I don't know what it is with Tottenham, I really don't. Much as I'd like to leave them alone, they just keep bringing it on themselves. Fresh from their latest dvd release, 42 Minutes- commemorating their acheivement in those opening 42 minutes last Saturday-

we now have their Chief Executive, Paul Barber, talking up their new stadium. But not just talking it up, obviously I'd have no problem with that, he has to bring us into it. Apparently, their new stadium, being a generation beyond ours- as if 6 years is going to make such a huge difference- will be more advanced technologically and environmentally. I wonder about his environmental claims. As Patrick Barclay pointed out in Monday's Times, anyone who's ever been to White Hart Lane will know how difficult, due to woefully inadequate transport links, it is to get there. I don't see how an extra 16,000 knuckle draggers coming into the Tottenham area is going to help the immediate environment at all, the new stadium is going to have to be the Eden Projects of football stadia. Somehow, I don't think it will be, so Paul Barber, please try and  get over you and your club's unhealthy obsession with trying to outdo the neighbours.

Back in the real world..

I came from home work last night and the Tesco man had just arrived with Jo's shopping and a complimentary Dail Mail. Now, I'm not a Mail reader, but I am a man and the Daily Mail has sports pages. I know that 99.9% of men can never resist the back pages, regardless of which newspaper they belong to, I'm no different. I'm glad I checked them out because, as well as some very complimentary observations from Andy Townsend on Wednesday night's performance, there was an illuminating article on the nature of Arsenal's capture of the man we now call The Verminator.

It transpires that two months before the end of the season, Steve Rowley was tasked with finding a replacement for the outgoing Kolo Toure. Having hunted high and low, Rowley was tapped out. He had seen Vermaelen, but Vermaelen had not ticked all the boxes. Remembering how Vermaelen kept Thierry Henry quiet in a Champions League encounter with Ajax in 2005, Mr Wenger told him to go and look again. And so Rowley hid in the trees as Vermaelen trained with the Belgian national squad and his eyes were opened to the qualities of a player Tottenham, Manchester City and Aston Villa had all looked at. And now the man who prefers to study the game, not the London night life, is ours and I think we can all agree on being happy with that outcome.

One player who most definitely does agree is Alex Song. Of course, like Vermaelen and Steve Rowley, Alex is also a player who qualities were not immediately obvious to everyone, though in my first attempt at an OleOle blog, back in the days before Gillespie Road, I expressed my belief that he was the most suitable partner for Cesc. Of course, Cesc has two midfield buddies now. Anyway, come the winter we will be losing one of our most influential performers in the team to the ACN, but Alex thinks Denilson will be able to deputise for him. I wonder about that. He is the only one currently in the first team squad you would think capable of doing the job, but I wonder if he is physically suitable for playing that role effectively. I think he did a good enough job of it last year, but Song's emergence as the holding midfielder has probably put his efforts in the shade a touch.

That's a future question, though. Today we go to Wolverhampton and we do so with Manuel Almunia restored as number one in the manager's eyes. Citing the importance of having the experience to deal with pressure and need to have continuity in goal, the manager says that Almunia did suffer a crisis of confidence after we beat Portsmouth. He wouldn't have dropped him had he not been sick, though. I have well documented reservations about the Spaniard and his propensity for errors of judgement as well as a lack of conviction in dealing with crosses, but without Fabianski available, it's understandable that he has been restored to the team as Mannone was beginning to tread water. I hope the rest has done Almunia good, he hasn't had much to deal with since returning to the team, but has still let in one eminently saveable goal, but on the positive side, he did make a cracking save on Wednesday night. Let's hope it's that side of him we get to see this evening. Or even that we don't see him at all!

Unfortunately, I'm out with friends, so won't be able to see the game live, which is a shame because I would have been looking forward to using my new Twitter account for the first time. I will however be watching either late tonight, or tomorrow morning, before heading over to mum's house to see my sisters. Enjoy the game, wherever you are. 

Since I last posted a fair bit seems to have happened, most of which you probably know about already, so I won't linger too long on it. But before we can get to tonight's Champions League match against AZ Alkmaar, let me sum up the weekend.

Mannone kept Almunia on the bench on Saturday before promptly doing an "Almunia". RvP proved that he hasn't let the international break affect his knowledge of where the goal at the south end of the Grove is, as his opening goal of the game was from a near identical position to the one dispatched against Blackburn a couple of weeks back. Andrey Arshavin proved his class when he produced an almost lazy finish from the edge of the box to seal the three points as the game drew to a close. Before we got there, of course, Theo Walcott had been once again dispatched to the treatment table as a result of a fierce tackle from Liam Ridgewell. I'm not sure about this one, you know. I've seen people call it fair and in that he won the ball, then fair enough. But you can still injure players in winning the ball- as I know myself and if that is the outcome then, by definition, it can't have been a fair tackle.

I'm not saying it was Martin Taylor (and well done to the classless Birmingham fans for their Taylor serenade), but the speed with which Ridgewell went into the tackle was reckless and perhaps a yellow card would have been a reasonable outcome. It comes to something when Alex Song can get a yellow card, as he continually does, for a little pull back on an opponent and a tackle like this is not deemed worthy of the same punishment. Yes, the pull back is cynical and therefore probably viewed as not being in the spirit of the game as much as a genuine attempt to win the ball. But you can make a genuine attempt to win the ball and still wreck someone's season. Surely there should be some adjustment in the rules, or is it a question of interpretation?

Long story short, then. No Walcott tonight, indeed no Walcott for the next month and with Tomas Rosicky unavailable due to a small knee problem, the forward options are somewhat shrunk. Eduardo and Nick Bendtner remain unavailable, which leaves Arshavin and Robin van Basten as our front line attackers. All of a sudden Samir Nasri's imminent return can't come quick enough for me! It seems likely that, with Diaby, Song and Cesc continuing in central midfield, Eboue will come in to the attacking triumvirate. It will not surprise you to hear that I would prefer to see Carlos Vela given a chance to make his mark- thus augmenting the technical aspect of our game above the physical. But with limited options on the bench, I fully understand why Eboue might be preferred from the start.

The back four, I suppose, will pick itself, with Clichy returning for Keiran Gibbs. The only question mark is the one that hangs over the man between the sticks. Will it Mannone, will it be Manny? We'll have to wait and see... If it wasn't Almunia tonight, that would be quite a statement from the manager, so I expect blondie to return. Incidentally, I was going to say something about his grumpy face being caught on camera on Saturday afternoon, but such is the Beeb's reputation for shady editing, it's possible the shot of him was from a different match altogether...

And whilst I'm on about the Beeb, has anyone else noticed how, in a season where Chelsea have been battered by Wigan, lost to Villa and had to rely on last minute goals in two home games and Liverpool have lost four games already and Manchester United have lost to Burnley and are relying on own goals- currently their second top scorer I think, poor little understrength Arsenal are still an afterthought on Match of the Day? What's that word Alan Hansen likes? "Shocking", I believe. Everybody in the country knows that on a different day, Man City's 4-2 win would have gone the other way and that Arsenal outplayed the Champions for 60 minutes of the 90 on their own patch. But we're the forgotten ones, trading on former glories. I was quite annoyed by this last season, but this season I've been quite accepting of our perceived status in the pecking order. I'll go further here, I like the fact that we're under the radar now. As Arsène heads towards his 60th birthday looking for more from his team, I think there's a few teams and a few pundits in line for the mother of all wake up calls, their lazy and complacent way of thinking is going to be challenged. Big time.

Watch Koeman orchestrate another Arsenal in Europe disaster tonight now...

Fun and games.

A fat sleep last night and I am indeed feeling much better. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for our receptionist, who cracked her head a good one in the shower this morning. From time to time she reads this blog, actually, so hopefully by the time Sara reads this, she won't be suffering from a concussion.

But enough about the walking wounded in my life, what about the walking wounded of Arsenal? We've already covered Samir Nasri, who may be included in the Carling Cup squad for Liverpool in a week and a half's time. Eduardo's thigh problem will preclude him from avenging the near dismemberment of his ankle last February and Nick Bendtner's groin will see a limitation on our forward options further compounded by Carlos Vela's unavailability as he hitchhikes his way back from South America.

At the back, Manuel Almunia was said yesterday to be "50-50" to return to the first team after his chest infection. A month later and he's 50-50? What kind of chest infection has he got? I mean you could understand it if he had the kind of chest infection suffered by John Hurt in Alien. You know, he gets attacked by a face huggy type thing, which then secretly impregnates him, resisting all attempts to pry it off by having acid for blood that would burn his face off, if it made contact. The thing then falls off, but when he get up to have dinner with your fellow crew, or team members, a little penis looking thing with teeth eats its way through his body before bursting out through the chest cavity. And then turning into a massive black xenomorph that kills everything in its path, except the cat. And a woman clad in only vest and pants- though who that would be in the Arsenal dressing room, God only knows. Not sure there's a cat running around the Grove either, though that Highbury squirrel may well be around somewhere.

Yeah, I could understand it if Almunia had that kind of chest infection. Although, clearly, that would result in sudden and painful death, but if he doesn't have that, then what's the hold up? You can only assume that Mr Wenger, like the majority of Gooners, is none too happy with the way the Spanish waiter has started the season.

Another one who has room for improvement this season is Gael Clichy but he won't be doing that tomorrow afternoon as he picked up an ankle knock whilst on international duty with le France. I don't know about internationals, you can get all wound up about why this player isn't in their national side (as I used to regarding Wrighty and England) and then they get in their side and it's just headaches. They get injured, they have to travel all over the world, they get tired, they get demotivated or lazy, they lose form and then they go elsewhere.

That's a bit simplified I know. To boil it down further; the bottom line if you like, is that Keiran Gibbs seems certain to start tomorrow afternoon's match. I can't imagine that he will be in the team for long afterwards, but if he can continue in the vein of his embryonic yet impressive Arsenal career, he has a chance to keep Clichy's backside in bench warming mode.

So, no Bendtner, Eduardo, Almunia (fingers crossed) or Clichy. But Cesc Fabregas will return and Lukasz Fabianski has overcome his injury and is set to be included in tomorrow's squad. I'll be watching to see if he replaces Don Vito tomorrow. Aside from the pecking order, I don't think there's any real reason to displace the Italian Stallion, who has performed very well, but that's rarely stopped the gaffer in the past. As Alex Manninger can testify. But then Manuel Almunia is no David Seaman, he's not even a Jens Lehmann.

In the background, the intrigue level is starting to verge on the red side of things. Or red and white side of things. Silent Stanley has purchased another 90 shares, at £8,500 per share, taking him to 28.9% of all issued shares and just one single, solitary percent away from having to make a compulsory offer for all shares. It's funny, I've come to believe in Stan as a force for good, but I'm not sure I want this now. PH-W says he's relaxed about it and that he would welcome a takeover, but as we get further down this road, what else can he say? What should he say? What can he do now? I guess the doubts are bound to set in as the inevitable draws ever nearer, but it seems to me- and yes, it's been triggered by my current choice of literature- that no good can come out of one man owning the club, especially when we don't know what his intentions are.

I'd still rather him than the other fella, though.

When I was much, much younger, I developed a habit of writing match reports that rewrote history in the event of things going against my team. Writing as exorcism twenty years ago. If I was still in the habit then... well, Robin van Persie would be coming home with the match ball after a brilliant hat trick. Manuel Almunia would have stayed on his line once and come and claimed the second time- more on that later, we would have had a proper referee and Arsenal would have won a match we thoroughly deserved to.

Alas, in the real world, the karmic boomerang I have mentioned once or twice before came swinging back and slapped us all on the back of the head. It was inevitable there would be some kind of fall out from Wednesday night, but did it have to all come in this game? 

In so many ways, this game was history repeating itself through the years. As last year, we were much the better side for the majority of the game, but we couldn't turn our superiority into goals. This was also the case the year before, in a match that had we won it, we may well have won the league. Two years ago, we bossed the game, going a goal up before William Gallas conceded a needless penalty and then the referee gave a soft free kick against Gilberto which Owen Hargreaves duly dispatched to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 victory.

History repeating... Manuel Almunia once again suffering his usual brain freeze against the Champions of England. I don't care what anyone says, he cost us in the semi final last year, he cost us in the home league match two seasons back with another ill judged sortie from his line, and they're just the recent ones. Only he knows why he felt he had to come rushing from his goal to meet a player who, has history against us when William Gallas was there too. Simply put, Almunia stay on his line and there is no danger. After that, the truly game turning penalty was a formality. He compounded this five minutes later with his usual failure to come and collect a routine keeper's ball on the edge of the six yard box, thereby allowing the otherwise excellent Diaby to inexplicably put through his own net. Coming just a minute after van Persie's free kick cannoned off the bar, it was a dagger through the heart.

History repeating, it was a vintage Arsenal suicide. United went 2-1 up having had just two shots on target, what will still be hurting this morning is that United really did nothing to deserve the stunning turnaround, it was gifted to them.

History repeating, in a game generally played without nastiness, without rancour, Manchester United committed 22 fouls to Arsenal's 16 and guess what? Yeah, we got 6 yellow cards to United's 3. I'm sure you can do the maths on that one. No arguments about Eboue's dive, but how Mike Dean looked at Darren Fletcher's "cleaning out" of Andrey Arshavin in the penalty area and waved play on and then booked Robin van Persie for an identical challenge minutes later, only he knows. Okay, so Arshavin angrily smashed in a beauty just seconds after the penalty not given, but that shouldn't detract from the inconsistency of the refereeing. History repeating, for those two incidents we have Rooney's assault on Walcott at the grove last November unpunished with a card, only for Gallas to earn a booking for an identical tackle on Ronaldo within minutes.

On that Fletcher challenge, by the way, Sir Alex must have borrowed le boss' specs because he said that Fletcher played the ball. Which is true admittedly, but he played it with his hand. After taking Arshavin out. It was a stone cold penalty.

History repeating, once again we go to Old Trafford and get to hear our manager serenaded with usual style by men who really should know better. It is beyond belief that this has carried on for years unchecked by the people wielding the real power in the game, the media. Or by Manchester United themselves, it demeans one of the biggest clubs in the world. As did the, apparently irony free, booing of Eduardo, Ronaldo is out of sight, out of mind it seems. On Eduardo, he must be thrilled that his next game is for Croatia at Wembley- I hope he scores a hat trick.

One of the positives from yesterday's game is that Arsène will be getting an apology from Keith Hackett following Lee Probert ( a man I believe we have history with, I've also seen him make a complete dog's dinner of a QPR match) and Mike Dean's ridiculously heavy handed handling of the manager's reaction to RvP's last gasp equaliser being cancelled out- why did Mike Dean just not end the game, rather than subject the boss to such ridicule? We seem to be up on a disciplinary charge after every Old Trafford fixture, and I think I'm right in saying we'll be getting the "failure to control players" fine for our six bookings, but it's progress of a kind that le boss is the one being apologised to.

Sometimes it just isn't your day. I remember thinking, as Andy Gray talked about Ben Foster's great reaction save from van Persie which kept the score at 1-0, that it was starting to look like it wouldn't be our day. But for it to unravel as it did, it's very hard to take. That said, I think we showed yesterday, and it was admitted as much in the Sky studio and from what I saw of the Sunday Supplement this morning, that we are a much, much stronger team than we were given credit for. To go to United and play like that, without Cesc, Nasri, Rosicky and Walcott must give the guys tremendous belief for the rest of the campaign. It looks to me, that if we can cut out the mistakes,  it is going to take a special team to beat Arsenal this season. My only worry is that with players that seem to suffer brain freezes with some frequency, step forward Almunia, Clichy, Diaby and Eboue, those mistakes may just keep coming.

No links today, I purposely haven't read anything else (other than the apology story) so you got pure me today. The Sopranos' Dr Jennifer Melfi said that "depression is rage turned inward", I feel I've directed it appropriately.

Shock news this afternoon. Yes folks, it's true, Barcelona have finally put that phone call in to Arsenal and asked us to name our price for Cesc Fabregas.

Oh wait, no, that's not right at all. Presumably Txiki is sitting by his phone, shaking with nerves at the thought of getting that phone call from us. I almost feel sorry for him; sitting there, moaning "Cesc, Cesc!" to himself like little Danny (Redrum, redrum) in The Shining, whilst waiting in vain for us to call him and say "You can have Fabregas for this much". He'll be waiting for a while, I think. Poor lamb.

In the real world, I don't know about you, but I was staggered to open the door to our postie on Saturday morning and take delivery of the membership pack for this season. What is this? The member's pack arriving before the season has even begun? How revolutionary! Clearly, this Mr Gazidis character is having an effect within the Marble Halls. Or in that those green portakabin looking things that now house our administration staff.. you know what I mean. Happy as I am to have received the pack, I think the items within it lack the sheer excitement of the "Up For Grabs Now!" bottle opener, though the washbag may well come in handy. In many ways, it already has. 

Eight minutes this morning on the Football 365 transfer blog appear to have ended hopes that Patrick Vieira would come home, with Sky reporting he'd decided to stay in Italy and then we have the ongoing, or should it be "nongoing" saga of Marouane Chamakh. Bordeaux's President has said that we would have to pay £4m and give them Emmanuel Eboue or Mikael Silvestre otherwise, we can forget about it. At least, I think that's what he said. Twenty years after dropping it as a school sufferance, or nearly twenty years, my French isn't so hot anymore.

Either way, there is nothing to report on the incoming players front.

Manuel Almunia has been talking to the Guardian about the suffering endured by Arsène Wenger since 2005. A period of time I suggest, with my tongue in my cheek, that coincides with Almunia's rise to the number one position. In his defence of the boss' way of doing things, he could easily be talking about his Arsenal development. Granted, he wasn't exactly a young whippersnapper on his arrival, but as he says himself, he arrived as a "shy" guy into a dressing room filled with the "Invincibles". And he suffered for a couple of years, until finally, Jens Lehmann made one mistake too many on the pitch before going one step too far off it with his comments about the boss' management style. Lo and behold, Manuel Almunia became the Arsenal number one.

He knows that patience is running out, with fans getting impatient for a street party and so he talks about the attitude being "fantastic" in training, which maybe speaks to the break up of the African connection and acknowledges that the players need to be more aggressive on the pitch. Perhaps, when the talking stops and the action begins on Saturday, we will see the evidence of this at Goodison Park. I certainly hope we do. 

The fall out from the shareholders meeting won't go away. I decided not to write a lunch time blog today as I felt I couldn't really add to what I've already said. On the way back from work, via the gym however, it ocurred to me that as I've been been pretty quick to criticise the manager when I feel he's got it wrong, I should also make it very clear that I still think, without a shadow of a doubt, that he is the man for the job.

Peter Hill-Wood, Arsenal Chairman, clearly thinks so too. It's certainly true that there is a section of support growing unhappy at the perceived lack of progress over the last 4 years, and I think that these people have made some valid points. In fact, there's one guy at work, I won't use his real name so let's call him Mohamed Abdi, who is certain it's time for Wenger to move over. But who can he suggest to replace the manager? He hasn't come up with an alternative. All he can say is that this team is nowhere near that famous team of 2004 (did you see the season review on Arsenal TV last night "Nobody can doubt Ashley Cole's commitment to the Arsenal cause..."). But how many teams will we see close to that in all the years we will have of watching football, nevermind the amount of Arsenal teams that will fail to come up to that impossibly high watermark?

The Daily Mail talk of there being only £13m to spend in the summer, which apparently includes funds for the rengotiation of another contract for club captain Cesc (another renewal? That's 3 in 4 years!) and for RvP has not been confirmed. But if it is true, it does give some insight into the lack of reinforcing in key areas. Like central midfield, like centre back. You know, you can question the need to sign another young central midfielder for five million quid last summer, but if there was nobody available who Arsène thought might make a difference to our midfield available for that money, then signing someone who might make a difference, a big difference in a year or two is understandable. For what it's worth, I think perhaps the expectations placed on Denilson were unrealistic given his skill set and perhaps it was a year too early for Alex Song (remember my first blog here tipped Song to be Cesc's partner). We won't go into the enigma that is Diaby...

As it stands, I don't honestly feel that the boss is that far away. We were ludicrously (to pick up a theme from an Online Gooner article this week) unlucky with injuries and anyone with 3 brain cells in their head can see that having whole areas of teams decimated by injuries throughout the season is going to have a detrimental effect. We are not Chelsea and we are not Manchester United. We will never be able to have a bench full of twenty million quid players and that's fact. Like it or not. And in those circumstances, the manager continues to work bloody miracles. We Should be thankful he's here and not some club he could easily have ended up at just a few miles up the Seven Sisters Road.. 

But it doesn't stop players like Kolo Toure dreaming of that winning feeling again, we could be contenders next season. But hounding the manager isn't the way to go about it.

When I said yesterday, "Conventional wisdom suggests that Arshavin will play and a team of some description will be cobbled together around him", I'm not quite sure that I was expecting this:

Fabianski, Sagna, Song Billong, Djourou, Eboue, Walcott, Denilson, Ramsey, Arshavin, Bendtner, Vela. Subs: Mannone, Bischoff, Coquelin, Emmanuel-Thomas, Merida, Randall, Frimpong.

But there again, we have lost the services of Eduardo and Silvestre. Perhaps, bearing in mind this injury cursed season, it does make sense to completely rest Gibbs, Toure, Diaby, Nasri and Adebayor. But then I would question the wisdom of involving Diaby at all on Tuesday. Shabby? Well, he might get a goal, deciding to turn up Tuesday night would be a good start. Anyway, I've long championed Carlos Vela, so I can't complain when he gets thrown in. From quarantine to Arsenal first team in less than a week. Wow. It's also a chance, in central midfield, for Aaron Ramsey and Denilson to stake some kind of claim towards further involvement with the first team. After impressing in central midfield recently, it'll be interesting to see how Alex Song gets on at the back.

The real story today though, is the news that came yesterday afternoon. Through his company KSE Uk Inc., Stan Kroenke has purchased 4,839 shares from Richard Carr, giving him a total of 17,613 ordinary shares. In other words, Stan Kroenke now owns 28.3% of Arsenal Football Club. Essentially, as Kevin Whitcher says, Stan is now the Man. And Alisher Usmanov will now, hopefully, fade into the background. The modernisation of Arsenal Football Club continues..

Elswhere, the most amazing transformation of a footballer I think we've seen in the manager's time (Ray Parlour or Thierry Henry, maybe?) here continues as Manuel Almunia is lauded as the cream of the Premier League crop by the boss. Who also says that Eduardo is the unluckiest player he's ever come across. I can definitely agree with the second statement, though Tom Rosicky is probably sitting on a treatment table in Hertfordshire thinking "What about meeeeeeeeee?". The first statement? I don't know about that, though what competition does Al have now? What I can say is that he has improved immeasurably this season and Jens Lehmann's barbs from the beginning of last season- when has Almunia ever won a match?- are now, very definitely, outdated. Almunia will certainly be getting my vote for most improved player in the annual Gooner survey this summer.

Oh, the Doves were magnificent, by the way. I  know you're dying to ask...

Bet you all thought I'd jumped under a train, didn't you? Gremlins. Again. 

I'm not going to go on about it, because nearly 48 hours later, I think it's all been said elsewhere, but I want to begin here by picking up a couple of themes from Wednesday's blog.

The first point is that Wednesday's display, where- as Manuel Almunia (one of the few to emerge with any credit) says- the boys looked "lost", was most definitely not one of the reasons we love football. I've been joking with friends and colleagues that Manchester United were lucky on Wednesday night.... lucky that only 4 of our players bothered to show up.

Next, I'd like to talk about Emmanuel Adebayor. He played as if it was him who had been quarantined. I can accept an argument that he was isolated against the best two centre backs in the country. But that doesn't excuse his continued lethargy. On the back of one Thierry Henry season, he got Thierry Henry wages and we get another Thierry Henry season. Only The Thierry Henry of 2007, not the Henry that worked his bollocks off to earn those wages. I'd wondered to Gabs on Sunday whether he was saving himself for Wednesday. I can only wonder now if he was saving himself for Portsmouth. One thing I am not wondering about is that he will surely be deemed surplus to requirements in the summer, however I do wonder who will buy him and how much they'll be willing to spend.

Abou Diaby was another one who might as well have stayed in the dressing room. How he avoided being "hooked" will surely remain between him and the manager because his display was pitiful. Looking at it in a more positive light, I guess the poverty of his display can only have accentuated the fact that another Wenger gem is rolling off the Shenley production line. The man Diaby was supposed to have been supporting, Keiran Gibbs, was perhaps our best player on the night and after the season Gael Clichy has had, his first real dip across his six years here, the frenchman should be in no doubt that if his standards were to slip further, he can be replaced.

Kolo Toure and Alex Song were Keiran's only real rivals for player of the night, from our point of view anyway. But it is only down to the heroics of Manuel Almunia- and what a difference a year makes- that this tie is still alive. We can only hope that, as with the second round match, we are as good at home as we were poor away.

Cesc Fabregas hasn't given up. Though, as club captain he's hardly likely to come out and say "Well, that's it then lads, we're fucked" or words to that effect. He does make a good point, I do think it will be completely different at the Grove and I like to think that he did a "McLintock" on the players after the game. But it's difficult to see how United will not score, which of course would leave us needing three. Our chances of getting those three goals surely diminished by the likelihood that both Eduardo and Robin van Persie will not be fit to begin the match, if not play any part in it at all.

I think, we'd be best served by thinking a little differently here. The first objective here, nearly 20 years after Anfield '89, is not to concede a goal. Conceding a goal would not be a catastrophe, it'd merely be a disaster. We have ninety minutes to score a goal and so we don't need to go out all guns blazing for the first twenty minutes. Let's summon up that Anfield 89 spirit, keep it tight at the back and concentrate on winning the game in the second half. At least, that's how I'd approach it.

Of course, we have a game before that, at Portsmouth tomorrow. Conventional wisdom suggests that Arshavin will play and a team of some description will be cobbled together around him. I'd like to see us play some part of the game without him. Not because he isn't great. Clearly, he is, but he has become so influential that we look half a team without him (aka the Dennis Bergkamp european effect). We don't have him on Tuesday night, so let's figure out how we can play our best without him. For me, that means Cesc back to central midfield. If anyone should play in the hole, it should be Nasri, Walcott wide left and maybe, just this once, I would advocate Eboue in on the right in front of Sagna. Or do I like Bendtner up top (we beat them in November with him there, remember?) with shAbby, Eboue right, Nasri left and Theo to come on and wreak havoc in the last half an hour? Decisions, decisions. Luckily they're not mine to get right.

My bank holiday begins at the Brixton Academy to see the majestic Doves tonight, what are you up to?

Middlesbrough.

 A bit of a problem for the Arsenal since we moved to Ashburton Grove. In fact, I don't think we've beaten them since that move. The last time we beat them, however, was something special. A 7-0 victory on the back of Thierry Henry's pledge to stay with us. Coincidentally, this was the last time I got last minute tickets for a league match, so perhaps my last minute attendance of the game to come is an omen.

Or perhaps it's just a coincidence.

It amazes me that a team as average as Middlesbrough are and, to be fair, have pretty much always been have managed to avoid defeat against Arsenal since that heady January afternoon. Especially when you consider that their manager in this time has been Gareth Southgate. How can he keep getting results against our great manager? Well, last year, at the Grove he benefitted from a bit of luck at key times; Adebayor's disallowed goal early on, a non existent foul leading to a free kick smashed up field for an offside Aliadiere to equal in one match his Premier League total for Arsenal across seven years- he has now scored more league goals against us than he did for us. I remember how deflating, dispiriting that 1-1 draw was, coming in the middle of our own England cricket team style collapse from the top of the pile to third.

Not a feeling I wish to revisit any time soon. With that in mind, it's good news today as we can expect to welcome Almunia and Djourou back to the first team. It's likely too, that Emmanuel Adebayor will feature at some stage. I find it very difficult to imagine that, if fit, Djourou and Almunia will not return to the side and that they will not improve things. It ocurred to me earlier today that the common denominator in our two 4-4 draws is Mikael Silvestre. The most experienced defender we have at the club, I don't see (as I said to Baxi last night) that Senderos would have been any worse than him this season. Or Cygan...

One man who won't be playing is Robin van Persie, who will also miss, as he missed our home win against them, the Manchester United first leg. I'm not sure, particularly if Arsène is to persist with his 4-2-3-1 formation, that that is such bad news seeing as the position that would best suit him- on the right of the attacking 3- is currently being filled, with some electricity, by Theo Walcott. Not that Robin ever gets to play there for us, he always seems a fish out of water out on the left. It surprises me that a manager as astute as Arsène doesn't see it.

One of his former proteges has been talking. Nic Anelka reckons Chelsea are a mega club like Real Madrid. Well, aside from the fact that Madrid are currently 9-0 up on European Cups, I can see that the point he's making is more about the pressure applied by the owner, or el Señor Presidente of the respective clubs. To say, though, that we only play for third or fourth? Well, I guess some Arsenal fans might agree with him. But I don't think- I'm typing this and I have to say that, on reflection, he could well be right. Not about Chelsea being a mega club, but Arsenal's priority being Champions League qualification rather than being Champions.

Perhaps the reality is that, faced with the financial might of Chelsea and Manchester United and the weight of stadium repayments, the manager and board elected to try and keep the club competitive without buying the farm until the day we could seriously mount a challenge again. I don't know. It's difficult to believe that a club that has won more silverware than anyone other than Manchester United since Wenger's arrival would actively settle for finishing outside the top two. In fact, Ivan Gazidis contradicted that point of view recently. I think thge difference is our board realise that the manager has always put in quality work for them and that the grass is not always greener. Certainly, the Real Madrid model is not a model I would like this club to aspire to. Though 9 European Cups would be nice.

What do you guys think?

It was funny to see Arsène Wenger talking about the state of the Wembley pitch last night on the local news. Basically he dismissed the stadium as no good because the pitch wasn't up to scratch. Sour grapes, you might think (and I haven't mentioned this before for that reason) but then you take into account the views of Alex Ferguson and David Moyes, whose team won the other semi final. And then you think about the fact that when Arsenal opened Ashburton Grove, they managed to do so providing a pitch that you could, you know, have a game of football on. You wonder why the powers that be at Wembley didn't take advice from a club that has routinely, in the Wenger years at least, provided what is normally described as a "bowling green". But then, I suppose, we are talking about the Football Association and they know best. Oh yes.

Ahead of tonight's game at Anfield, the manager has also been talking about that special, Michael Thomas, moment and how he missed it. It's surprising in a way that a man now so steeped in Arsenal tradition and history hasn't seen the game but he can always borrow my dvd of it if he likes. I think he'd be surprised by the ferocity of the tackling in that match. From memory, certainly David Rocastle and perhaps a couple of others may well have seen red in today's game with such aggressive tackling.He makes a point not lost on anyone that I ever discuss this game with, that goal, snatching the ultimate victory, essentially ended Liverpool's time as the dominant force in England. A point I was keen to make to my sister's partner a couple of weeks ago. He wouldn't have it, but he's an idiot.  I'm joking. Funny to note, too, that the french felt that their football was better than ours 20 years ago. I thought such an insular superiority complex was particular only to us here in England.

I was wondering about Eduardo yesterday. Football365 seem to think that he will make his first Premier League start since that awful day in Birmingham 14 months ago. We may also have Bac Sagna back, whilst Song, Arshavin and Nasri could all be reinstated to the side. So the line up looks reasonably strong, even if, as is currently being debated on Arsenal Mania, Mikael Silvestre seems an accident waiting to happen. I read, on the way to PJ Harvey and John Parish's stunning gig at the Shepherds Bush Empire last night, that Manuel Almunia expects to be fit for Saturday. Boss Wenger disagrees and doesn't, in fact, see him being back for at least another fortnight. So Lukasz Fabianski has time to rebuild a reputation teetering on the brink. Let's hope he starts building that tonight.

Whatever has happened between Liverpool and Arsenal over the last twenty years, one thing has always, always remained the same, Arsenal will need to be strong. Particularly early on as Liverppol will surely come flying out of the traps. They won't be able to do that, however, if Arsenal keep the ball and use it well. It's a night for strong men and if we are as strong, mentally, as the boss says we are then we should be able to put the disappointment of Saturday behind us and put one hell of a dent in Liverpool's title dream.