Today's announcement that we have made a record profit of over £35M will inevitably lead to calls for the Board to release the cash to Arsene, who must spend it all in January to stave off the wolves baying at the Top 4 places. However, no matter how much he spends (or probably doesn't until transfer fees become relatively sane again) our major investigation and investment should be focused on assessing the ability of our players to get injured. Today we learn that Denilson will be out for 2 months (fractured back)and though no person could have anticipated the car crash (waiting to happen) for Nicklas Bendtner we need an emergency paramedic team available at immediate notice to save our players! With ER finishing on TV then maybe we could adopt a local hospital and transform part of it to an Emergency Hospital for us with the community using it on days one of our players doesn't get injured. On second thoughts that wouldn't be much use to the community would it as we have an ability to get our players injured on most days and in ever more bizarre circumstances. When Rosicky is your current fittest player we need to be worried....okay I'm going OTT now.

Do we, as Arsenal fans, suffer any more than other clubs from injuries or do have we been cursed by Darren Anderton? Maybe it's the manager's trend of buying small,nippy and technical players rather than big, physical and athletic ones (remember those days). I'm not a doctor or a physiotherapist but I would like to see someone with the right knowledge analyse our problems.

I think that I've mentioned that the French Sports Daily, L'Equipe, has (like many sites) its own transfer rumour section but I discovered today that it has a handy little filter. This enables you to just look at any stories concerning Arsenal (or any other club it seems across Europe). Now it doesn't mean that any of the stories contain any more truth than anywhere else but it makes it all a little easier and you waste a lot less of your day reading rubbish (though you will still have wasted a part of your day reading any transfer rumours on the net!)

As a result I now know that one of our players that I've never heard of is staying on loan in Spain for another year and that cannot be a bad thing. There's the Bendtner to Milan story and the repeating of another Central Midfield rumour, this time it being Lorik Cana (who he? - apparently an Albanian at OM)as he's possibly being replaced at OM.

I've just watched a little bit of our first two pre-season friendlies and the most obvious thing that stood out from them was that there were a lot of players out on the pitch who have been sort of forgotten (or wished that we had forgotten in some cases) as the search for those new signings goes on. There are, I think, four distinct groups of forgotten players: The Young Ones who struggled to make it last year - e.g. Ramsey & Wiltshire, maybe even Bendtner to some extent The Old Ones who we thought had left or would leave - Senderos, Gallas The Ones many had hoped would have left - Eboue, Silvestre The Ones we thought had died - Thomas Rosicky Is it beyond the realms of possibility that we may get one or two of these to either step up and show true class this year or, at least, provide a depth to the squad that seemed light last year? Maybe they'll just be a sideshow and we will make one or two more signings but I do have doubts about that both from a financial stand point and Arsene's general reluctance. Who knows eh?

Nope I'm not talking about the Portsmouth game today, I'm still waiting to see MOTD to comment on that one and I'm glad to hear about Bendtner getting a couple of goals. For all his faults he still puts in way more effort than Adebayor and goals will hep his confidence for sure.

The game I want to talk about is, of course, El Clasico which was stunning and even more watchable as I get the Spanish commentary. I did think at one poin that the commentator was going to explode such was the speed and intensity of his voice! I know we have to, as football fans, recognise that there is more than one way to play the beautiful game BUT it will be an injustice of all injustices if this Barcelona team don't win on Wednesday night. Chelsea played a tactical game and it worked but forget this "great performance" bullshit, it's a darn sight easier to play a negative game, even against a side such as Barca. Let's just hope that tonight can repeat itslef on Wednesday night (please not Tuesday night as it will bring back horrible memories of Lee Sharpe - I vaguely remember the feeling that we were back in it at 2-3!!).

One other thing from the game tonight - how the f##k does Diarra get to where a shirt with LASS on his back. His sense of his own importance seems to get bigger every day!

So sorry for two blogless days but the lure of 3-4 feet of powder plus glorious sunny conditions (on the Sunday at least) proved a wonderful way to spend two days. Even with the option and opportunity to check scores, read websites etc, I couldn't really be arsed. I think I could have even watched the Watford/Chelsea game on DSF but nope didn't want too. There was a little TV sport whilst relaxing after a day's skiing but that was skiing highlights and six nations rugby courtesy of French TV.

What have I learnt from this football free weekend? Well, I think the fact it was a fairly dire looking set of FA Cup fixtures plus the fact we weren't playing until this evening  combined to make it a relatively painless way to miss the sport. However, if you can actually do something you love doing (such as skiing) then it's a lot easier to not miss watching something else you love.

Meanwhile the game tonight presents a tougher challenge than many fans may be willing to admit. Cardiff, I think, are unbeaten for sometime and will have the backing of 9,000 fans (depending on how many of their less desirable element have been arrested during the day in London) and have nothing to lose. We will, of course, have Niklas "I should play every week" Bendtner looking to score all those goals that might actually have us fans thinking he should be in the team! We may even get to see Eduardo as well. Anyway I won't be seeing it live as DSF aren't showing this game and I'm too tired to go into town to watch it, so it could be the dreaded BBC on-line version.

Oh and some other interesting news from those lovely chaps at Chelsea, firstly smug faced Kenyon tries to laugh off a £67m loss and now we see that Abramovich lost £6.3bn (though he won't quite be signing on yet), what a shame...

....and that's not necessarily a bad thing even if the press will probably try and make something huge out of it. However, I don't think many of us are going to lose too much sleep over it and it sure beats seeing those from up the road gloating over a victory. However, I haven't really seen the game so cannot say too much about the actual performance other that  I hear that Bendtner needs to work on both his finishing and attitude.

What has been lost in all of this is that last night was the first time, under Arsene Wenger, that we've been beaten by a lower league side in any cup competition. Compare that record (and with us playing a mixture of reserves/youths in many games) to that of most Premier League sides and it's fairly impressive. Burnley wasn't the worst place to lose in that they play decent football and their manager, Owen Coyle, said some good things about us last year. 

Anyway, the main thing is to attempt to forecast which team, whoever is playing, will actually turn up on Saturday against Wigan. I don't think that, at the moment, I have a clue what will happen and I guees we're all pretty much of that mind.

..or something along those lines.

I think many Arsenal fans struggled to get through last night's game, it was an odd one indeed. From the continuing coverage on Arsenal's very own "The Truman Show" that is "The Billy Show" to the 59,500 (cough, cough) pairs of eyes watching the new captain take to the stage plus the various side shows - it was an "interesting" evening.

In essence we struggled, unsurprisingly, to play with any fluency or pace and it looked, from the first 5 minutes, that this was always go to be a long evening. During the 90 minutes there were little flashes of potential equally mixed with minor scares but sometimes it seemed that it was like watching an Arsenal game on a dodgy internet stream. Our passages of play never quite got into focus and the players seemed, somehow, to be out of sync with each other on numerous occasions. 

However, for all our flaws in our play last night there was (just) enough effort and concentration to make up for the lack of confidence and experience. That and, for once this season, a little bit of lady luck saw us go through after one real alarm (yet more thanks to Almunia) when Cesc made the most of a (rightly) uncontested drop ball (It WASN'T a free kick Mr. Pleat!!!) to put our own Puss in Pink Boots through to score with a superb finish.

So, as the boss remarked afterwards, we got through and we can hope the recovery has started though with our injuries and a game at Stamford Bridge this weekend we need to hold on to some of any luck going. The Champions League can be left out of our minds until February and we ask our new guy from the Soccer League to sort out one or two additions in January. BUT....

You know what I will take from last night's game, not the sight of Cesc in charge or Willie Gallas's face after he nearly let them into score but the 10 minutes or so of Jack Wilshere. 16 years old and as composed a European début since a young Spaniard probably! He looks too young to be on the pitch with the big boys but that his very appearance is what makes Arsene who he is and what he stands for. Whilst the world of football tries to eat itself with money grabbing agents and even more greedy players there still is an innocence of a young kid wanting to just play. It may not last but the memory will still be there.

Yesterday I wrote that whatever happens I'm willing (even if others are not) to see Arsene's grand plan right through to the end. It means that on days like this we can rejoice in the glow of a joyous victory but we know that, at the moment, these young guns or, at least, their slightly older brothers will still lose games through complacency or inconsistency. Last night's game gave me even more hope because although Arsene has used the Carling Cup as a training exercise for his younger players for many years now this year has been exceptional. In the past we have seen much older players (like Gilberto or Jens) mixed with returning injured players (Rosicky is scheduled for the Carling Cup 2011) to help the kids. This year the most experienced players have been Djourou & Bendtner who though they have International as well as league experience are both very young.

Does this mean, as suggested in the Guardian MBM (minute by minute - see last paragraph) that these kids will go on and form the greatest Arsenal team of all time by winning championship after championship, of course not. However, you get the feeling that many of these players are special and can achieve more especially when mixed with a "first" team squad of limited age as well. I know I'm being overly optimistic in the light of a wonderful night but isn't that what being a football fan is about, hoping and dreaming for the best but maybe harbouring some doubts.

Arseblog pointed me in the direction of comments made by Ray Wilkins today and, I have to say, that I'm amazed that someone who though sometimes bland and boring could come out with such remarks.  Though he is a Chelsea boy, through and through, he was always generally smart enough to maintain an even balance on other teams yet once he returned to the "new" chelsea where the likes of Kenyon stalk it seems he had to go to the dark side. There seem to be couple of motives for the outburst and they have Kenyon's trademark thuggish boots all over them. One is the need to denigrate our youth system (though not acknowledging their cheque book system) in a week Kenyon said they will concentrate on young English talent and secondly, we play them at the end of the month - so get the first (or second) strike in early. I think even Chelsea fans who knew Wilkins as a player would have been embarrassed by these comments.

They are a bunch of toadying, lying, sly and obnoxiously evil c##ts and let's just hope that all the very good young players continue to realise where they should really go to get the best football education and, more importantly, chance to shine.

Sorry but it's very late here in Basel as I write my blog but I had  most of the morning without internet access as the DSL line was down here in Kaiseraugst. It recovered but not in time to allow me to write a normal blog.

Anyway here is the local info from Switzerland/France................

Firstly news from Jens Lehmann who has retired from the national team today. Itseemed a difficult decision but one that needed to be made.

It also seems that, according to the French press, we managed a 3-2 win in Amsterdam thanks to Adebayor and Bendtner allowing Arsenal to come back from 0-2 down.

Oh and yes I'm home late due to a friend's 40th Birthday - ENJOY!!!