It's absolutely absurd and another indication how the actions of Arsenal are held up to a far higher standard of scrutiny than that of any other club in the league. A standard which is almost impossible to meet. Had Ferguson done the same, no doubt the papers would be full of stories about how he had every right to refuse a handshake when he had been taunted by the opposing manager for 90 minutes. Especially if that manager had been a foreign one. You look at Wenger's treatment at Old Trafford by both officials and fans, then look at the verbal assaults and intimidation Ferguson is allowed to get away with on a weekly basis. Only when he says something wrong in an interview do the FA think about doing anything about it. Benetiz was right in his 'rant' that you need to man-mark the Man United technical staff because they are constantly in the face of the fourth official and surround the linesmen and referee the first opportunity they get. Something, I might add, Moanchester City are doing more and more themselves.

Look at how Eduardo was treated compared to Ronaldo, Drogba, Gerrard or Rooney. How our fans got a lot of the blame for the ex-25's celebration when opposing fans have been chanting vile abuse at our players and manager for as long as anyone can remember. Look at what we do and don't get on the pitch compared to the other 'big' teams - more yellow cards for less fouls, more fouls against yet less free kicks, and not a sniff of a penalty despite several GBH's in the box, since August and the ITV-led crusade against Eduardo.

To his credit, even when questioned directly about the comment 'alleged' to have been made by Hughes Wenger refused to confirm or deny, simply saying that you will not hear him say anything about another manager. The fact that other managers have called his gesture 'childish' and 'ungracious' (another question put to Wenger asking if he agreed with that) and you have to wonder what really is the 'childish' act? Refusing to shake hands with someone who has taunted you for 90 minutes (after all, according to Mark Hughes, the ex-25 had every right to celebrate the way he did on our first match against them this season for that very reason, so would Wenger have been entitled to go screaming in Mark Hughes face?) or deliberately trying to goad a fellow manager, while strutting in front of him, well outside your own technical area and hurling obscenities. Wenger doesn't regret what he does, and the more I hear people going on about it I wish he could go back and not shake his hand even more. How you would do that, I don't really know. First of all there's the whole time travel issue, but putting that aside, how do you 'not' do something more than you already haven't done it? Any quantum physicists around? Surely that holds the key.

And he had a go at another journalist, this time for keeping asking the same question over and over, even though Wenger stressed he had already answered it. 'Do you really listen to what I say because if you do let's go to the next question' Love it, Wenger a few years back would never have been so direct, or am I just forgetting? Maybe I didn't pay as much attention to press conferences then as I do now. Who knows. Whatever it is, I love it. I love the Wenger of this year when he's being interviewed by the press. He has become the master and owns every conference he attends (apart from anomalies such as last week after Chelsea when he made very little sense.)

When asked if we would be buying Balotelli, instead of his last season answer which would have been 'I won't confirm or deny who we are interested in' he simply said 'No, we are not interested in Ballotelli, you can write that, and Chelsea can buy him as many times as they like. I read that we are in competition with Chelsea to sign the player, that is not true'. You can't really get much clearer than that can you? No doubt we'll be linked with buying him next week. And the week after, and every week between now and January 31st or until someone else does.

We won't be buying Dzeko either as he's apparently too expensive while it looks like we'll have to wait til the summer for Chamakh as his club won't be selling him in January, Zenzinho the 17 year old it is then...

I must say, recent results aside, Arsene seemed in far better spirits than he has done. He says the team are disheartened at the minute and that concerns me as we have a mental strength even more prone to break down than our players bodies, but his relaxed manner wen't some way to settling some of my concerns. He even had a giggle when asked about Arshavin's comments, saying how he loved him as a player and as a man, and left one journalist swinging in the wind after simply answering 'yes I do' to the question of whether Stoke was must win or not. 'Yes I do' and then a big grin as the journo scrambled to think of another question. Superb.

Stoke is a huge match for us. Yes we beat them 4-1 last season, but they are a very well organised, disciplined and effective team. Given the fact that we concede a goal almost every time a ball is shot on target we have to ensure that either Almunia isn't playing or that the entire team close down every inch of the pitch to limit shooting chances. Both would be ideal. Never mind dealing with Delap’s long throws, we need to be dealing with the second balls which is invariably where our main problems come from. A big hoof will do very nicely thank you very much - away from goal, not just into the air so it comes back down inside our box. AWAY.

Sagna is confirmed fit, Walcott confirmed injured, Diaby, Bendtner and Clichy are 'shorter' confirming my spine-shortening theory and progressing us ever closer to our Pygmy army. Our team pretty much picks itself.

VP's surgery has went very, very well apparently, although Wenger hasn't talked to him, just his surgeons. He does that doesn't he, when a player is injured he doesn't seem to have much to do with them, instead solely focusing on those who are fit I guess that's the way to do it and that's why we have medical staff. Still, where's the love Arsene?

Interestingly, perhaps even foolishly, I got rather excited when pressed on how many players we would be after in January, would it solely be a striker, Wenger refused to clarify how many players we'd be after. Like most, I know what we need, and I would sacrifice getting a striker for a keeper.

The match v Stoke is our 100th at the Emirates and Arsene's 500th game in charge. Anything less than a win to celebrate would jst be plain rude. 3 points please, thank you very much.

He's 5'11" just in case you were wondering.

It's goood to see that consensus is growing that we need a keeper (Akinfeev) and despite all the names being bandied about, I actually don't care (Akinfeev) who we buy. ANY keeper(Akinfeev) would be an improvement, Mannone proved that. We have faced 52 shots this season, and conceded 18 goals. Only Portsmouth, Wigan, Hull, and Burnley have a worse record than us. Yet only Chelsea and Fulham have faced fewer shots.

It isn't the defence. IT'S THE KEEPER (though our defence could try defending just a wee bit better).

In November, we allowed eight shots. That's pretty impressive, implying the defense are doing their job relatively well. How many goals did we concede? Five. Five fucking goals from eight shots.

To have figures like that is a disgrace. To compare, Chelsea have faced only 34 shots and conceded 8 goals, a ratio that works out at 34.6% to their 23.5% (did you see their blocked shots stats v us on Sunday? We had seven blocked shots by them, we managed to block one of theirs). So, not only are their defenders closing down attackers more than we are, they also have a keeper who knows what he's supposed to be doing.

Blah. It's enough to get you concerned about the visit of Stoke. I think I might throw something at my TV (or just fall on top of it) if Almunia starts on Saturday. And if, please, please, please, he doesn't, we can assume he has been rightly dropped and cling to the hope that Wenger might do something about it and shit ourselves accordingly as Fabianski implodes? There is, off course, always the very real possibility that Wenger might be happy to have Fab as number 1 and Almunia and number 2.

Something has definitely changed with the Spanish waiter this season, there can be no denying it. The whole 'chest infection/death in the family' business smacked so much of a cover-up I was supprised not to hear mention of a grassy knoll. Whether he's had a fight with the boss, a team-mate or his pink dog, I don't really care, what I care about is getting him the hell out of our team. The unpredictibility of youth? Bloody right when it's up against the unpredicitibility of a liability. Maybe he's mimicking the other England goalies in a bid to get to the World Cup? Who the hell knows, but it's something and it's irritating the crap clean out of me.

Urrgh, I've depressed myself now. Started this blog because I just simply had to repeat the whole pygmies thing and now look where I've ended up.

Bloody Almunia.

Pygmies hehe.

That's better.

So what else? Not much really. Theo is out with a 'slight' hamstring so that's him gone til the end of February. Probably just as well, would have only got injured against Stoke anyway. Wonder does he know if he doesn't have the ball people won't tackle him so that's why he leaves it behind so often? Sagna's ankle knock has recovered enough for him to start unless his foot falls off between now and tomorrow, and apart from that, we have no more injuries to report. The joy of playing the kids in the Carling Cup and no Diaby in training.

I'll take a look at the likely team tomorrow but for now I'm off to think of pygmies.. I've no idea why it's so funny, but it just is. The French Emperor and his army of Pygmies - tripping over all who come before them.

Well, it could work....

While the line between Eduardo and Henry is vast (one is dubious, the other clear cheating) the fact is both were charged after the event using video evidence FIFA/UEFA refuse to allow during the original 90 minutes and plan to punish the player with a punishement far in excess of what would have happened had the referee spotted the incident.

It's simply absurd. Eduardo's three-match ban (for a yellow card offence, a six-fold increase in punishment for an error by an official (if you think he dived)) was rightly overturned, but such was the outcry about Henry that I fear he will not be so lucky. I didn't think the media could get more hysterical than they did with Eduardo, but the surpassed themselves with Henry.

FIFA are well within their rights to look at the incident, afterall, their own rules state that they are free to do so if the ref missed something and it wasn't included in the match report. But how can they issue anything other than the punishment he would have got had it been spotted at the time - a yellow card?

FIFA and UEFA are rapidly descending into an even bigger joke than we already knew they were. Logic dictates that Henry should, at most, get a retrospective yellow. The masses however, might dictate something far more substantial altogether.

If a six-fold punishment is issued (ie a 3 game ban), FIFA must follow suit with EVERY single yellow-card offence not seen by the officials. That's an awful lot of bans for an awful lot of players. Will they open that can or do their best to slam it shut?

Read more for yourself here and make up your own mind.

Honesty is what is needed.

First off, Chelsea did not deserve to beat us by three goals yesterday. Our keeper should have saved the third, the second was unfortunate (why didn't the keeper come out for it?) and their first was well worked by an in form striker getting between our two centre-halves. Would it have made a difference if Arshavin's goal had been allowed to stand? Yes it would have, it would have given the team belief that this Cheslea side aren't indestructible as some people are saying. Should it have stood? Most definately. Cech didn't have his hands on the ball, it was not under his control, and (I thought) Eduardo's foot played the ball without being any danger to Cech. The call to disallow this goal is basically like saying you can't challenge a keeper if it looks like the ball is going to land in his hands. An absolutely ridiculous decision. However, Wenger was convinced it was a Chelsea boot that clipped the ball to Arshavin. I haven't watched a replay and I don't think I want to.

Were Chelsea allowed to foul us all over the pitch with little or no punishment from the ref? Yes they were. Did Vermaelen do better with Drogba than Toure? You better believe he did.

We did not deserve to lose this match. Yet we did. No longer can we keep moaning about matches in which we play the better football, be the better team, but end up licking our wounds as the other team celebrate the points.

I honestly didn't think that VP's losss would effect us as much as it had. What has happened to Eduardo since his last operation I don't know, but he just can't control a ball, even when under no pressure.

The decision to take of Song to put on Theo was right in theory, wrong in execution. Song in our strongest player in the middle of the pitch and Denilson has only just returned from a long term injury. Would Song have made a difference? Possibly, he's a fighter, more so that Denilson.

I know Arshavin is having a rough time, but how many times did he just give up yesterday when something didn't work? There was one passage of play where he was lying on the ground after a pass went astray and he just lay there. He wasn't injured and could have helped win the ball back just outside their box, but he just lay there watching. Halfway into the second half, heads went down and it was Man U in the Champions League all over.

How many times did you see players just drop their arms by their sides and stop moving when a pass went astray? It's like we don't know how to cope when the passes aren't perfect. Where did that go? Are they so perfect in training now that they no longer think they will hit a stray pass?

Do we need to buy in January? Without a doubt, but it is a keeper we need, not a forward. With or without VP we were always going to hit a dry spell, it's only natural. Almunia might have made a good save yesterday, but how many bread and butter balls should he have come for that he didn't? How many times did he just throw the ball back to Chelsea? And as for the free kick? What the fuck is the point of setting up a wall if you are then going to anticipate (wrongly) and move behind it to get beat by some distance by a free kick which was not as fierce as it could have been and was well inside the post on the side the keeper was supposed to be protecting? We need a keeper who can command the WHOLE area, Almunia couldn't even command the sun to rise in the morning.

With Almunia in goal we will not win anything. It is that simple. He was always average, but this season, he isn't even that. I've said it for weeks, months even, he just doesn't seem interested. Put Fabianski in, hell put Mannone in, at least then we can say 'inexperience' and 'they'll learn instead of 'what the fuck' or 'where the fuck is he?' Almunia is a number two and should NEVER be any more. No wonder Jens hated him, I'd hate him too if I'd somebody that crap constantly thinking they deserved my place.

Nasri needs to come in to the centre more, why couldn't he have played in there with Cesc with Rosicky out wide? Why did we start Eduardo when we have seen his form is lacking and Vela or Theo would have created a lot more problems for their back four? Why did we keep pumping high ball after high ball into their box when we have the collective height of a group of midgets? Where was our movement off the ball? That isn't down to VP, that's down to the team. Where we scared? We didn't start like we were.

It reminded me of a grown up with their hand on the head of a kid who is swinging punches but just can't reach the adult. Chelsea just let us swing and flail, and then picked us off when we were tired or out of ideas.

Do I think that our title challenge is over? Not at all. Chelsea play Man City next week so that's a draw and two points dropped. Other teams, teams like Sunderland and Bolton, physical teams, will take points off this Chelsea team, and you can be dam sure United will go all out to beat them after the way they lost to Chelsea. Normally, I'd put in that we still have to play them as well, but that's a moot point, there always seems to be a team we just can't beat. At the minute that's Chelsea so there's no point in even counting that match. However, the team that wins the most points among the mini top 4 league is very rarely the team that wins the league. Ask Liverpool last year, or us the year before. Chelsea are only one team, and while I know it comes on the back of a defeat against Sunderland, you have to know that we are also one of the few teams that can go on a long unbeaten run. If we hit a 21 run like we did after we lost to Man City last November, I defy anyone to tell me we won't be there or thereabouts come May. This team is stronger than the team who did that last season, so that gives me hope.

Perhaps, because I'm sick (again ffs) I am not feeling the pain. I know I did turn the TV off before the final whistle and that isn't like me at all. I was disgusted, not with losing, but with losing when we shouldn't yet again. We can't say we didn't turn up, we did, though we mightn't have hung around for the full 90.

Where do we go from here?

Watching Wenger's post match conference he looked a very depressed man, and so he should be. He said the call on the goal which was disallowed was huge, and it was. To make it 2-1 would have turned everything. And he was right that they got everything, when Mikel was finally booked the ref told him it was because he had made five fouls, each one of them worse that the one Traore committed which earned him a yellow card in the first quarter of the match. He also mentioned that we could see the damage done to the confidence from the result against Sunderland was much greater than he had thought. That isn't good enough. These are highly paid professionals. They should have confidence which is stronger than that of a petrified flea.

Shell shocked is maybe a word for how he looked.

People will make comparrisons with last year, but this time last year we had lost five not four, and let's not forget Chelsea have already lost two as well. This is our 'blip' and if we can stop it becoming a 'slide' we can shake November off and push on. Injuries, the ACN and suspensions will take their toll on Chelsea and United as they have taken their toll on us. We need to just start putting the ball in the back of the net again, and we should start that against Man City, even though Wenger says he will still play the kids at Eastlands and I fear for them.  Perhaps it will be a case of having to start the unbeaten run after another defeat to Man City. This time it won't cost us points, thankfully. But what would a thumping defeat on top of this result against Chelsea, heaped on the defeat at Sunderland do to morale at the club?

Blah, I know this blog is all over the place, that's the way my head is. I'll announce the winner of the competition later when I get a chance to have a proper look at the entries.

That's all I feel like saying today. I'm sure you know the feeling.

Bring on December...death to November!

And some of you mocked me for this:

I didn't include this in yesterday's log as I'd wrote it the night before and didn't know. I'm kinda glad I didn't know, as it would have taken some of the shine off my new-found optimism.

So, with all this, we are now being written off as title contenders before a ball has been kicked against Cheslea and to be honest I'm fucked if I care. Nobody really took us seriously as contenders this season anyway, most paying lip service simply because we are sitting in the top four. I, on the other hand, think that it won't set us back anywhere near as much as the loss of Rooney would set back Man United. They are a one-man team, we are most definitely not.

But then again, with Man U things are different. Such as how they complain that they should have had a penalty against Besiktas, my god how they moaned, and it wasn't even a 'stonewaller.' Moan on Wednesday, moan on Thursday, hell let's moan some more on Friday and then see what happens. What happens? They get TWO penalties against Portsmouth. Two. In one game when we can't even get ONE in four months despite having players GBH'd in the box. I haven't seen the calls as I write this, and I could go and find them but they might be perfectly legit penalties in which case my wrath would not be warranted and after seeing how much money I lost in my wages from being sick I very much want to be wrathful.

Seriously, how many penalties were given yesterday? And how many will we be denied today?

Logic dictates that we should actually be getting considerably MORE than other teams given the amount of intricate play we do in and around the box and how quick our players are for many of the defenders in this league. Is that the problem? Are our players just to quick for the refs as well? Or are we paying the price for our fabricated reputation? I think it's a bit of both.

Sepp Blatter has finally been kicked in the head by a donkey (well, you explain it) and has now said that he IS in favour of goal-line technology. It's all very well and good, and I'll be interested to see how far he takes it, but as Arsenal never have any problems with goal-line decisions (it's the penalties we never get) it means feck all to Arsenal at the minute so I'll come back to that another time.

Oh aye, isn't there a match today?

There's still no word on Gallas, and we are still none the wiser as to if we'll see Eboue or Traore at left-back. Do you play the guy with experience, even though that means playing him out of position, or the youngester who finds the left a much-more natural friend? We forget the experience Traore gained at Portsmouth, and while that might make the difference, it's still no substitute for Gibbs or Clichy. Whoever plays there we just have to hope they get a lot of help from the rest of the defense and left-side midfield.

There isn't really anything more I can say that hasn't been repeated ad nauseum already. Many fans think this is 'must win' some think it's 'can't lose' and most people, outside Arsenal, who are supposed to be 'in the know' don't give us a chance.

Personally, yesterday's optimism aside, I think it'll be whoever manages to get the luck and the ref's calls. Will he allow Chelsea to bully us beyond the laws of the game? If so then we will struggle. If we get a ref who has some balls then we have a chance.

But first and foremost, we need to turn up. We need to be the Arsenal who went to both Manchester clubs, but this time convert our chances and kick Drogba (as if he was the ex-25) before he gets a chance to pretend he's been kicked and win a dangerous free.

This one really could go any way...

With the power of our collective will, we can make it go ours....a hattrick from Cesc wouldn't hurt either!

(If you are fed up with the coverage of the Arsenal Chelsea match, there's a really touching article here about Alex Song, and I just think the guy rocks.)

Last chance to enter the TShirt competition which closes at midnight tonight....with only a few people choosing to enter, you have every chance of being the lucky punter to pick up the Tshirt shown below.

You can win a large 'Let's Talk About Cesc' Tshirt (click on the link to have a look at it in more detail). Not exactly an Arseblog-style pair of tickets to the Chelsea match, but hey, it's free...

So far, as I said above, there's only been a few entries (I'm choosing to believe that everyone is taking their time over their entries rather than no-one's interested/reading) so you have great odds of winning....

Unlike most competitions though, this one will require a tiny bit of skill.

So, to win (and you can enter as many times as you like), simply send your ideas for what would make the perfect Arsenal Tshirt to info@ladyarse.com. It would help if you could put 'TSHIRT COMPETITION' in the subject line (or click the email address above and that'll do it for you).

It can be about Arsenal club, players past and/or present, or slagging off any other player or team in the league, the topic is open. Basically, it only has to be a TShirt an Arsenal fan would love to wear.

The winner will be announced in the first blog after the Chelsea game, and please note that by entering you're giving me permission to use your ideas to make a TShirt/TShirt transfer...well...you didn't think I was doing it TOTALLY free did you?

So let's be having your ideas then...info@ladyarse.com and it would be appreciated if they could be in English as I'm an ignorant fool 

Midnight tonite folks....get them in before then!

I shall get to that in a minute. First, I'll let you into my thinking as to how the game was going to go prior to hearing it so you can see why I needed something, anything to sway the balance.

When I thought about what the final result on Sunday would be, I just didn't know. I genuinely didn't have a clue. There was a teeny tiny part of me that dared to hope, kept shouting 3-1 3-1 3-1. It dared to dream that we could do again what we did at Stamford Bridge last season. But the bigger part of me remembered, painfully, what they did to us at the Emirates. We haven't lost at home, in fact, we've won every match, that has to be a good sign right? But then those sort of runs have to come to end at sometime. I was basically being schitzophrenic about the whole thing.

So much depends on the back four, will Gallas play? Who'll play left-back? Eduardo, Vela or Theo through the middle? Will Almunia remember he's playing a competitive match or think he was out for a stroll with his pink dog again? Will Drogba do to our centre-backs what he normally does or will the Verm keep him in his pocket for the 90, only occassionaly punching him behind the ref's back? What about Anelka, you know he likes to score against us, if the Verm has Drogba and Gallas isn't playing, will he be left to Butternut? Will Arshavin steal the show like he did when he first arrived or will he be quiet as he has been for much of the season? Which Arsenal will turn up? Can our defense hold more than theirs? Will 4-3-3 blunt the diamond or will they simply cut through our heart?

So many questions. And I just didn't have any answers. The only thing I knew was that it wouldn't be dull.

Then I heard the fan on Arsenal TV. I wish I could remember his name and give him the credit for one of the smartest things I've heard in a long time (I apologise if someone has already raised this point and I missed it).

Cheslea, as we all know, have adopted a diamond formation this season. The diamond, as we also know, is a European formation and not one you are likely to see deployed in England unless it's by a visiting European team. So, it's no surprise then, that they are blowing teams away, afterall, these teams, for the majority, have never faced such a contraption as the diamond. How on earth do they cope? But hang on you say, what about Villa and Wigan? They beat Chelsea, and Man U should have. What do those three teams have that the others didn't? Experience in Europe. That's what (Wigan may not as a club, but their manager most certainly does). You might be thinking they dispatched Liverpool with aplomb and Liverpool have heaps of European experience, but seriously, who isn't beating Liverpool these days? And especially in a 'European' setting.

With this thought, my belief that we could get a result increased 10-fold. And off my mind went.

Chelsea might be 'blowing teams away' but quite a few results have also come by the skin of their diamond-studded teeth. Both their losses came away from home, and, as Wenger has pointed out more than once, we have played two more away games than they have, with a game in hand to boot.

We don't have RVP or Super NIk to torture Chelsea's centrebacks, and that might actually turn out to be to our advantage. Terry & Co. like a big man to mark, they'd prefer power over pace and movement given that they themselves move like tractors.

In Vermaelen and Gallas we have a centre-back pairing that can handle anyone when they are on top of their game. No Gallas? Then we have a natural leader in the Verminator who will hopefully haul his counterpart into line. Perhaps we'd see Song in there beside the Verm, what a pairing that could be. TV5 can take Anelka and his pace and Song can just stick to Drogaba so tight that he has no need to get off the ground and win an aerial ball. Denilson can sit and protect and then use his small ankles to splay that ball around the park to set us on our way. Nasri, who has become quite the tackler, in the middle beside Cesc, Arshavin on one side, Rosicky on the other, and Eduardo/Vela/Theo through the middle.

Almost makes you drool doesn't it? Suddenly the fear is leaving me but no doubt it'll be back between now and the end of the match.

People might discuss what we may or may not be lacking up front, the doubts might be looming large over left-back and the potential centre-back pairing, but for me, our biggest concern is Almunia. Will Chelsea have noticed that he hasn't a clue and if you shoot, generally, he'll dive too early or too late? Can we stop them getting near him? Don't be stupid, off course we can't. But that's ok. We need to learn to accept our defensive frailties, embrace them, make them our own and then they cannot hurt us. Acknowledge where we are weak but know that where we are strong can more than compensate. It's all very new-agey, but it saves heart attacks.

Embrace the fact that we will only keep one clean sheet in 10, but only if you embrace the fact that we are scoring more goals than anyone else ever has in Premier League (short) history. Did we care that Henry couldn't head a ball for shit and therefore could not be seen as a 'complete' centre forward? Did we fuck, we knew what he could do with his feet more than covered for what he couldn't do with his head and we loved him for it, hell, we usually had a laugh when he tried a header. This is what I propose we do with our defence. I don't know why we suck at the back, Almunia aside, the individual components of our defense are exceptional. So perhaps all the balme does lie with the keeper. I don't know, but what I do know is that we can't do anything about it so why worry?

At the start of the season I said we'd have to score more than we let in, and I keep bringing it up because I don't often get things so spot on. Our season, as we have seen, is about scoring more than we concede and we have no reason to think that will change on Sunday. Or for the rest of the season. For that reason, we have to do what we do best, and that is all out attack - try and get as many as we can before our defence cracks. And let's remember, no team keeps the ball better than us, and there's fuck all their diamond can do if it hasn't got the ball.

I also now fancy us to break our duck when it comes to not scoring in the first 15 minutes of a match this season.

I read on Jamrockrovers blog that Wilshere is a doubt for Man City due to an ankle injury (I was watching the match and it was a shocking tackle) and Merida will be banned (given that the match was being filmed by one man with him camera-phone Arsenal TV didn't really capture the incident but the commentators seemed very firm in their belief that not only had Delph been the instigator he had also grabbed Merida by the throat in a much more threatening manner than what Fran was being sent off for, even though they didn't say what that was, just for reacting) it gives Le Boss the perfect excuse to slip in two more experienced midfielders. I really hope he does. While I absolutely love seeing the kids in the Carling Cup, Man City will be fielding a top side and I simply don't want to see them humiliated. But more on that after we get Chelsea sorted out. Bit of a tangent I know, but the tackle on Wilshere just popped into my head as I was running through all the players and options we have for Sunday.

Back to that.

Sky and the Redtops will tell you that Sunday is do or die for Arsenal. Many will even try and tell you that even should Arsenal beat Chelsea all that will do is open the door for Man U and let then slip through as we eventually fade. Don't let them fool you.

Our title challenge does not depend on the result against Chelsea, though a win would be fantastic, and no loss is ideal, it would be far from the end of us in this league campaign. Wenger will have a fair idea how many points will be needed to win the league, and he will revise that figure as every week passes and teams lose unexpectedly. It doesn't matter where we get those points, just that we get them.

Wenger has also stated, quite categorically, that this team's time has come. There can be no more hiding behind youth and inexperience. He isn't asking us to wait any more. He believes, and he is promising, that this team WILL deliver this season.

We've trusted and believed in him this far, why should we do any different now?

Arsene knows, and he says we can beat Chelsea.

That's good enough for me.

And that's your lot for today, all that remains today then is to remind you of the competition which will be running until midnight after the Chelsea game. You can win a large 'Let's Talk About Cesc' Tshirt (click on the link to have a look at it in more detail). Not exactly an Arseblog-style pair of tickets to the Chelsea match, but hey, it's free...

So far, there's only been a few entries (I'm choosing to believe that everyone is taking their time over their entries rather than no-one's interested/reading) so you have great odds of winning....

Unlike most competitions though, this one will require a tiny bit of skill.

So, to win (and you can enter as many times as you like), simply send your ideas for what would make the perfect Arsenal Tshirt to info@ladyarse.com. It would help if you could put 'TSHIRT COMPETITION' in the subject line (or click the email address above and that'll do it for you).

It can be about Arsenal club, players past and/or present, or slagging off any other player or team in the league, the topic is open. Basically, it only has to be a TShirt an Arsenal fan would love to wear.

The winner will be announced in the first blog after the Chelsea game, and please note that by entering you're giving me permission to use your ideas to make a TShirt/TShirt transfer...well...you didn't think I was doing it TOTALLY free did you?

So let's be having your ideas then...info@ladyarse.com and it would be appreciated if they could be in English as I'm an ignorant fool 

He even has a pop at Wenger for not really having a right to comment on Henry's handball as he's not Irish. Yes, Roy, he's not Irish, well done, but he is French, you know, the OTHER team who were involved in the play-off.

Idiot.

And all this from a man who has admitted he deliberately set out (and suceeded) to break a fellow players leg for a foul committed on him some time before. Can you say that about ANY of the Arsenal players who have played at the club in the entire time Wenger has been there?

When you can't be one of the big boys, I suppose the next best thing is to have your name written beside them by slagging them off.

Class as always.

Pot, kettle, wanker springs to mind. Read for yourself here.