Catching the early morning flight tomorrow from Zurich to get to Luton around 11.15 if all is well and there's no fog at Luton, which is quite common at this time of year. Actually the flight isn't that early but it's all change for Easyjet schedules from Switzerland and the next match (Manchester United) will mean a 7.05 flight from Basel to Gatwick! Though I can't really complain (but it won't stop me) as the average flight cost from here to the UK is around £60-70 return. I'm sure there are many people in the UK who end up paying more to travel.

Based on the Sheffield United experience (and their possible players legal action) perhaps we as Arsenal fans should be sueing bloody FIFA for ruining our weekend with half the team injured whilst away on World Cup qualification duty. We know we haven't the strongest depth of squad and so this won't help though Everton haven't exactly been playing that brilliantly so far this season, even if it can all change!

Anyway let's hope for no flight delays, good beer, weather and a decent performance - you never know it just might happen.

So it must be a midweek round of International games for World Cup qualifiers. There are three bars where you can catch any of the home nations' games. Last night McGuinnesses was fairly full as the five TV screens showed England V Belarus, Ireland v Cyprus, Germany v Wales and Greece v Switzerland - yes I know that's only four games but the Swiss game was shown on two of them.

The biggest shock of the evening must be the Swiss result as no one here in Switzerland was expecting it and the press have been savouring their 2-1 win, their Optimism has returned! Looking around the qualifying groups after 3/4 games it's odd how the english press are still moaning about their team despite four wins out of four. Perhaps they should have a chat with the Portuguese media about their team after a 0-0 draw with 10 man Albania!

Thankfully the THIRD international break of the season so far has nearly come to an end and we can chat about the more mundane issues such as Arsenal's defensive injury crisis and how Robin Van Persie can recover from his latest injury (the one he doesn't have yet but will get obviously tonight when he trips over the corner flag and breaks all 206 bones in his body).

For a Wednesday night game there is at least the opportunity to nip into town and have a beer with mates in one of the bars that won't be showing Switzerland's probable defeat to Greece. Hopefully McGuinnesses will be showing all the home nation games as just watching England will be a bit tedious.

Because of this break I've just realised that I'm back again in the UK to watch the forthcoming match against Everton on Saturday afternoon (yes, a 3 o'clock KO) and I haven't missed a home league match despite being in the centre of Europe. I'm just hoping that the current high pressure dissappears as this will lead to fog at Luton Airport and a delay on my Easyjet flight on Saturday morning. I've got a little bit of leeway but I can do without a reduction in the most important part of the day, the pre-match drink. I can't miss out on my London Pride at the Hemingford Arms.

It would be easy to ignore International weeks as an inconvenient blip in the search for glory of your own club side and generally I'm never that impressed with either the quality or excitement provided by International sides at this stage of the season. However, sitting down on a Saturday evening in Switzerland I had the opportunity to watch SIX games live through various channels and what did I learn....

Firstly the games I could watch were: 1) England v Kazahkstan 2) Switzerland v Latvia 3) Serbia v Lithuania 4) Germany v Russia 5) Roumania v France & 6) Bulgaria v Italy and what did I witness.

Well I learnt that:

1) A football fan will watch any game at any time as long as it is interesting and/or exciting which in the case of Roumania v France it certainly was. 2-0 down after 17 minutes France managed to get a draw.

2) Italian commentary is still the best to listen to even if you have no understanding of their language

3) As much as I hate Ashley Cole from an Arsenal perspective, booing a player whose team you've come to support (and after one mistake) is wrong, very wrong

4)How did Lithuania get to the top of their group considering they lost 3-0 tonight.

5)There haven't been many better long range goals than the French equaliser from Gourcuff this evening - watch it if you can...

Oh and one extra thing, Thierry Henry looks old now, don't know why but he just does..

I see that the mighty England managed a spectacular win against all that is Andorra and the rest of the UK teams played a variety of ex-Soviet Union states in those other so called important World Cup qualifiers. Look I love football and I do get excited every time there is a major international tournament coming up. However, qualifiers are dull and even the most ardent fans struggle to get too warmed up for them. We, therefore need a new system to sort this out.. OUCH!!!

Sorry about that I just got hit on the head by a fruit dropped by my resident holiday flat mate - a little bat. It must be much simpler being a bat in this world I think you'll agree.

Anyway back to the qualifiers and it seems that FIFA should be adopting that successful UEFA model entitled the Champions League. In this competition all the teams from countries with more money (i.e. Bigger TV audiences) get more teams to the back end of the tournament (group stages) whilst the others knock themselves out in 3 qualifying rounds. Henceforth there will be 32 teams at the World Cup with big European countries, South American and Asian countries too .. OUCH!!!

These bats eat a lot of fruit.

Meanwhile countries with no big TV money (i.e. poor African or South American or Scotland) have to fight it out to reach the final 32. It makes as much football sense as the current Champions League.

Please can we have some real football again soon.