge, and his the beating heart of Arsenal right now.
5. And Theo. What can I say? The brightest star on the darkest night for Arsenal for many a year. A star of hope. I’d follow it.
6. RVP and Rosie can’t ever have a year as bad for injuries as this one just gone. They’ve both got years ahead of them to make up for it. I reckon they will.
7. Being written off again. I love that teams just don’t see us coming. I can’t believe memories are that short, but they are. Class IS permanent, people.
8. Our Home record. An unbeaten league season at home is still a target. Should shut a few people up if we do it, and will lodge in the mind of next season’s visitors to the Grove quite nicely.
9. The crop of youngsters coming through the reserves. Apparently the coaching staff are in raptures and we’ve have never had it so good. Bring ‘em on. They should now know, after the last few years, that there is no need to flounce off if you don’t get first team football straight away. Arsenal are patient — we can take a few years without a trophy whilst you perfect you art. And if you’re good enough, you’re old enough. Look at Cesc
10. Last and best…Fabregas. The complete midfielder? I believe so. I think Gallas was just wearing the armband in for him this year. He should be seriously considered for the captaincy and I’d ask for that more than for all the other things I want us to take out of the season put together. Cec can lead us to glory; I’m convinced of it.

So really this has been a pretty good season. In fact it is comletely fair to say that we plus maybe Cristiano Ronaldo, but mainly we, made this Premiership season one of the best in years. Without us it would be a mundane, conservative, staid, and pedestrian battle of the wallets. They shouldn’t make jokes. They should thank us.

P.S. If this article looks familiar, that's because you paid £2 for a Highbury High. Well done you.

However, he's gone way overboard in his criticism of Emmanuel Adebayor in the last couple of days. In this article he refers to him as a 'clown' and here he slags him off for needing more chances than most to score a goal.

Marc Overmars did not need eight chances to score a goal. Nicholas Anelka did not need eight chances to score a goal. Dennis Bergkamp did not need eight chances to score a goal. Jurgen Klinsmann did not need eight chances to score a goal. Fernando Torres does not need eight chances.

Marc Overmars - season best goal total - 16 (97-98 and 99-00)

Nicolas Anelka - season best goal total (England only) - 19 (98-99, Arsenal)

Dennis Bergkamp - season best goal total - 22 (97-98)

Admittedly Torres has 28 or 29 this season but go find me a Liverpool fan, any Liverpool fan, and they'll tell you he was profligate earlier in the season. Klinsmann had a 29 goal season for Sp*rs back in 1995.

So we can see that Adebayor's 26 goals this season beat Bergkamp's best ever season, Overmars' best ever season by 10 and Nicolas Anelka's best ever season, the man who has had more money spent on him in transfer fees than any other player. Maybe they didn't need as many chances but they never scored more goals.

Palmer then goes on to suggest we buy a Senegalese striker called Mamadou Niang who plays for Marseille, seemingly on the back of a YouTube video. He cites 15 goals in 21 starts. Does nobody remember Sylvain Wiltord scoring nearly 40 goals one season in France. He hardly set the world on fire at Arsenal despite doing a decent enough job.

Anyway, the main point is Adebayor. Arsenal have played three big games in the last 10 days, Adebayor has scored in each of them. Nobody is suggesting he's the world's greatest player but he deserves far better than to be dismissed as a 'clown', especially when the alternatives suggested are some bloke nobody has ever heard of or Nicklas Bendtner who looks decent as a substitute but appears to believe his own hype rather too much.

The big man's goals won us game this season, he's not perfect, but he has improved and the slagging he gets is out of order, in my opinion.

If this article proves anything it's that the clown writes for Arsenal News Review.

Update: Michael from the Gooner Forum provides the following info:

Stats as of March 29th
Adebayor 23 goals in 106 shots (57 SOG) - 1 goal/4.6 shots
Ronaldo 34 goals in 216 shots  (109 SOG)  - 1 goal/6.4 shots

The fact is that Adebayor puts a higher percentage of his shots on goal than Ronaldo and also scores more goals per attempts than Ronaldo.  Ronaldo had only 9 more goals but TWICE AS MANY shots as Adebayor.  He's not nearly as wasteful as Ronaldo.   He also puts a higher percentage of his shots on goal.

Thanks, Michael.

I, too, thought that Dirk Kuyt fouled Aleksandr Hleb in the first leg and that it should have been a penalty but to imply, as the Arsenal manager seemed to, that it wasn't given because the referee was Dutch - like Kuyt - was feeble.

"There is no credence in [the reports],” said the Frenchman. “A referee is like a manager - you want a clear game and to do your job well. I have no suspicion at all. You have to accept he made the wrong decision but he is honest.

Cheers to vivb for the spot.

To see what made Chippy so irate you can view via the RTE website by clicking here - then choosing the clip second from bottom 'The studio panel continue to debate tonight's game at Anfield'.

You need Real Player and you need to forward to about 6'30 in to get the beginning of it.