Shaking off the cobwebs of my first game of football in 5 weeks last night, we lost but my ankle stayed in one piece- so really, I feel like I won- despite some distinctly Eboueesque crossing, this blog comes to you before I head off to Comet to look at dvd players via a night on Steve, the QPR season ticket holder's sofa and a morning trip cross London.

It comes to you now because after the dvd trip, Jo and I are heading up to Islington for a night out with Luke and his girlfriend, Pia, who is returning to Denmark for a while. So, the chances of getting up tomorrow morning and banging out a Tottenham preview are, well, less than good, shall we say?

Here are my thoughts, then, about tomorrow's meeting between the teams sitting 3rd and 4th in the table respectively; we have to win. Simple as that. I don't care if they outplay us for 89 minutes and 30 seconds of the game and we score a goal off Emmanuel Eboue's arse and nick it 1-0. I know that, going on previous history, this is unlikely, what's more likely to happen is that we will outplay them them for 89 minutes and 30 seconds before Jermaine Jenas pings one in from 30 yards. No matter who is in goal.

We had a humiliation to avenge when we last met at the Grove and despite looking like we were going to avenge that humiliation for, oooh, 89 minutes and 30 seconds, we ended up with enough egg on our faces for one hundred tortilla patatas. Then, at the Lane, we were denied a chance for revenge when Eboue ridiculously managed to get himself sent off with an hour to play. A moral victory for us in the end, but that's all it was. You sense too that recent results between us have resulted in Tottenham feeling quite confident about tomorrow, but I think they're underestimating what lies ahead of them tomorrow lunchtime. Yes, they should have beaten us last time out. No, we haven't beaten them since December 2007, but that is precisely why they should fear us.

The first team have had a week to prepare for this, we've had a year of waiting to restore the pecking order. That Tottenham are set to arrive without Defoe, Modric and Lennon really will be the acid test of Robbie Keane's "bench" assertion of midweek. Of course, we will be without Walcott, but it seems- so far- as though Nasri, Eduardo and Bendtner will all be in contention to augment the line up tomorrow lunchtime. I don't say this with any wish to denigrate Eboue and Diaby's efforts so far this season (what, any more than I have already?) but I think it's fair to assume that a front 3 of Arshavin, RvP and Eduardo is more than enough to have Tottenham wondering about what's in store tomorrow. And then you think that Nasri could join a midfield of Cesc and Song. Yes, Tottenham have started well, but they've come up short when faced with quality this season as, admittedly, we have. Well, tomorrow, they'll be facing quality all over the pitch. I can't wait.

As I alluded to earlier, the goalkeeper conundrum is set to continue a while longer- designated number 2, Fabianski have a thigh problem that will see him miss three weeks. Which means the shirt tomorrow is being fought for by deposed number 1, Manuel Almunia and the current incumbent, Vito Mannone. Football365 sum the problem up nicely with the line, "Almunia set to be Arsenl's non saving keeper again". I reckon, though, if you're going to have a keeper in goal who's going to make mistakes, go with the one who is going to improve. It's not like Almunia's big game temperament will be missed anyway, is it?

Elsewhere, star of the week, Fran Merida has got Atletico Madrid sniffing around him, he's out of contract in the summer and though he seems happy in London- well, he says he is, I do wonder if the pull of home and the promise of first team football may see him on his way. That'd be a shame, but not, you'd think, the end of the world.

No, the end of the world might come at around 3pm tomorrow. Let's hope not.

Come on you reds!  

Today is a momentous day, yes, it is.

For I'm going to see Dizzee Rascal at Brixton Academy. It's gonna be Bonkers, oh yes.

And in Arsenal land, the manager, the man who has given Gooners everywhere so much happiness over the last 13 years, okay- less so in the last five- reaches his 60th birthday. Rather than celebrating with a 60 candle cake though, Arsène has been in front of the firing squad- aka, the 8th Arsenal Holdings AGM. As yet, the smoke signals from the meeting have yet to emerge, so unfortunately, we don't have a detailed account of what has been said. However, with the team having currently unbeaten in eight matches, sitting in a very respectable 4th place in the league, just 4 points off the pace with a game in hand, and top of their Champions League group with two home games to come, we can be reasonably sure that the event will have been a less fractious affair than the one that preceded it in the springtime. Especially as Mikael Silvestre has not been seen outside of the Carling Cup team.

Whilst the boss said that he was "convinced" that the trophy drought would be ended this season, one man who didn't say anything- thereby living up to his "silent" reputation- was Stan Kroenke. Which led, when faced with questions about Kroenke's involvement, to the slightly odd situation of PH-W saying,

"I believe he [Stan] is happy to be a long-term shareholder in our club.

"Really its not for me to say what his intentions are."

Glad you cleared that one up for us then, Pete.

Back to Arsène, and in the absence of any self congratulation from the man and, let's face it, that just wouldn't be his style now, would it, Football 365 have come up with a list of 60 classic Wenger quotes. My personal favourite; a) because I hadn't heard, or read, it before, b) because, to me, it speaks to Wenger's total dedication to the Arsenal training complex and our stadium and three, because it's really funny, is number 16- the one about swimming pools. Check them out if you haven't already.

They're not the only ones giving it up to le boss though; one to be enjoyed on the BBC I-Player at a later date, due to my presence at the Brixton Academy tonight, is 5 Live's Arsène at 60, 8pm tonight. Emmanuel Petit says that he must win something this season, expressing surprise that Wenger has stayed with the club after 4 years without a trophy- though mostly Petit just sounds confused to me. David Dein, predictably but correctly, flies the flag for his long time friend, expressing the belief that the boss should be "harnessed" to the club for life. I'm not sure about that, but I don't think the boss is planning on going anywhere just yet.

Happy birthday boss, thanks for the last thirteen years. I don't think any of us would have missed a second. Well, maybe that Cup Final in 2001 and the Spurs home game last season. The highs though, in my opinion at least, have been more than worth it. 

On the playing side of things, Samir Nasri and Lukasz Fabianski both made their reserve team comebacks this week. With the rate at which the first team squad members appear to be dropping like flies (was it only three weeks ago, the boss basically had a full complement to choose from, Nasri excepted?), Samir's return in particular, is timely indeed.

Fabianski will come back to an intruiging situation. In his absence, the third choice Mannone has come into the side and done so well that the manager has seen no reason to restore the Spanish waiter to the side. Can Mannone now be considered the man to displace? I'm not sure I would see it like that, but I have never been convinced by Almunia and I don't think that- should he play till his late 30's- I ever will be. Mannone and Fabianski should be given the chance to battle it out for the number one spot, I think both of them have attributes that Almunia lacks and whilst they will continue to make mistakes, as Almunia does himself, they have much greater to potential to improve than "El Camarero". 

Tomorrow's blog will be the last one till Monday, so we'll have a look at the West Ham game then.

Hello!

What's this? Two posts in a day? Yep, I really should be packing, but packing for a four day break in Rome when the weather is forecast to be "hot and sunny, every day hot and sunny" (thank you Bill Hicks) is not exactly going to tax me. Hmmm, what shall I take? Tee shirt and shorts. What else? Oh yeah, tee shirt and shorts. Anything else? How about suntan lotion? Already packed. Great, let's go.

Anyway, I just had to react to the following story on Football365, apparently Arsenal and Bayern Munich want PSG's 19 year old defender, Mamadou Sahko . Sakho's agent Tim Hager says that Barcelona are also interested, but that Arsenal are the most interested. However, Tim Hager also says the following:

 "Arsenal are interested, but the club are too cheap at the moment.

"Yes, I think a transfer will happen soon. He wants to play football in England and Arsenal are a good club but Manchester United is a better club."

Tim Hagher can fuck off.

Manchester United might be a more successful team at present, but a better club? Tell that to Aaron Ramsey who Manchester United attempted to sign, using Gary Neville as bait. Compare and contrast with private jet and lunch paid for by Mr Wenger, presumably on a club credit card- hang on, perhaps that's why we never have any money for signings... anyway. Cheap? I'll say it again, fuck off Tim.

 Meanwhile, Lukasz Fabianksi signs new deal. Yes, his reward for his rabbit in the headlights performance at wembley is a long term contract with the club. That'll please The Gooner contributors, won't it?

The boss says:

"I rate Lukasz highly and I am very pleased that he has committed his future to the club.

"I believe he is a top competitor, he's intelligent and reads the game very well and has all the ingredients to be successful in his position."

Whilst the man himself had the following to say:

"I'm very happy to sign my new contract with Arsenal. It's a big motivation for me to keep working hard and shows that the club believes in me.

"I'll be doing everything I can to repay that belief by helping Arsenal to win trophies in the coming years."

Hopefully Lukasz, hopefully. Having bigged him up earlier in the season, of course I can't turn my back on him now and whilst he's had moments of madness, he has also shown a lot of character and ability. They say keepers don't really mature till later (who are "they"? I don't know, don't ask) and you could look at David Seaman as evidence of that- there again how many times did he  match that first, imperious season at Arsenal. What am I talking about, he was around 30 then. So, Fabianski has much maturing and devloping in front of him. I wish him well with that.

And that really is it. Again, till next Thursday y'all...

Thanks everyone for your comments over the last day. It seems that there is still a struggle going on to understand the motives of the manager in leaving Andrey Arshavin on the bench on Saturday. For me, I guess the frustration is that we all know how hard it is to beat Chelsea, David Dein once said of Arsène that the work he did in taking on Manchester United was like being a boxer with one hand tied behind his back, well on Saturday the manager tied his own hands behind his back. Bizarre.

And doubly frustrating in the light of the second semi final yesterday. I have to be careful with what I say here as my closest friend is an Everton fan and has just begun to take an interest in this blog (hello Luke), but I don't think it's disrespecting Everton to say we would have loved a cup final against them and not United. That being said, I thought Everton played very well in extra time and well done to them for sparing us yet another Chelsea United final. It was brilliant to see Berbatov and Rio miss their penalties.

Movin' on...

It was revealed over the weekend that Steven Gerrard- he of the inability to stay on his feet in the penalty area- would miss tomorrow's night Anfield encounter. Which is great news. The news is that; due to a slight groin problem and a *sirens*"HAMSTRING! HAMSTRING!"alert respectively- that bit would have worked better if it was audio, wouldn't it?-  Robin van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor will miss it as well is not great. Unless you take into account that Ade seemed to take very little interest in proceedings on Saturday afternoon, whilst Robin again had me thinking what a truly wonderful player he would be, if only he was comfortable playing on his right foot. Seriously though, this is not the news we needed to hear. Unless Eduardo is back, and sitting in the stands on Saturday, he didn't look anywhere close to back, I can't see where the firepower is to take the scousers down. Especially after the disappointment of Saturday.

Despite that, Sir Fergie has no doubts that whatever team Arsenal cobble together, 10 midfielders and a goalkeeper by the sound of it, the "winner" that is Wenger will send his boys out to try. One of the boys that le boss will send out is Lukasz Fabianski, who had what is widely known in football circles as a "nightmare" on Saturday. And he will send him out confident that Fabianski will go on to be oone of the best keepers in the world. I guess a cynic would say that he has to say that as Manuel Almunia, himself no stranger to colossal fuck ups in key games, is not expected back for a while. But, and I don't know about world's best, but I think the Online Gooner suggestion that Fabianski be bombed out was harshness in the extreme. He is a good keeper. And it was only weeks ago, after the Cardiff replay, that I heard two Arsenal fans heading over the north bridge discussing how much more confident Fabianski made them feel then Almunia. So let's not write him off yet.

PJ Harvey awaits.

At around 5.40 yesterday, this blog was tentatively titled "The Hand of Ashley Cole". Unfortunately, my suspicion that we had scored too early proved to be correct and I don't think we were quite at it yesterday evening.

There is a chapter, or a section, in Fever Pitch called "The Greatest Moment Ever". It relates, of course, to the 26th May 1989 and Michael Thomas. With 5 minutes left of the FA Cup semi final yesterday, Lukasz Fabianski, who I still believe has a big future at the club, provided us with, possibly, "The Worst Moment Ever" and so we have been knocked out of the FA Cup by a team that hadn't beaten us in the competition in something like 60 years .

Was it really the worst moment ever though? Worse than Gazza's genius free kick that I watched, as a 13 year old at a Tottenham fan's house, bullet past David Seaman? Worse than Nayim's outrageous lob in 95 that so shocked my grandad, uncle and I that my auntie Susan, after 5 minutes of stunned silence from ourselves, resorted to the "Never mind boys, it's only a game!" Was it worse than Michael Owen's act of thievery in Cardiff, 2001 that saw me crying on my then girlfriend's shoulder and nearly getting into a fight with one of my best friends. A Liverpool fan, if you hadn't guessed.

No, I don't think it was really. But "The Third Worst Moment Ever" is not the snappiest title. For one thing, it meant that extra time didn't happen and so Joanna and I could leave the house and get to a birthday meal with her friends on time- did I really just say that? Yes, I did. Second, we didn't do anywhere near enough to win the game yesterday and whilst I don't think Chelsea were that much better, it would be churlish to say, as we could have argued in the Carling Cup Final of 2007, that the better team lost. The truly frustrating thing, though, is that Chelsea didn't have to work very hard for their goals. Eboue, for the first, showing why Wenger once said of him, "he can't defend!" before Lukasz got beaten on his near post. The second, around 80 minutes of match time after a similar incident, saw Drogba (he must love us and the presents we keep giving him) burning Silvestre and leaving Fabianski in no mans land. This time there was no Keiran Gibbs (who I thought one of our better players) to the rescue. On the back of a similar occurence at Wigan last week, it's clear that Fabianski's judgement is a little suspect at this stage of his career.

Speaking of suspect judgements, what of a man who decides to leave his best player, or at least the man who revived Arsenal in late winter, on the bench because he wants to play with "wingers"? Who then sits and watch cross after cross attempted but, as usual, nobody on the end of them. Ironically, it was the man charged with getting crosses in who got on the end of one from Gibbs to tuck away a smart left foot volley. Some people think Theo doesn't influence games enough. I don't know what more he could be doing that he isn't at the moment. Especially if you look around the rest of the team and he must be sick of scoring big goals that the team can't hang onto. Going back to the original starting point of this paragraph, Arshavin. Rested. Ready to go. On the bench. An even worse decision than putting Jeremie Aliadiere in for his first first team start in 3 months against Manchester United in 2004 and resting Reyes and Henry. We are now out of the one competition he could have won for us and he no chance to do anything about it. Maybe he was rested for Liverpool in midweek. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps the result in midweek convinced Arsène we could live without him but for most of the match we played as if missing a cog.  And maybe it would have been that way with him on the pitch, but we'll never know now. When he did arrive, that it wasn't Denilson who was replaced was quite surprising, I like Denilson. But he was less than impressive yesterday, dwelling on the ball, stupid passes and very lucky not to get sent off.

I mentioned an article by Amy Lawrence yesterday, in it she gently pointed out that it was a little early for "told you sos" from the manager. She was spot on.

As Lassana Diarra, having previously blasted Arsène Wenger for not being able to let go of the fact that Diarra left to join Portsmouth last winter, forgets that he said all that and takes yet another pop at le boss it's kind of refreshing to hear a young talent talk with such awareness and maturity of his place in the football world. I'm talking, of course, about Theo Walcott.

Amongst a certain amount of recent media shit stirring regarding Theo's contract negotiations, let this sentence stand out amongst it all and shine like a lighthouse in a sea of avaricious agents and contemptuous footballers:

"There are so many examples of players who have developed into great players under our manager, Thierry (Henry) for a start, and I want to be one of them."

He expands on these comments here and his attitude and apparent delight at training with the likes of Eduardo and van Persie and witnessing the "ridiculous" things they do, well, shouldn't that be what what being a young footballer at one of the greatest clubs in Europe is about? Yes, David Bentley, I'm looking at you. I like Theo's honesty in describing himself as a "bit of a lightweight" too. He certainly looks a lot more powerful than he did a year ago. I think such intelligence and honesty can only help in his future development, and let's face it, there's still a lot of developing to be done.

Picking up a theme from comments earlier in the week from both Cesc and Ade, the manager has been talking up the unity in the side- and there definitely seems to be a renewed sense of purpose within the team of late. Whilst both he and our Polish international Fabianski have spoken about the important role Gooners have to play in helping the team  over the line, or several lines they have to cross in the coming weeks.

The team for the game at Wigan has just been announced and it reads as follows:

Fabianski, Sagna, Toure, Djourou, Gibbs, Walcott, Denilson, Song Billong, Arshavin, Fabregas, Bendtner.

Subs: Szczesny, Nasri, Van Persie, Vela, Silvestre, Adebayor, Eboue.

So, Bendtner in for a knackered Ade (well, he looked knackered on Tuesday night), whilst Arshavin comes in for Nasri and we see the enforced changes previously discussed previously. That looks a team good enough to win this game. Good to see van Persie has made the bench and a new name, Szczesny as substitute keeper. Another Pole, I think his main claim to fame thus far is that he managed to break both arms in a training ground accident. Nice to know he's recovered.

The online check in and packing awaits, come on you Gunners!

The Champions League quarter final last year was a reminder for those who had forgotten, or perhaps were too young to remember, how things things always, but always used to go for Liverpool in their 80's era of dominance and how we hated them for it. The latter day model are hailed as masters of the european form, backed by the best fans in Europe and managed by a manager so perfect in his thinking that he might as well be the Stephen Hawking of football. At least, that's what our scouse security guard, Colin tells me. I forgot all about their game last night, the millionth rerun of Liverpool v Chelsea in Europe held no interest for me, but Jo's dad was listening a Pink Floyd album last night, Meddle I think and at the end of one of the tracks is a recording of a crowd singing "You'll Never Walk Alone". I don't know why, but it's there and I thought, "Ooh, I wonder how the game went". So I checked and then I laughed. When I was done laughing, I laughed some more. Liverpool and Benitez had had their pants pulled down. At Anfield to boot. Brilliant.

I got offered a ticket for Villarreal part 2 (or is it part 4 now?) yesterday afternoon- fifty quid, what a bargain. But, if you've been paying attention here, you'll know I can't go because I will be in Amsterdam. Fuck, shit, bollocks. But at least I'll be in Amsterdam.

Before that game, Wigan will provide a stiff test for the Champions league hopefuls. I don't think there's much team news about just yet, with talk still dominated by the first leg in Spain and that goal by Adebayor. I was interested to note that Kevin Whitcher, over at Gooner Towers shares my belief that Ade will be gone come summer time. A straw poll of the Gooner legion would be interesting to see who thinks Ade will be still be here come September. Anyway the man himself says he tries it all the time in training. He's also said that he thinks Johan Djourou and Lukasz Fabianski have got enough about them to replace Gallas and Almunia. I'm not too worrried about either of them, though the sharp end of the season is no time for a young goalkeeper to come in and strut his stuff. Actually, maybe it's the best time. Tomas Rosicky, by the way, had to pull out of a reserve team game yesterday. Will we ever see him again?

The warrior leader, for his part, says that his pass for the goal was "nothing". Which is probably a fair assessment. It was a good ball, but Adebayor still had it all to do to put the ball away. Speaking of Cesc, Arsenal have been asked for their version of events in the tunnel after the Hull City game and have a week to respond. I work with a Hull fan and saw him for the first time since the game yesterday, he was happy to accept that Phil had perhaps had his fill and gone too far. Move along folks, there's nothing more to see...

The Manchester United league match will now take place May 16th at 12.45, whilst the Chelsea game at the Grove has been moved to May 10th at 4pm. Both games will be shown on Sky. And whilst we're dealing with things visual, Arsenal have released- somewhat belatedly to my mind- a DVD celebrating the goalscoring legend that was Ian WrightWrightWright. I think I'll buy that.

Right, all that's left for me today; a team meeting, a tube and a train, Vicks, some 7-a-side, a couple more trains, a bath, a massage, bed and then it's holiday time. I quote Homer:

Woo hoo!

I think, after writing this blog for the last 6-7 months, one of the themes that have emerged is how things can change in the blink of an eye. We've seen it time and time again over the season and we saw it again last night.

Arsenal, unsettled by that wonderful goal by Marcos Senna after ten minutes, injuries to Almunia and Gallas, were all over the place in the first half and lucky to be still in the tie. They will feel this morning that perhaps they should have won the tie after a much improved second half. 

The team was picked, and set up as predicted, not to big myself up or anything but when you do eventually get one right, well, I do believe it's worth mentioning. Despite being happy with the team selection and formation, the boys were on the rack almsot instantly as Clichy's goal line block prevented an early goal for Capdevilla. Theo Walcott was making inroads on the right, as I thought he might, but too often, every time in fact, he got into a position to be decisive with the ball, his delivery, or "shot selection" went awry.

They scored, perhaps Senna could have been closed down quicker, I don't think it should detract from the quality of a strike that Almunia can only have seen as the ball bounced back out of the net and past him. His evening would come to a premature end after being clattered as he cleared his lines and so Lukasz Fabianski, who (if I haven't made it clear before) I think has got a big future at the club, entered the fray and was soon called upon to make a smart double save as Villarreal worked the ball round us. A foul by Song on some dude who managed to fall into the penalty area- Rossi?- somewhat theatrically and land on William Gallas saw an early departure for Gallas and he was replaced by Djourou, who grew into the game and really, in my opinion, improved things at the back.

Half time arrived at the right time for us, and the second half saw a different Arsenal. With our main line of attack in the first half being aimless crosses into the penalty area for non existent attackers, something had to change. And it did.

It was as if, having taken the best that Villarreal had to offer, we suddenly remembered how to play. Ok, so we didn't create much in the way of gilt edged, put your house on it, scoring opportunities, but when the equalising goal came, it can't be said that it wasn't deserved. Too often, it has been easy to criticise Arsenal for not making the most of being on top, well, thanks to the *cough* goalscoring genius of Emmanuel Adebayor, it wasn't the case. As he controlled Fabregas' flighted pass on his chest, there couldn't have been much on, but only for as long as it took Ade to fall to the ground, executing an overhead kick as he dropped, which completely wrongfooted the goalkeeper and rolled into the corner of the Villarreal goal. Lifeline.

From that moment even as Robert Pires entered the fray, to the moment Eboue replaced Walcott, it was all us. Confidence restored, we looked like we could score at any time. To me, anyway. That unneccessary substitution, the last one available, seemed to put us on the back foot and in the last ten minutes, we conceded a couple of opportunities that would have put a rather different complexion on the evening. I am reminded of the night in 2004 when we recovered from a Gudjonssen goal to equalise at Chelsea through- hey!- Pires and when Desailly was sent off, we chose not to attack, thinking we could win the game at Highbury. We all remember what happened then.

But to dwell on that is to look back at another team, if not another manager. Villarreal will have to make Ashburton Grove european history if they are to halt our progression to the semi final, it is with some amusement I note that Manchester United will have to acheive something similar in Portugal if they are to make that date too. No chickens counted here though, it's advantage Arsenal. But only just and a nervous night awaits.

Afternoon all.

This blog comes to you in the desperate hope that something might have happened in the time it's taken me to travel across London to Jo's place. But there's not much news about.

Emmanuel Adebayor will have a fitness test ahead of the game tomorrow, along with Manuel Almunia. Almunia was rated at 70/30 for the game tomorrow- though given his dislike for coming for crosses when at 100% and the aerial threat that John Carew is capable of posing, I might be tempted to start Fabianski tomorrow. I concede, however, that it's just as likely that Fabianski will come for a cross and miss it, leading to a Villa goal. It would be good to see a motivated Emmanuel Adebayor back tomorrow, but given the tough fixtures ahead, I would hope that he's not risked if not fully fit- I think tomorrow is as good an opportunity as ever to throw Carlos Vela into the starting line up.

Arsène has had his say on Didier Drogba's actions in midweek, whilst stopping short of Frank Lampard's in no way biased plea for Didier not to be banned, he does agree with Lampard that something should be done to stop the kind of abuse players get from the stands, whether verbal or physical. I do have some sympathy for what Lampard had to say on the subject actually; as Cesc Fabregas, or any Arsenal player who's ever taken a corner in front of Tottenham fans, will testify it can be an unpleasant experience. And I don't believe that the money these guys earn means they should be subjected to it. Stamp it out and then they won't be put into the position of having a human reaction and retaliating.

The BBC's Phil McNulty has written an article lavishing praise on Wenger and the youth set up at the club. Our detractors may well ask how many of these kids will make it into the first team. I don't think that's neccessarily the point, in the past many of the kids who haven't quite been good enough have slowly filtered down the divisions and, in some cases, out of the league system altogether. It's difficult to see that happening with any of the guys on show in the Carling Cup this season and the top two divisions will only benefit if that proves to be the case. 

Though not impossible. As it is; clearly, Aaron Ramsey, Carlos Vela and Jack Wilshere are, in my view, expected to make it at Arsenal, whilst Lukasz Fabianski and Keiran Gibbs certainly have a chance, as might Mark Randall, in the absence of a specialist holding player in the first team.  That isn't to say that I wouldn't bet on anyone else  who played on Tuesday night!

Whilst on the subject of the Carling Cup, Ray Wilkins has apparently been in touch with Arsène to explain his comments about taking the Carling Cup seriously. Did they need explanation? They seemed fairly clear to me. Perhaps Big Phil made him do it.

If this blog was a Martin Scorcese movie, you would get at this point a jump cut of images, getting on the train at Grove Park, the Northern Line at London Bridge, Chicken Satay at Miso, a beer from a newsagents, Rachid on the corner of Liverpool road and then finally the facade of the "EMIRAES STADIUM". No, not a typo, one of the lightbulbs on the north-west side has died. I do have a photo of this but due to having a new mobile phone, with internet settings that aren't functioning properly, I can't upload it here.Perhaps later, and consider yourselves slapped on the wrist, O2.

Anyway, Arsène said in the aftermath of the Stoke defeat, let's talk again in three weeks "when we are the best" . And everyone laughed at him, I guess it would be wrong to say I didn't. It was also noted that the series of home games, last night's being the third of four in a row might be the most important of Arsène's time with us. Now, I'm not saying a draw with Fenerbahce, a win against Manchester United and then a fairly comfortable win against Wigan last night means that we're going to win everything in sight, but once again, we've been shown that perhaps there is a reason why journalists do what they do, fans are fans and Arsène is Arsène.

In a team unchanged from the previous round save for Jay Simpson getting the nod to replace Bendtner, even before Arsenal took the lead last night, they might well have been 3-0 up, Chris Kirkland making a couple of fantadtic saves from Aaron Ramsey and Carlos Vela, whilst Jay Simpson hit the bar.  Vela had also been put through earlier but Kirkland managed to tip the ball away without taking the player down in front of a slightly subdued Carling Cup crowd- did it just seem that way because of the fantastic atmospheres generated in the last two and a half league matches? Minutes before half time, as people again left for half time pints, Jack Wilshere played Simpson in with a lovely through ball, Simpson's pace took him away and he only needed one touch to slide the ball past Chris Kirkland. Three guys in front of me, otherwise upstanding and singing all night missed the goal, as someone pointed out to them on their return, one of them replied that he'd seen it on the tv. So perhaps, Arsenal, there's your answer, get rid of the tellys. Oh but then people will stop buying the fizzy liquid passed off as beer so much, won't they? What a conundrum.

Anyway, second half, Keiran Gibbs might have scored, played in by Ramsey after he had stepovered his way from the half way line, waiting for the run he knew was coming outside him. Gibbs' first time shot was blocked. So it fell to Carlos Vela to guarantee progression to the next round. First off, he chased a ball down our left, cut into the area in front of us and rather than shooting, picked out the onrushing Simpson who crashed home his second of the night.

Better followed for our "Mexican Superstar", we were in the middle of imploring Arsène to give us a wave, when somehow, I don't know how, because I was looking at le gaffeur, the ball landed at Vela's feet in the box, one on one with the keeper he delivered a chip that I believe  most jounalists would describe as "impudent", it seemed to fly high into the moonlit air and take ages to drop down into the back of the net. Another wonderful moment for the young Mexican to savour in front of the home fans, such displays of lethality will surely see him knocking on the first team door sooner rather than later. I can't think of another first team player who would have scored that goal, except perhaps "Arsenal's number 9, Eddy Eddy!" 

The rest of the game became a bit of a procession, as Rachid noted, Wigan had given up but late on they forced a double save from Fabianksi that was well worth staying to the end to witness. And speaking of witness, it was Roots Manuva's Witness (1 Hope) that greeted Jo and I as we popped into the Library for a celebratory White Russian or two after the game. I look forward to the next round.