Ha ha ha ha, Ho ho ho ho. I think that the Joker has given up on Gotham, well defended as it is by the Batman, and has turned his comical attention to Premiership transfer speculation, resulting in today’s hilarious reports. The Daily Star, intellectual tome that it is has reported that Cesc and RVP are on there way to Barcelona in the summer for a combined 45million quid, and that the Catalans will be throwing in Yaya as a makeweight. So ridiculous that I will mention in no more. Other news is that Eboue has stated that Inter are interested in signing him but he is happy at Arsenal. Right, Inter are interested in signing Eboue…..Ha ha ha ha, whheeeeeze. Who writes this crap, I mean honestly.

The story regarding the rosy cheeked Russian playmaker Arshavin continues to bubble along. It’s a right load of old cobblers with every journalist trying to make something out of nothing and find a new angle every five minutes. The latest on this is that apparently there is a problem as Zenit want the full amount in one payment. Andrei has also said that he wants to test himself at a top club.. blah blah blah. If we are going to sign him, I’d like Mr Gazidis to get the hell on with it so that we don’t get left with nada when the deal inevitably falls through and the player moves to Juventus/Milan/Barca/Madrid.

As an aside, I read a blog yesterday in which the blogger, who is clearly as mad as a march hare, maybe even the Joker himself, suggested that we sign Joey Barton….What the Hell?! I haven’t heard any other nonsense but I’m sure that as the day progresses more craziness will come to light.

The transfer rumour mill is in full swing as we delve ever forward into January 2009.  Christmas is a distant dream; the next Bank holiday is seemingly lodged irrevocably in the unreachable future; and temperatures continue to plummet at a pace akin to the demise of the economy. Manchester City appear to be buying everybody, or at least trying to, however, so far there transfer policy hasn’t borne fruit on the pitch. Whether that is to do with Mark Hughes being crap remains to be seen. West Ham appear to be selling everybody, although whether this will prevent their collapse is unknown. The Arsenal are being linked with increasing numbers of players but nothing has yet happened beyond the excellent news that Jack Wilshire has signed his first professional contract with the club. One hopes that this piece of critical housekeeping is followed up with new contracts being offered to Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott.

There is increasing speculation that Russian playmaker Andrei Arshavin will be moving to the Emirates. They say that there is no smoke without fire, although in this case one would think that the smoke and the fire are firmly in control of Arshavin’s agent. Can anyone really see Mr Wenger spending 20 million on a player?! Still, the Mirror yesterday reported that le Boss has green lighted the deal and circumstantial evidence in the form of Wenger’s statement regarding Champions League-tied players suggest something may be in the air. One cannot deny that purchasing Arshavin is an exciting prospect, however, I have been an Arsenal fan too long to get carried away by things like this. In fact, the last time that we were linked to an established top level player and we actually bought him was Dennis Bergkamp. Another player that we have been strongly linked to in the last couple of days is Matthew Upson, who, predictably West Ham have stated will not be sold. The latest rumour is that we propose a swop deal with Bendtner plus cash for Upson. This is so speculative that one wonders if there is even a mote of truth in the story. For a start, I think Wenger doesn’t believe in going back. Secondly, Upson has a terrible injury record. Thirdly, Bendy would almost certainly refuse to go there. There is also increasing chatter regarding a potential move by Toure to Manchester City. I really hope that this doesn’t happen. Toure is one of the old guard and somebody that I really hope can work back to the once high level of form he displayed. His malaria seems to have drained him of much of his energy levels in games but these illnesses take time to recover from and I am convinced that if he stays he can once again attain his old self. There has been surprisingly little news about Gallas in the last few days. He was the one player everybody expected to see out the door asap. One would think that Wenger is keen to tie up a replacement before considering letting Gallas (or Toure) go. He would very much want to avoid the situation that occurred in the summer where he let Gilberto and Flamini go without being able to sign a defensive midfield replacement. In fact, that also occurred when he sold Vieira. I remember opening the papers each day expecting to see we had signed somebody, but to no avail. I recall even Jose Mourinho saying he thought Wenger must have a replacement in mind. That turned out to be the last time that we won anything. Hmmm.

What would be nice is that if indeed we are to sign anybody we do it as quickly in order that the team can be settled and the new playing staff integrated as soon as possible. We very much want to avoid the situation in the summer where everybody was rushing about like blue-arsed flies in the closing moments of the transfer window, only to be predictably disappointed in the hunt for bargains. The fallacy that one can pick up a player cheap at the last minute has well and truly come back to bite the Arsenal on the backside as now the exchange rate is such that £1 and 1 Euro are of the same value so that the cost of players now as compared to the beginning of last summers transfer window is much higher. Also, the spectre of the Webster Ruling looms darkly on the horizon. A contract will soon be virtually worthless. I wonder who the Arsenal players are hoping the le Boss will buy. We know that Fabregas wanted Wenger to bring in Alonso in the summer, but do you think that the players look at the newspapers and see stories about Arshavin being linked and think to themselves…Hello, that would be good?!

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.

-1 draw. Not a terrible result, but not really an anything result. Considering the lame-arsed decision to send off Adebayor and the unfortunate injury to Fabregas we were, I hate to say, lucky to take a point in the end. At least we have stopped losing. Since Fabregas became Captain we do appear to have stopped the rot. Sadly, we just aren’t very good are we. I’m not going to harp on about it but our midfield was poor yesterday, even before Cesc was taken off. They are just so weak, they give the ball away constantly, get bundled off the ball with ease, can’t pass for toffee, they over-elaborate, they lack tenacity and incisiveness and there is about as much fighting spirit as a stoned hippy at a pacifists convention. Mr Wenger, there are nine days left until the transfer window opens. Please buy a defensive midfielder to compliment Cesc and consign Song and Denilson to the bench where they can develop into the players they should be without all this chopping and changing and general bullshit. Actually, having said that I am not convinced that Song will ever make it, he seems to lack the basic things necessary to be a professional footballer, I mean the fundamental instincts like awareness etc.

Fabregas is set to undergo medical tests on his knee today, but admitted last night to Spanish Radio that he is concerned about the injury, which is the same knee that caused his recent absence. Le Boss seemed to think it wasn’t too serious however, confirming that it was a medial knee ligament injury that could keep the boy wonder out for 1 to 3 weeks. One cannot but help think that an injury like this in a young player could have been caused by the incredibly high number of games he has played at a young age.

Robin van Persie played excellently yesterday. His touch, although not quite as silky, reminded me of the great man himself – Dennis Bergkamp. RvPs goal yesterday was an incredible piece of individual skill. If we can have a bit more like that then the future isn’t as bleak as we all fear it could be. Unfortunately Keane’s (scripted) goal was equally incredible piece of bad defending.

Yesterday I was watching a freeview music channel Christmas Songs special. Winter Wonderland came on and I was cast back into a fiery pit of Bergkamp nostalgia. Sweet baby Jesus, Bergkamp was so f*cking good. I remember belting out ‘there’s only one Dennis Bergkamp’ with a gusto that I have never experienced with any player before or since. When I thought about it some more I realised that our teams of the past had so much more in terms of personality than our current bunch of rather bland individuals. All we do now is churn out or snap up incredibly technically gifted players with nothing else about them. No tenacity and no character. Basically our team is very boring and just aren’t as much fun to support. There are no hilarious shenanigans like there used to be, no on pitch antics, no players that whip the fans up into a frenzy. It’s a shame. The team is as bland as our performances. It’s weird. Generally the character of the club has been systematically eroded over the last 5 years, unintentionally, but as a result of policy decisions made by the board and the manager. In hindsight it is obvious that not enough consideration was given to heritage, tradition and atmosphere in the design of the new stadium. In essence they have gone for functionality and capacity. We are paying for that lack of foresight now. It just feels like you are visiting a car park with a football pitch tacked on. Likewise the loss of key figures at board level is eroding the traditional links to the past that made the club sophisticated and separated them from the other sides. Soon overseas additions to the board will provide the coup de grace to our traditions. And for what? The self-sustainability model that has made our on pitch performances as generic as the rest of the club? It seems like we, the fans, have got a bum deal.

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).

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?!

Football is back after a seemingly endless three days since our oiks got knocked out of the Carling Cup. Wigan visit the Emirates today probably wishing that they could have played us two weeks ago. A win today is all I care about. I don't care how we do it, how slick our passing is or how many opportunities we have. All I want is that we have scored more than them at the final whistle and if we can keep a clean sheet i'll have that too. We must build on the Chelsea result and that's the bottom line.

A few people at my work have been saying this week that the Arsenal are due to give somebody a thrashing. It's true that we haven't handed out a stout humiliation to a side in the Premiership for a while, but I don't think that the team are there yet. Like I said before, a win today is all that matters. It's weird isnt it how you change your expectations. Once, not too long ago, I would have gone into this match with an expectation of at least a 3 goal victory, now I would be content with a hard fought 1-0.

Gallas is out today so we will either see the much awaited return of Kolo or Silvestre filling in for Gallas. Eduardo is almost ready but not quite. He is in full training but just needs matches to quote le Boss. It will be great to have him back in contention. I am still unconvinced by Adebayor and Bendtner is sadly not up to the job so I would ultimately like to see our front line composed of RVP and Eduardo.

For some reason we have seen the ''almost signed Ronaldo stories doing the rounds again over the last two days. I wish that Arsene wouldn't comment on these stories. If we had signed him, he would have been amazing for us, but we would have faced the same close season wantaway bullshit that United have suffered with as Madrid come knocking. The only difference being that I don't think that we would have been able to hold on to him like United did. Despite being total buttmunches, United handled the Ronaldo situation excellently over the summer. Sadly their tapping up of Berbatov wasn't quite so well handled was it? At least that f*cked Tottenham in the @ss though so I won't complain too much.

I see Keano has left Sunderland. That surprised me. I didn't think that he was a quitter. Ince is touted to follow soon, and anyone who saw his tv rant yesterday would have to say that he doesnt really look like he can handle the pressure. Was he crying in that interview by the way? It looked like it to me. Pussy. You'd never catch Arsene crying like a little bitch.

Transfer speculation is hotting up with the latest names linked to the Arsenal being Silvain Distin from Portsmouth, Brede Hangeland from Fulham and Felipe Melo of Fiorentina. These rumours are almost certainly complete tosh although we have been linked to Distin a few times. Arsene has come out and said that he wants Gallas to stay at the club. This could be the truth or it could be a ruse to ensure that potential buyers don't undervalue him. Either way, let's keep hold of him until the end of the season, we don't have enough players as it is. Plus he has been pretty good in the last two games he has played.

Anyway. today it's Wigan and I feel a win coming and i'm sure that El Capitan wants to keep up his 100% record.

Burgervan Prediction: Arsenal 2 - 0 Wigan

Flash of Arsenal!!

The team have been quite bullish in the press following their victory over Chelsea. I can understand that, it is an outpouring of tension, a vindication of their abilities and a positive jolt to the confidence. All the same, I would like them to quieten down, get on with the business at hand and try to ensure that they get a good result against Wigan at the weekend. If we can just start to get some momentum going, keep building on the confidence with one result at a time then maybe we can start to get a run together and try to claw back some of the foolish points we have dropped this season.

Tonight, hopefully we have a treat in store with the oiks once again being unleashed. This time they are away to Burnley. This is the Quarter-finals ladies and gentleman. If we win this it’s the semis and we can hopefully exorcise last years pitiful capitulation at the semi-final stage. I agree completely with Arsene Wenger’s philosophy with this competition, but we cannot allow the same situation to occur as happened against Spurs last season. That was humiliating and it was unfair on the fans. Plus, a trophy is a trophy and while the Carling Cup is undoubtedly the most pony of the trophies it would be nice to have it anyway. We haven’t had a day out at Wembley for years. First though we have to overcome Burnley, on a pitch made of concrete on a cold and wintery night. Get the gloves out lads! Although this is a different competition it is still important to win this game for the sake of morale and momentum. Our club is gradually getting its winning mentality back and a victory tonight against Burnley would be our third on the trot.

The same goes for our final Champions League game. Yes we’ve already qualified, however, in previous seasons I have seen Wenger play a weakened team in these final games. When we lose those games it always adversely affects the squad and our current fragility means that we cannot afford any slip ups. Also, we want to finish top of our Champions League group, to do that we need to win or draw.

Transfer speculation time!! Yay! It’s that time of year again when we read completely baseless reports eagerly searching for some rudiment of truth only for Arsene to not buy anyone and we all feel sad and disappointed. Today Sky Sports News has linked us with a £6 million bid for Yaya Toure, interestingly linking Kolo with a move to Manchester City. I hope that Kolo stays. I don’t know what is going on there but he has been and will continue to be an important player for us. I am starting to think that Wenger has a problem with having brothers in the team! While I don’t think that the Toure’s will be like the Charltons, they may just be as successful as the Nevilles and that would be great! Justin Hoyte had a fair run of games for the Arsenal but then when Gavin came knocking Justin was out the door, now Yaya could be on his way it seems that Kolo is being sidelined!! It smacks of conspiracy or what. For the love of God will somebody please call Spooky Mulder. I wonder if Wenger was on the grassy knoll.

Anyway, I am confident that the urchins will see Burnley off tonight.

That’s what it’s all about. The stuttering ember of hope has been reignited and is now glowing merrily like Rudolph’s red nose as we enter the first day of Advent. What a bizarre season this is turning out to be. The highs of the European campaign and deserved victories against Manchester United and Chelsea versus the lows of Fulham, Stoke City, Man City and Villa. Who knows what will happen next. Arsene Wenger believes that it is a learning process - that the team are beginning to understand that the same high level of commitment is required in every game. I recall him saying something similar after the Man United result, but the team sunk to new lows in the wake of that game. Now maybe it will be different, so we hope. Never has the well worn tenet – ‘to take it one game at a time’ been so true. On Saturday we face Wigan at the Emirates. If we approach the game with the same awesome determination that we saw against Chelsea then poor Wigan won’t stand a chance.

So, to last nights game. Firstly, let’s get the boasting out of the way. A third correct burgervan score prediction of the season. Ok, I admit it, the majority of predictions have been well wrong (the estimate of a 4-0 victory over Villa was particularly bad) but it is nice to get it right for such a big game. The Arsenal were magnificent at Stamford Bridge. The whole team played well and worked their arses off for each other. Defensively we were like a different team, with Gallas loving the high pressure atmosphere and clearly thriving without the weight of the captaincy on his shoulders. Djourou, despite the unfortunate own goal, was a tower of strength beside him, and Clichy and Sagna, both great players, were spot on. Ok, the midfield perhaps came second in the battle in the centre of the pitch, but even so, the team was much more tenacious than in recent games with players like Nasri sacrificing much of his attacking verve to ensure that the team was solid defensively. Almunia really didn’t have very much to do, which was a surprise because after the Arsenal’s second goal Chelsea didn’t offer anything. It seems that this new Chelsea side are easier to break than Mourinho’s team, which was like playing against a brick wall both mentally and physically.

It seems like forever since we had our first choice strike partnership playing together. Adebayor and RVP work well together and I hope that they can both stay free of injuries because there is no doubt that we really need them. I wonder if our recent form would have been different had RVP not been sent off and subsequently banned for that silly foul. Everyone has a player that they like to see score more than any other. For me, in days gone by that was Dennis Bergkamp and before that I used to like to see Merson score. Nowadays I like to see RVP score and he certainly did that yesterday. His first goal was excellent and his second reminded me a little of Dennis Bergkamp’s first competitive goal for us against Southampton.  Yes, his first goal was offside, no, I don’t care. The number of decisions we have had against us this year more than balances out this piece of good fortune. Scolari really needs to shut the hell up. The fact is that Chelsea were fortunate to go ahead through an own goal and offered up very little in terms of goal scoring opportunities. Ergo, he can’t really complain can he? There was almost half an hour after RVP’s second goal, in which Chelsea did nada.  

What was great to see was the sheer joy on the players faces when we equalised and then scored the second goal. It has been a while since I have seen such an ecstatic mobbing of a goal scorer and it showed how much this meant to everybody. Likewise at the end of the game, the celebrations were truly heartfelt - Gallas for example had to be taken off the pitch by a couple of stewards! Ahh good times.

So now we are 7 points off the top spot with all the teams above us having played once game less than us. It is frustrating seeing us beat the top sides and lose to the lesser teams. It makes you think what if?! The title is still out of reach but as the manager said in his post match interview, it isn’t as out of reach as it would have been had we lost. Can we drag ourselves back in contention? Let’s just take it one game at a time and see. We have been so inconsistent in recent games that I don’t think any of us would be in the least bit surprised if we slipped up again in our next away match against lower opposition. But, if they can take this experience, and the experience against Kyiv in midweek and just try to accrue points, we can at least try to ensure Champions League qualification and perhaps undo some of the damage we have done to our self-esteem. If we can somehow draw a line under our crapness then who knows. Maybe we can even try to finish higher than fourth. ONE GAME AT A TIME!

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.