All aboard for the Andrei Arshavin Express!! But is there any truth in it? Yesterday, watching Sky Sports News it appeared that the Arsenal were indeed in talks with Zenit St Petersburg with regard to signing the rosy cheeked Russian playmaker, but as the evening wore on I became less certain. Indeed the whole story began to smack of a ploy by Zenit to force other interested clubs into staking their claim, particularly as any offer Arsenal make would certainly fall way short of Zenits expectations. A deal, apparently, is expected within the next 10 to 14 days… Is it though?! Is it really? I mean, a difference in valuation of about 8 million quid seems like a fairly major stumbling block to me. Last summer Arshavin ‘dreamed’ of playing for Barcelona, but Barca baulked at Zenits fee, as did a number of other clubs apart from Tottenham, who for some reason seem to have infinite money. On a personal note, I hope that the Arsenal buy Arshavin, it would be exciting, it would provide a boost to the players and fans and it would give us back an element of unpredictability in our attack. Purchasing Arshavin wouldn’t really solve any of our problems though, we still need a strong central defender and we still need a defensive midfielder to disrupt opponents and protect the back four. The Kolo Toure chatter won’t die down despite our rejection of his transfer request and if Manchester City did offer an eye-watering transfer fee, knowing the Arsenal as I do, I think we would take it. As I said yesterday, Toure leaving would mark a sad day in the modern history of the club.

The trouble is that if we did sign Arshavin, I can’t imagine that we would then sign anybody else. We have publicly stated that we aren’t looking to sign Inler, despite wanting him in the summer – what has changed since then? Rosina has been told he is going nowhere. Yaya Toure is adamant that he is staying at Barca, although I did hear a rumour that (guess who?!) Manchester City were looking to bid some ludicrous amount for him. West Ham say that Matthew Upson is not going to leave the club, but in reality I very much doubt Mr Wenger has even considered resigning him.

Let’s move away from idle speculation for a moment and look inwardly. Fabianski, boosted by the news that he is in line to play in all of our FA Cup games this year, has claimed that he is happy to work hard and try to displace Almunia as our Number 1 between the sticks. Good lad, I like a bit of hard work. How different the relationship is between Almunia and Fabianski than between Almunia and Lehmann. I hope that we don’t try and sign Shay Given. I don’t think goalkeeping is the weak link in our chain. Definitely not a priority.  Adebayor, a player who loves to talk to the press has been saying that we will fight for every point blah blah blah, I should bloody well hope so as well, that’s your flippin’ job!

Welcome to the Burgervan for 2009. I have one critical piece of advice for anyone out there who is listening. GET THE FLU JAB! The Burgervan’s Christmas and New Years has been spent in a miasma of influenza misery. Hence why there has been no blog for a few days. When one can barely sit up in bed, writing a blog comes very low down the list of activities, firmly behind staying alive, attempting to move, and trying to open my eyes.

So much has happened since the last blog entry that I could write a novella, but seeing as today is also my first day back at work, I will be a tad more succinct than that. Firstly, I hope that everybody had a good Christmas and a Happy New Year, hopefully Father Christmas brought you all everything that you were hoping for and if he didn’t you were probably on the ‘bad boys/girls’ list and therefore not deserving anyway.

The Arsenal flattered to deceive a bit in their Christmas period games but at least they continued their undefeated run of games. Stopping the rot is still the name of game and the Arsenal seem to be doing it. Draws against Liverpool and Villa were disappointing, particularly throwing away yet another two goal lead to draw at Villa Park. I know that ultimately it was a miracle that we weren’t 4 goals down at half time but even so. To throw away two goals in injury time in a game as important as that was very disappointing. One hopes that come May we don’t miss out on a Champions League place by a couple of points to Villa. But, since then we have come back and beaten Tony Adams’s Pompey and then Plymouth in the FA Cup. The Portsmouth result was less than convincing but it was a win and three crucial points. Its all we can do now to keep grabbing points anyway that we can to ensure that we give ourselves as good a chance of getting back in to the Champions League as possible.

I was very glad to see that le Boss treated the FA Cup with the respect it deserves. I love the FA Cup and I have many happy memories from our victories in the past. Last year’s performance against United was shameful, but it looks as though this year we are really going to go for it. We all know that realistically it is our best chance of silverware so we need to be sensible about it. In the next game we are away to last years beaten finalists Cardiff, so although it may be a battle we should move safely into the next round.

I cannot believe how unlucky we are with injuries It is appallingly bad karma that we have Rosicky, Walcott, Eduardo and Fabregas all out with long term injuries. Add to that ongoing injuries to other players like Toure, Diaby etc and you can see why we struggle. One of the gifts that Father Christmas brought me was the 2007/2008 Season Review DVD. We were astonishingly good for most of last season and you could see us drop when Rosicky, Eduardo and RVP were injured. The balance of the team was lost and we have never got it back. I wasn’t that sad when Hleb and Flamini left in the summer, but after watching the DVD I can see that what they brought to the team hasn’t been replaced. I didn’t understand why Wenger is being linked with attacking midfielders but we do need one, we lack a link between the midfield and the attack. We also lack a midfield but that is something that has been discussed many times before. I hope that Rosicky can play for us again in the future. He is a great talent and with him on one wing and Walcott on the other we have genuine width and pace. Our team at the moment is very unbalanced with under par players playing out of position and no real variation of approach, togetherness, camaraderie or grit. It was a telling moment when I felt a pang of regret that we had allowed Senderos off on loan all season. At least he gave a sh!t. By the way, we will certainly get him back, I cannot imagine AC Milan taking up the option to buy Senderos at the end of his loan spell. I hope that he comes back to us having learned some tricks off Paulo Maldini and co. I wonder if he taught Paulo how to score own goals?

So that brings us on nicely to the transfer window. We are in it and I have the same feeling that I had in January….. namely that we desperately need people in but I cant help feeling that we wont get anybody. Particularly as we are being fed the same Wengorian rhetoric that we had during the summer. I don’t believe for a minute the bullsh!t issuing forth from the Daily mail regarding a split between Wenger and the board regarding Arshavin. I firmly believe that the board would always back Wenger’s decisions even if he wanted to spend big, which I don’t believe for a moment that we will do. Spending 24 million Euros or whatever has been quoted on a player like Arshavin is ludicrous, we have no idea how he will fare in the Premiership and 24 million is a lot of money to risk. Even if the player was a guaranteed success it would still be difficult to justify such a fee, how can the club make money back on a player like that, we’d have to win everything every year and that is just fantasy. I hope that Wenger brings in a couple of 8-10 million level players and secures the contracts of Walcott and RVP.  I wouldn’t mind it if we sold Bendtner also. He has failed to live up to expectations and seems to be a malcontent. We have plenty of striking talent with Ade, RVP, Eduardo and Vela, so Bendy is surplus to requirements. Perhaps offering Zenit St Petersburg a Bendy plus cash deal for Arshavin could be a possibility if the manager wants him. Also rubbish is the story linking Wenger with a move to Real Madrid. Real are the sort of club that are contrary to everything that Wenger believes, he likes to work in an environment where he has total control over footballing matters. That is not the case at Madrid, where transfer policy is dictated by the board and used more as a political manoeuvring tool than to improve the team. If Wenger were to leave, and one hopes to goodness that he doesn’t, then it would surely be to manage the French (or possibly German) national team.

Quickly going back to transfers. My brother asked a question the other day, namely where does all of our money go? I can understand that in times of recession, one needs to be careful, however, on balance Wenger has spent very little on transfers in comparison to other clubs, we have massive gates every week, huge merchandising income, massive sums of money from TV rights, the club get money from using the Emirates for other activities (concerts, friendly internationals etc) and we have some of the highest ticket prices in the country if not the world. Plus we make a lot of money from selling on players that haven’t quite made it. Now, the stadium repayments are set and planned in advance so it can’t all be going on that, our wage bill is high but no higher than it has been in the last ten years or so….. So where is all the money going? Why is so little put aside for transfers? How is it we have less available now than when we were at Highbury? It is curious. There is something amiss. The club is well run, that much we know, and we are in a good position in terms of self-sustainability if the sh!t hits the fan, which it probably will, but even so, what position will we be in if the sh!t does indeed hit the fan? Languishing in the UEFA cup? With Chelsea, Liverpool and United out of reach, with clubs like Villa, Everton etc on an equal footing (league table wise?). I hope that the board know what they are doing, because success breeds success in football and likewise failure on the pitch can spiral very quickly. I guess that we will just have to wait and see.

Hopefully Toure will stay and work hard to regain his previous form.

As we all know, the Arsenal came second in their group and therefore will play at home first, a supposed disadvantage. The main disadvantage is in the potential opposition, but if you do well enough in the home leg then the away match can become a formality.

The Champions League draw is a sterile affair, the audience, representing the clubs, look bored, the presenters look bored, and I am bored! However much the SkySports team try to make the most of the event, it really is nothing more than a football version of the Lotto, but without the potential outcome of quitting your job.

Here we go then:

Chelsea vs Juventus

Villareal vs Panathinaikos

Sporting Lisbon vs Bayern Munich

Athletico Madrid vs FC Porto

Olympique Lyonnais vs Barcelona

Real Madrid vs Liverpool

Arsenal vs AS Roma

Inter Milan vs Manchester United

Well there you have it, AS Roma. Not bad for us I have to say. We can definitely go through as long as we don't do anything stupid!

The story surrounding the departure of Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith developed at a startling pace yesterday. The acrimonious nature of her exit, which PHW feebly attempted to cover up, was highlighted by Lady N herself today in the Daily Mail, who admits to being shocked at the way she was treated. Indeed, the ‘Arsenal way’ e.g. the fact that Arsenal are set apart from other clubs by the classy way in which they conduct their affairs, appears to have been abandoned. Until somebody blabs we poor fans will never know exactly what goes on at board level, but so far all we can glean is that Lady N felt marginalised by the other board members , who are increasingly appearing to be Fiszman yes-men. Is it possible that all this is about her feeling left out?! Lady N says she has no intention of selling her shares but the fact remains that she was bound by the lockdown agreement but now she isn’t. With that amount of shares out their in the open the lockdown agreement is no longer worth the paper it is written on, providing of course that they actually wrote something down and didn’t all just shake hands over an iced bun and a nice cup of tea. It feels inevitable that Lady N will sell her shares. For a start they are worth a bloody fortune and in a time of financial crisis that wedge of cash must look very tempting. Obviously we would all rather that the shares were either kept by her or sold to the existing members of the board, indeed it seems unlikely that Lady N would actively thwart Usmanov for months only to give in to his advances now. But then we don’t know who has been supporting who at board level do we, there are so man conflicting stories. Ultimately though, turmoil at the top will inevitably transfer down to the dressing room so the sooner this is all sorted the better. It’s strange really, as an Arsenal fan I am used to a very steady board room. I have often watched other clubs undergoing similar bullshit at the top and felt very smug that we didn’t have similar problems at Arsenal, now it seems karma is paying me back.

Champions League draw today at 10.30. Barca seems fated, but obviously we all want Panathinaikos. The thing is, we perform best against the good teams. Maybe we would be better off facing one of the top teams now.

Arsene has come out and said that Wilshire will one day be very important for the Arsenal, even going so far as to compare him to Dennis Bergkamp. Curiously he then goes on to say that we shouldn’t put too much pressure on him as we forget he is only 16. I am no master of psychology but surely giving this interview and then comparing him to one of the best ever players (in the World) is a great way of piling on the pressure. I also slightly got the feeling that this interview was a Wengerian attempt to distract us from our clamouring for signings by reminding us of what we have in reserve. Surely, SURELY we are going to bring somebody in January. Arrrrrrrgh.

12 Days Until the January Transfer Window ; 6 Days Until Christmas.

The gauge of a football teams progress in a season is measured, at its most basic level, in the number of defeats. X number of defeats is too many to win the league and so forth. This is usually measured in the league only. But the league often hides the true scale of a problem. For example, this season Arsenal have lost 7 times, although thankfully not 7 times in the league. Even the Invincibles lost matches in the FA Cup, Champions League and League Cup. I have digressed slightly here. My point is that we have lost 7 games this season and it is only the 12^th December. Remember also that we last won the Premiership in 2004 and the FA Cup in 2005. Despite this Arsene has stated that he thinks the team will end their trophyless run this year. Hmmm. More Wengerian rhetoric. The burgervan knows that Arsene must try to reinforce the players confidence, that he cannot go on record and say he doesn’t think that we will win anything this year. But, the burgervan also knows that that is precisely what Arsene really thinks. It would be better for everyone if instead of saying we can win this and that and everything he just avoided such blatantly ridiculous prophesising altogether. It is vaguely embarrassing and has an air of desperation about it that I don’t like reading about.

Tony Freaking Cascarino. TC. It’s been a little while since I have felt the need to attack this Times Columnist. I like the Times, it is a great paper with a great tradition but I am still flabbergasted that they employ Tony Cascarino to write for their otherwise superb Sports Section. I read his column and it is as though I have been transported to the pub on matchday and I am unluckily seated next to the guy who feels compelled to impart his vapid insights to me for the full 90 minutes. Cascarino is such an uninteresting read. He never provides the insight that one would hope that an ex-professional might impart to the man in the street. And he is so repetitive. How many times is he going to say that we need leaders, that we need to ‘get back to basics’, that we take too many passes in front of goal, that we cant defend set pieces blah blah blah. Surely if one is privileged enough to write a newspaper column for a national institution like The Times then one has the duty to at least write something different each time? It his latest regurgitation, TC has really had a go at the Arsenal team that lost to Porto in the week. But honestly, what’s the point? It was virtually a reserve side. One can’t take that performance and apply it to the rest of the squad, it isn’t true and it isn’t fair. The Arsenal have just defeated Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and we are getting a bit of momentum in the league. If anything we are coming out of the dip we have been in and are addressing the problems that he has once again mentioned. In short, TC needs to think, I realise that this is difficult for him, his tic tac of a brain isn’t very capable, but please, this is The Times, not Leyton Orient programme notes.

The papers seem to be united in the opinion that the January transfer window will see the departure of Gallas and Bendtner. Gallas is strongly mooted to move to AC Milan or Juventus, with Juve believed to be in pole position for the troublemakers signature. Bendtner has less glamorous options but ultimately I wouldn’t be upset if he went. He had a great chance to prove himself this season but has shown that he is not good enough. Plus he has an ego problem that I’m sure has led to divisions in the squad. Add to that his propensity for lurid footwear and you have all the ingredients for his sale. If we could get between £8-10 million for the pair of them that would provide a nice wedge of cash for Wenger to spend on somebody without a bad attitude.

Fabregas has once again reiterated that he wants to stay at the Arsenal, at least until the end of his contract in 2014, but that one day he will return to Spain. I suspect that it will be well before 2014 if we don’t start looking like we are going to win something.

The Times says Fabregas, Clichy and RVP will shake off injuries and be back in the squad for the games against Middlesbrough at the weekend. We also welcome back Adebayor after his rest, and I hope that he will follow up his winner against Wigan with a couple more against Boro, a team we haven’t beaten at the Riverside for ages. Sagna and Toure are also in doubt and Nasri is definitely out alongside long-term absentees Walcott, Rosicky and Eduardo (who makes his reserve comeback in 4 days).

Oh dear. Is there anyone out there who actually thought we would win last nights game? I know that I was trying to talk them up in yesterday’s blog but as soon as the team was announced defeat became a matter of when and not if. The manager stated that he put out a team which he thought was capable of winning the game, but that was just more of the Wengerian rhetoric that we can all recognise so easily now. The power of positive thinking will only take you so far. Eventually, quality, or the lack of it, will be exposed. We surrendered top spot in our group without so much as a whimper of protest. That’s the Arsenal that I don’t like to see. As I have said before, I don’t mind losing as long as we go down fighting.  

Ultimately though, despite the disappointment of this performance I agree with Wenger’s selection last night. It is vital that players are saved for the league, we are just coming out of a dip in the Premiership and need to keep the improvement going at all costs and build some momentum. Somehow we aren’t completely eliminated from the title hunt, I don’t know how that has happened but we must stay within touching distance of the league leaders. This game once again demonstrates the weakness of our squad, this was very much a squad defeat. But this is old ground that doesn’t need to be repeated.

Will last nights game adversely affect the unstable form of the side? In the past it has and we aren’t in possession of a particularly stout constitution at the moment. The key player for us against Middlesbrough will be Fabregas. He seems to infect the rest of the team with his own confidence and we are yet lose or draw when he has captained the side.

The easiest draw we can get in the next round is probably Panathinaikos, which is never an easy game, particularly away. The other teams that we may be potentially drawn against are AS Roma, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. The team I would most like to avoid there are Bayern, who I really think that we would have trouble with. It’s a silly situation really  considering that we topped the group for the whole of the group stage, but the fact that we qualified at all is slightly miraculous considering the dubious quality of our squad, our total lack of maturity, injuries and not least the atrocious quality of our play this season. We will find out soon who our next opponents will be, hopefully by then we will have players back after injury, certainly Eduardo should be available and who knows, maybe we will even have strengthened the squad in the January transfer window. If there are any decent players available who aren’t cup-tied. It feels scripted to me that we will face Barcelona and Thierry Henry. I hope not though, I don’t want to see Henry play against us. I still operate in a world of denial that he isn’t our player anymore.

I saw that we were linked with Xabi Alonso again earlier this week. I would have to ask, why would he want to leave Liverpool at the moment? They are top of the Premiership, qualified in the Champions League and on a real high. You have to ask why a player would leave that for a club that are clearly struggling. A club that have been in transition for four years!  Why would Liverpool sell him to us as well? The whole story doesn’t make any sense and I don’t believe a word of it. If we were to buy him I think my first reaction would be annoyance that we hadn’t splashed out an extra couple of hundred thousand to pick him up in the summer, which may have improved our early season form. It’s all conjecture and completely pointless anyway.

The Arsenal play the last game of the Champions League group stage tonight at Porto with a severely weakened team and a Porto team out for revenge. An alarming state of affairs isn’t it? The Arsenal have, of course, already qualified, and the manager knows that he doesn’t have the strength in depth to risk players unnecessarily, especially while we are rebuilding our fragile confidence in the Premiership. However, it is very important not to lose games in any of the competitions as this invariably adversely affects performance in other competitions. Wenger will point to an unavoidable and apparently large injury list, however, I am more of the opinion that he is fibbing and is using the injuries as a reason to rest players. That is his choice. We will still go into the Porto game with some first-teamers and we still have a great chance to top the group. It will be interesting. Players not playing against the Portuguese tonight are Fabregas; Sagna (ill – not sure what’s wrong with him); Toure (calf); Clichy (hamstring); RVP (a little stiffness – surely something a little private time can resolve); Adebayor (rested); and Nasri (ankle). There is no guarantee that finishing top of the group will get you an easier team in the next stage, it is more likely, but it is by no means certain. Coming top of the group would definitely be a great confidence booster for the players and the fans. We must wait and see. Hopefully many of these players will be back in contention for the Middlesbrough game at the weekend, although Wenger claims RVP could be out for up to three weeks. I’m not so sure about that and think we might see him at the weekend.   

The other piece of team news for this evening is that Emmanuel Eboue will be in the starting line-up. All eyes will be on him tonight and he will be wanting to prove the doubters wrong. Despite a slight underlying apprehensiveness that something crazy is going to happen I have a good feeling that Eboue will turn out an excellent performance tonight. Although my gut tells me that he is going to get sent off for an over-enthusiastic challenge on a play-acting Porto player. Djourou will be starting as well, which is great as stats aficionados will tell you that we have 9 clean sheets out of the last 10 games he has started and the one goal he has conceded was the own goal he scored against Chelsea.

Juande Ramos, the disastrous (and my personal favourite) Sperz manager has become coach of Real Madrid!! It is a funny old game isn’t it?!

Good morning Sports Fans! Only nine working days left until the Burgervan’s Christmas break begins. Getting that number into single figures is an important psychological milestone and that’s why today’s blog starts with a positive and jolly ambience.

The Eboue story rumbles on like a very slow moving juggernaut, nay, it’s more akin to a combination betwixt (the legendary) Giant Haystacks and a zombie. The latest player to come out and lend the troubled Ivorian his support is none other than the super gangly one and Eboue namesake, Emmanuel Adebayor (give him the ball and he might score – if you’re lucky). Mr Wenger has said that in light of Samir Nasri’s ankle problem, due to the tackle that took him out of Saturdays game and started this drama, Eboue will get the chance to prove to himself and everybody else that he has what it takes to be an Arsenal player against Porto tomorrow evening in the Champions League. Good luck to him, the Burgervan for one hopes that he has the game of his life and he scores a hat-trick. Unlikely I know, but Christmas is the time for miracles after all. The Eboue saga has generated significant debate in football and within the Arsenal fanbase, however, I for one am bored with it now and can’t be bothered to say anything else about it.

The latest news on Tomas Rosicky is that he probably won’t be available until at least March 2009, although even that looks dubious and Burgervan wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t see him in an Arsenal shirt again until the 2009/2010 season. It must be very difficult for a sportsman to be in that situation, particularly when his team-mates are going through a difficult period. However, hopefully the operation he recently underwent will finally correct whatever the problem was and now it is just a matter of rehabilitation. It is a cliché, but when Tomas does finally make it back into the squad it will be like a new signing. He never really had the chance to make his name at Arsenal, but I have no doubt that he is a quality player and will be very important for us in the coming years. Burgervan is also looking forward to seeing that raking super-hard shot from distance that seems to be his speciality.

Conversely, Eduardo’s recovery has been excellent, so much so that Arsene has informed us that the wily Brazilio-Croat will play a reserve game on December 16^th. Presuming that he comes through that game unscathed he will be in contention for some role in the Liverpool game a few days later. I can’t wait for the little fella’s return, not only doe it mean that we have decent options front again, but it also provides some much needed competition for RVP and Adebayor. Before his injury Eduardo displayed truly excellent finishing, in fact, just the quality that we have been missing this season.

Tomorrow we have a tough away game against Porto and I cannot emphasise enough the importance of not losing this match. Not only will this enable us to finish top of the group and therefore do ourselves a favour for the next round, but also, and more importantly, there is the psychological boost we will get from a good result. We have shown ourselves to have incredibly fragile confidence over the last couple of years and defeat in this game could adversely affect our improving form in the league. So, Mr Wenger, please don’t put out a pony side, let’s really go for this game.

And finally, Big Red Al has given an interview in which the United boss says that Arsenal will play a crucial role in the destination of the Championship this season, largely due to our good results against the other members of the big four. Although he did intimate that we didn’t have much of a chance to win it ourselves. The mad boot kicking hairdryer has been increasingly nice about the Arsenal over the last couple of years, no doubt since our star has been on the wane. Despite this new attitude Burgervan would very much like Swalex to go f*ck himself!!

The good news is that Arsene will be playing a stronger side in this years FA Cup. We won’t open old wounds except to say that Arsenal should be ashamed of last years FA Cup efforts. As a fan of the FA Cup I have always wanted the Arsenal to try hard to win it, but in recent years it has been sacrificed in the hunt for Premiership and Champions League glory. Now, it appears, desperation has set in. Wenger’s decision to play adults in pursuit of the old trophy is a tacit admittance that he knows we have a snowballs chance in hell of winning anything else this year. Ultimately it doesn’t matter though, I’d love to win the FA Cup again. Anyway, I still harbour a flickering flame of hope that we will be European Champions this time around.

David Dein’s son, also an agent, and more importantly Fabregas’s agent, reportedly met with AC Milan to discuss the player. This kind of story gets an involuntary rise out of me. I want to stand up and shout AC MILAN F**K OFF! It is annoying but it is football and it has no doubt been helped along by Arsenals willingness to sell their top players. But, in the case of Fabregas we need not fear him leaving for AC Milan. It’s when Barcelona are heavily linked that I start to worry. That will be his only destination on the inevitable day of his departure.

We are nearly at the Wigan game, there doesn’t seem to be much team news around at the moment. Hopefully we will put out as strong a team as we were able to field against Chelsea and rack up another three points.  The title race is an intriguing one this year. There is no great team. This is both good and bad as it means that if Wenger had strengthened a bit in the summer the title would have been there for the taking. It is good because Wenger may still be able to claw his way back into title contention due to the inconsistency of the other three teams at the top.

A win. We didn’t play particularly well, we didn’t play particularly badly but we won. We ground out a result despite injuries, lack of confidence and lack of form. We kept a very welcome clean sheet. The players worked for each other, some of them didn’t play well but that doesn’t matter. Ultimately, it was of vital importance that we stopped leaking goals, stopped losing and had some good news for a change.

The media dwells on our lingering problems this morning. Of course this result doesn’t solve all of our issues or paper over the cracks but it is a step in the right direction. A new captain, a clean sheet, a win, and a steely determination to get a result are all indicators that the feeble submissions we have witnessed of late may be consigned to the past. As I have said before, it wasn’t the losing that bothered me so much in recent weeks, it was the pathetic manner of those defeats. Anyway that is in the past.

Also in the past, albeit the recent past, is the William Gallas affair. Gallas played last night, largely due to a lack of any options, but he got his head down, shut up and worked hard for the team. The crowd were kind to him also, which was a surprise. I have changed my opinion on the way Gallas should be handled. In the spirit of moving on and looking to the future I have resolved to forgive Gallas for his idiocy. If he can stay with the team, work hard, not give any more interviews and not be a disruptive force in the dressing room then I will back him. The players have come out to support him, although notably RVP and Samir Nasri have been quiet. The manager has given him another chance, so I guess so should we. Make no mistake though, William Gallas is on parole. One more f*ck up and he should be shown the door as quickly as possible.

El Capitán had a great first game in the hotseat, not only was he all over the pitch and involved in everything, his quick thinking at the DROP BALL set up a great pass for confidence shorn Bendtner, who finished superbly. That moment threw me back to the glory days when Henry and Pires used to contrive similar rule bending opportunities at free kicks. It’s nice to have a player capable of thinking differently. I couldn’t care less about those people that claim bad sportsmanship, we needed to win that game. Anyway Aliiev was guilty of hideous gamesmanship with his rolling about as if struck by lightning quickly followed by sprinting antics. I was glad he got sent off, not only is he a cheat but he also got caught. I could probably just about stand a diver, but not a diver without the sense to do it properly.

El Capitán has said that he is keen to talk to Vieira and Henry to get advice on his new role. Vieira can certainly give him some pointers, he was a miraculous captain for us. It’s been said before, many times, by me and others, but why on God’s Green Earth did we ever sell Vieira? If we hadn’t, he’d still be captain and we’d have probably won the league a couple more times in the last few years. Sorry about that, I must remember that now we are looking forward, not dwelling on the past and what might have been. So what if we sold the world’s best midfielder, the world’s best winger and the world’s best striker in the space of two years and didn’t replace them. That isn’t important anymore. The future! Look to the future!

Going back to the Champions League, despite our problems this season we have qualified top of a difficult Champions League group. That is an achievement for any team, let alone a team comprising children and ‘utility players’ such as ours. The players and the manager can take great credit for this achievement. Last night it was great to see Vela start, I enjoy watching him play, he is good on the ball, runs at the defence fearlessly and always has a shot on goal. In a season or so he could be flippin’ excellent for us. Likewise Ramsey looks like a player of 23 rather than 17 or 18 or whatever he is. I know that they were there because of injuries etc, but even so, they acquitted themselves admirably. As did record breaker Wilshire and Johann Djourou. Most of these players are only ready for substitute roles at most, but it is good to have these players coming through, even if it doesn’t help us that much which our pressing problems.