Bendtner and Eboue, brought together by trials, tribulations, and redemption.

It would have been nothing short of a travesty had Arsenal not had the ablility to overturn a 2-1 lead against a Porto side whom we practically gifted thoses 2 goals in the first leg and whose English travels have by and large been hopeless. Still the manner of victory was one that will be remembered not for the paucity of Porto’s game, but for the virtuosity of Arsenal’s. Any team would have struggled to hold their own against Arsenal, such was the exemplary football they produced last night.

So where do we go from here? Was last night’s display a solitary event a one-off, or is it the culmination of a patient struggle to nurture a group of youngsters into a finely tuned footballing machine? The answer as always lies somewhere inbetween.

Wenger this unwavering faith in his judgement of talent, something which is used against him in certain situations. The fact is he is not clairvoyant, there will always be players that doesn’t make the grade. However he is in a much better position to judge the qualities of any player — and much better at it — than any of us.

Think of how many players on the pitch last night that we’ve thought at one point or another was not good enough for Arsenal, even Nasri was written off as a waste of money by many of us. Yet again we see that the footballing ability is clearly there, what the team need is the consistency to put it into action on a regular basis. And that comes with time.

Sometimes it easy to look over the fence and bemoan what is on our side. We look at Rooney and say why Walcott isn’t at his level, we look at Messi and say why we don’t have a player like that. When we do this we are forgetting that truly world class players don’t grow on trees, they are a rare breed and it’s luck, money, or time that allows you to possess these stars.

One of those with time on their side is Bendtner. Derided by many after his showing against Burnley, celebrated by just as many after last night. He’s one of those player that we think we have to make do with but we don’t really have faith in is abilities. At 22 Bendtner is better than many of those we regard today as “world class” when they were his age.

At 22 Drogba was playing at Le-Mans in Ligue 2, no where close to Champions league, premier league or National team, it wasn’t until the age of 24 that Drogba start showing signs of being the player he is today. Henry was considered a failure at Juventus before joining us and even then we were quick to judge him when he didn’t have a flying start.

Take a look at the big picture. Our current team is performing way ahead of their schedule, they are still growing physically and mentally. Even if we end up not winning anything, this season has been a very positive one. Let’s not be too quick to write off our boys after a bad performance, and at the token let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves after a good performance.

Achieving our goal of world domination will come in a series of baby steps, there will be setbacks along the way and we will get over those hurdles as we’ve already shown. When we do reach that goal it will be that much sweeter. I have no doubt that we will dominate the world of football in the very near future, just be patient.

Walcott performance for England was forgettable.

I personally didn’t expect Theo to set the world alight yesterday, and he did show his some poor touches in the game. Ultimately his performance must be taken in context, and by my count he’s played a total of 748 minutes this season in all competitions, that’s 8 games, his injuries this season has been so frequent that only once has he participated in more than 3 matches in a row. how much could you really expect from a 20 year old that hasn’t had much practice this year.

Theo’s talent has no come under scrutiny,  the same pundits and their sort that was eulogising Theo after his hat-trick against Croatia are now denigrating him. What’s even more ludicrous is the  claim that he’s not getting enough playing time at Arsenal, he’s been injured for fuck sake, and when he is fit he almost always get games. These people are ready to pounce on the slightest opportunity to further their own agendas, and any below par performance by Walcott will be used as the stick to beat him with.

I can assure you that if England fails at the world cup, as they will, then they will round on a selection of predetermined scapegoats, and Theo is the 1st on that list. That’s why I’d rather he stays at home, get some rest, and come back fully fit for us next season.

Take last night for example, everyone say SWP had a blistering performance but looking at things closely you’ll realise that SWP wasn’t any better than Theo.

Over a shorter SWP lost possession as many times as Theo did, what struck me is how little service Walcott got in the game.

Wright Phillips had 2 good dribbles which ended in a created chance, one resulted in a goal that was plainly offsides, Theo created 1 chance which was fluffed by the worst player on the night, whose name won’t be mentioned.

SWP’s goals was down to luck, not just one stroke of luck but two events that would not normally happen, yes I am bitter. A rebound that fell at his feet, and a shot that had no right to beat any self respecting goalkeeper.

All I’m saying is if these people think that SWP will give England a better chance of winning the World Cup, then I’d be happy for Theo to stay home.

We’ve been lucky with injuries this international break, everyone seems to have come back free of injury. Eduardo and Arshavin played for their country which means that Arsene will, for the first time in months have to make a selection decision, instead of injuries dictating the teamsheets.

Burnley visits us this weekend in what most people see as an automatic 3 points for Arsenal, I must say tha teams at the bottom fighting for survival, like Burnley, does not make it easy for anyone. That’s why we will beat them 3-0, let’s win it for Aaron.

The general feeling on Ramsey in the media is that he is young and will be back, how the hell to they know that? We all wish Ramsey well, but there is the possibility that he’s career is over. So to say he’s young and he’ll be back is irresponsible.

Just as irresponsible as ignoring the culture of “getting stuck in” against Arsenal because “they don’t like it”. Yesterday I posted this in twitter “Should motorists who cause accidents due to careless or dangerous driving be let off because they didn’t mean it?”. If you go around driving carelessly one day you will have an accident, even if “you didn’t mean it”.

They just don’t get it. The point is this, if you repeatedly go into tackles with excessive force in a bid to intimidate your opponent, sooner or later something like this will happen. And for those of you who say he not “that type of player” maybe we should ask Fancis Jeffers who had his ankle seriously injured by Shawcross, or Adebayor who was hacked from behind outside the field of play by Shawcross, or Fabregas who had his leg raked by a stud up challenge from Shawcross… no he’s not “that type of player”

Some people even have the gall to say that a card was not deserved, I tell you if I could afford it I’d smash my TV on numerous occasions. Some of the TV and Radio pundits really do my head in. It’s as if the deliberately make these statements to wind people up —they wouldn’t, would they? The laws of football says that it is a red card for excessive force something that most pundits either don’t know or conveniently forget in their zeal to extol the virtues of English grit and determination.

This whole episode had made me realise that no amount of complaints from the Arsenal side of the fence will change anything, a culture of using the application brute force to counteract skill and technique cannot be so easily forsaken. Maybe the result yesterday may go some way to expunge the notion that we can’t handle ourselves, for as far as I saw we dealt pretty well with what Stoke had to offer and we were able to impose ourselves having Stoke to chase shadows.

The huddle at the end of the game probably meant more than a team huddle has ever meant before, this was an expression of defiance, a show of belief. Wenger has been ridiculed for his conviction in the mental strength of his team, yesterday showed if anything else that this is not the team that crumbled under the same circumstances 2 years ago.

If ever we needed an “us against the world” mentality this is it. What I saw yesterday was a team ready to go the distance, able to put tragedy and disappointment behind them and keep their eyes on the goal, no Arsenal fan would be surprised if we did go on to lift the trophy this season.

let’s win the league for Aaron

Porto takes advantage of naive Arsenal... again.

As has been the case all to often this season, the goals we let in is not down to poor defending as a team but silly individual errors, simple things that show naivety, poor concentration and lack of experience. Too often we go from dominating the game looking the most likely to score, to falling behind because of a stupid mistake.

We had our chances to score, Diaby on a few occasions failed to pull the trigger, their goalkeeper made some outstanding saves, and we were denied a clear penalty. When the Porto got that second goal, the wind was knocked out of us, heads dropped and you could sense it was over. Suddenly we couldn’t string together 2 passes, we were always beaten to the ball, the life seemed to have been sucked out of everyone in the team.

So what are the positives we take out of that game? An away goal to start with, although with our record this season i don’t think we can hold out for a clean sheet, however I’m positive that we can beat this Porto team by more that 1 goal at the Emirates. Hopefully, I say hopefully because our injury record is second to none, we will have some regular starters back in the squad.

It is worth remembering that we went into that game missing 5 first choice players. Now I know injuries is not an excuse, but if it’s good enough for Barca, then it’s good enough for Arsenal. All I’ve heard since Barca lost on the weekend is how they we missing players due to injury which goes to show that no team, however good they are can survive an extended list of long-term injuries as we’ve had.

As things stand we are still in a good position to move forward in the competition, a win would make life much easier, but then an away win in this stage of the champions league is never easy, just look at the result Real Madrid got at Lyon even after spending upwards of £200m on big name players they still succumbed to a Lyon and that was with all of that expensive talent on the pitch. So I’d keep things in perspective.

What is important is that we rebound from this defeat and win our next game, which thankfully is a home game. Sunderland is the only bottom half team to beat us this season, the boys should put last night’s loss behind them and go all out to regain their mojo with a spanking win on the weekend.

Keep the faith.

Wenger cannot be happy with the defensive lapses that can't seem to be arrested.

My feeling on the Chelsea game is far from that of despair, yes I am disappointed that we lost, and as everyone points out the total lack of defensive nous and concentration is really frigging annoying.
Unlike the previous game we were not outmanoeuvred as everyone would like you to believe.

For all the criticism of Arsenal and Wenger’s post match comments, is he really wrong to suggest that the first goal was the game changer?
How different would it be if Clichy didn’t have a senior moment and went wandering off to the near post instead of manning his position exactly where the goal went in.

What the hell was he thinking? This is not a coaching or management problem, this wasn’t even lack of concentration. he clearly saw the danger as he was pointing to the unmarked man so why Clichy I asked did you go on a walkabout? What has happen to the Clichy of 2 years ago?

Anyway my point is that this first goal so early in the game, changed the entire nuance of the match. Now we had to go all out in search of a goal, which is not what you want to do in that type of game against that kind of opposition.

To compound matters, Chelsea’s second just 15 minutes later was a case of deja deja vu. This time the blame wasn’t squarely that of Clichy as I read everywhere. Thomas Vermaelen was in a very good position to cover Drogba, what does he to? Leaves Drogba in oodles of space and motion Clichy to move over to cover the Ivorian. Does he not trust Clichy to cover the centre?

Wenger rightly pointed out that the problem is not in a striker but in the defences lapses. When the game is level the game is even both teams have to try to score will preventing the other from scoring —except for those whose entire plan is to prevent the opposition scoring and hope for a draw— the team that scores first will always have the advantage because the onus is on the other team to score. A two goal lead means that you can pretty much park the bus which is what Chelsea did, if they don’t score then the game is much more open and maybe then we wouldn’t be talking about being a striker short.

Oh how different it would be if only Arshavin had scored that goal, we’d probably be talking about how good we are and about winning the title, instead we’re calling for Wenger’s head. The margins are that small, and the difference between the top teams comes down to little errors that get punished, unfortunately we have been on the wrong side of this fine line much more than we would like.

There are 13 games left to go in the season, the best we can do is put our full support behind the team, the best they can do is put their full effort into the games. We could get lucky, other teams  could drop points, this is sport and in sport anything can happen…

Manuel opens the floodgates to a traumatic evening of football

So we lost another game against top class opponents and yes there are many reasons to hang our heads in collective shame, however this is sport and it isn’t over until the final whistle goes. We’ve taken a battering but the title is still within reach, and Chelsea’s draw with hull serves to remind us of that.

As it stands we are 6 points behind Chelsea a win on Sunday will still leave us 3 points behind Chelsea and probably 4 behind United who plays at home against Portsmouth. It is a big ask for Arsenal to win at Stamford Bridge but that’s the beauty of sport, that’s why we love the game, nothing is set in stone.

We can also take solace in the fact that Chelsea and United have to still to play each other and having lost against teams like Burnley Wigan etc who is to say that they won’t drop points elsewhere before the end of the season. The possibilities are endless and I still believe that we can do it.

There’s the return to fitness Bendtner who is never shy to talk up his prospects. The big Dane has put himself in the frame to take on the mantle left vacant by Robin van Persie, whether or not he us up to the task remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, with Chelsea letting in 60% goals from set pieces I’d be more than happy to have Bendtner in the box.

I’d hope that at least one of Ramsey or Diaby is fit for the Chelsea encounter because the thought of Denilson —who I’ve vigourously defended on many occassions— pitching up against the Chelsea midfield doesn’t fill me with confidence. Now if we could sort out the goalkeeping situation…

My predicted teal line-up for tonights game.

For the foreseeable future I won’t be able to post abundantly, but I promise to post regularly on Wednesdays and at least once on the weekends.

When the Premier League fixtures came out last summer we were all flabbergasted at the insane run of fixture the computer fixed for Arsenal starting today with Aston Villa and ending on the 10th of February with Liverpool with Chelsea and Manchester United in between.

Many see this as a make or break run of games, I’m not sure it is. I acknowledge that these games are going to be tough, but it’s no different from any of the other 34 games this season. The goal is to perform well in every game and if we do then chances are we will win.

The only game out of those four that I am concerned about is Chelsea, because frankly they are the only team that are better than us.

Aston Villa we’ve comfortably beaten already and although the game is at Villa Park, it’s not exactly a fortress over there. They tend to be negative and hit the opponents on the break, which can be a double edged sword against us.

That same technique was applied at our last meeting in The Emirates Stadium and our defence comfortably handled their counter-attacking threat. I would have been worried if Traore was still our leftback but with our regular back four well rested I am confident that we will be victorious.

In other matter, it’s nice to see a footballer being sincere and honest about his career. Philippe Senderos has always been hailed as a deep thinking level headed person, and that really showed in his appraisal of his time at Arsenal saying.

“They gave me a fair chance. But at big clubs you have a lot of players and two or three games a week and, if they come in and do well, they will take your place. That’s what happened to me. I don’t think I’ve been unfairly treated apart from the last few months but even then the players in the team were doing well and staying in.”

“I am not bitter at leaving. Arsenal are a big club who gave me a lot and I owe a lot to them. They took me from Switzerland when I was 18 and I got to play in a Champions League final and to win the FA Cup. I am proud to say I was an Arsenal player but I couldn’t go on not playing every week. I needed to move. I didn’t just move to Everton for opportunities, I’ve moved to Everton because it’s a massive club and I can see myself growing as a player and as a man here.”

What a refreshing change from the usual bitterness espoused by most when moved on. It is fair to say that any Arsenal fan reading this can only wish Philippe well and hope that he achieves all his professional aspirations.

One more thing before I sign off. Did anyone really think that Arsène was ever interested in signing a striker? When Arsène says he is looking for the “right” player, you must recognise that he means the right player at the right price.

Who has been available in the transfer window that could fit our needs at the right price?

The oft repeated answer is that, football is a squad game and we don’t have the squad to win. That’s the refrain we constantly hear from those who know better, sadly, as with any mantra repeated enough it becomes a truth, an absolutely irrefutable belief.

Don’t believe the hype.

Anyone who takes a cursory look at the Arsenal should immediately see the gaping holes in the strength in depth arguement. To keep things simple lets look at the squad members used in the premier league so far.

While it’s difficult to pinpoint a 1st eleven let’s look at how many games we’ve missed “important” players compared to other teams. For important players we will take 2 from each area ie. 2 strikes, midfielders, defenders. Where a team uses predominantly 1 striker the we will use 3 midfielders instead.

I’ve chosen for Arsenal, Van Persie, Arshavin, Fabregas, Denilson, Gallas, Vermaelen, and Almunia.
Chelsea includes Drogba, Anelka, Lampard, Essien, Terry, Carvalho, Cech.
ManU, Rooney, Valencia, Carrick, Fletcher, Vidic, Evra, van der Saar.
Man city, Tevez, Adebayor, Barry, Ireland, Toure, Lescott, Given.

So how many times had those 4 teams had to use players other that those “important” team members?

Chelsea – 19
City – 18
United – 32
Arsenal – 29

It’s obvious that united have their injury problems and that is highlighted constantly, the whole world knows, but you can see that we are not far behind.

Now I understand that the situation is much more fluid than described here for example missing all of your centre backs is much worse than missing 4 players in different areas of the pitch, but this is where squad depth comes into play. Just as ManU have had to rely on 3rd a 4th string players so have we, the difference is ours are better.

Take the strikers for instance although I chose not to include Bendtner as important, when he is fit he plays he is a starter whom we’ve missed for 10 games, so together with van Persie we played more than half the season so far without our 2 main strikers yet we’ve scored 51 goals what does that tell you?

The fact is the people that talk about lack of squad depth are too lazy or too scared to open their eyes and see what is really happening. Where would Chelsea be if they had to play 10 games without both Drogba and Anelka, or United without Rooney and Berbatov?

The difference between us and them is that our strength lies in the team ethic, and style that courses through the club from 1st team to academy. As a result the gap between the Arsenal 1st team and the reserves is the smaller than our rivals, and Arsene will have no problem throwing in Kyle Bartley at centre back if the first 4 was injured.

Strength in depth is just an argument used by pundits who find it hard to admit that Arsenal can win this league, and that won’t change until we’ve actually won. The only thing we can do about it is give Arsenal our full support, the more we are written off as contenders the better our chances of winning.

How high does your foot have to go for it to be deemed dangerous?

A goal in 1st half injury time for West Ham lifted the home side, and they came out full of verve and gumption. As the game wore on fatigue started to set in, and the introduction of Diaby and Nasri turned the game in our favour.

Before the match there was a lot of talk about Arsene Wenger devaluing the FA Cup by playing a Carling Cup team. This was an issue on the airwaves the day before, as if someone had a crystal ball and knew the team-sheet 24hrs in advance. Funny that it was old red nose who put out a reserve squad and got said nose firmly rubbed in it by Leeds. Vela, Wilshere and Merida we the main changes while Ramsey replaced Fàbregas

Wilshere and Merida not ready yet.

So Wilshere and Merida got a chance, but didn’t show that they are quite ready for the big stage. No doubt full of talent, yesterday they were thrown into a high tempo claustrophobic game and we couldn’t have expected them to be stars of the show. At this stage of their development the are extremely inconsistent and yesterday showed just that. On another day we’d probably be talking about a glorious future for those two.

Eduardo is slowly regaining his confidence

It may not be as fast as most of us would like, but his play over the last four games have been steadily improving. His goal resembled that he scored against England some time ago, outsmarted and out-jumped Upson as he did to Gerard to score a wonderfully headed goal. 3 goals in 4 games are figures that we’ve come to expect from the Croatian predator.

The $64,0000 question

—Yes that’s a dollar sign 64,000 pound question doesn’t have the same ring— what the hell are we going to do without Alex Song? Diaby has put himself forward for the job but we all know that his skill set is better exploited further up the field.

Denilson, the natural replacement, is due to have a fitness test on Tuesday. Even if he is fit for Bolton, the worry is that his back problem won’t go away any time soon. Nasri fancies himself in the role and ex-Marseille coach Albert Emon and France boss Raymond Domenech have both stated that they see the youngster as a deep lying midfielder. Although there’s a huge difference between “deep lying midfielder and defensive midfielder”.

Anyway that’s my thoughts for today got to run.

A 28 minutes cameo from Cesc Fabregas produces 2 goals to give Arsenal the win

Listening to pundits waffle away in the build up to the game, spouting rubbish about what we need. Some think we need a striker, others still go on about an English spine, generally the usual waffle but no real substance. Most think Villa will edge it, but we know better.

13:00 team news, Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Traore, Song Billong, Denilson, Nasri, Diaby, Eduardo, Arshavin.

Happy to see Traore get the nod over Silvestre, I was quite worried that the pace of vila would be too much for Silvestre. While his experience is good to have I’m sure Villa would have targeted him with some success.

Diaby looks in the mood, after lovely build up play Eduardo get the first clear cut opportunity in lots of space but only manges to hit it straight at Freidel. great start from Arsenal nonetheless, crisp passing played almost exclusively in the Villa half for the first 6 minutes.

Villa had a 10 minute spell when our defence looked shaky but we’ve recovered and are in control of the game but that opening goal seems elusive. The first half finishes 0–0 but Eduardo should have really given us the lead.

Let’s get that goal and win the second half.

Cesc warming up on the touchline, we can win this without him but it’s a great option to have.

Agbonlahor 1 on 1 vs Vermaelen and the Belgian comes out the winner, managing to keep up with the pace of Agbonlahor and having the determination to win the scrap for the ball. That on play sums up the mood of Arsenal— not willing to give anything away.

Great spell of pressure by Arsenal going close on an Eduardo freekick and on the ensuing corner Carlos Cuellar clears off the line to Keep Villa in it. We just need that finishing touch.

Fabregas comes in for Denilson and the intensity from Arsenal immediately increases, Cesc tries his luck from 40 yards, Eduardo goes close again forcing a brilliant save from Freidel. Come on guys put me out of my misery get the goal.

Theo Walcott comes in for Eduardo, that should keep Villa on their toes. Fabregas wins a freekick in a dangerous area, takes it himself scores a beautiful freekick. One of those where you could see it going in as soon as it leaves the boots. That’s 2 in 2 games, someone has been putting in the extra work on the training ground.

I’m enjoying this we are playing some really good football, just need to keep the ball, keep concentration, hit Villa on the break. Textbook football from Arsenal just we needed, Nasri Traore releases Walcott on the wing who feeds Cesc for our second. This is emotional I’m close to tears we all know how much this win means to our team.

I hope Cesc isn’t hurt to bad, what a cameo 28 minutes 2 very important goals. Get well soon Cesc.

The expected flurry from Villa comes, a third would seal the victory, but Villa is a determined bunch they won’t give up until the final whistle or another goal. Cynical play from Villa it’s to be expected 2 nil down, not much time left, and the fouls are coming in thick and fast.

Diaby who is having one of those games where you think this guy is really friggin good, Song will be missed during the ACN he has developed into a beast of a footballer, really holding our midfield together…

Suddenly the Villa midfield goes AWOL, Diaby just waltzes to the 18 yard box and places the ball low and hard to Friedel left 3–0 game over I shout at the top of my lungs with Gooners all over the world. Yes get in, 4 points off the top with a game in hand what a way to end the Christmas weekend.

P.S Very good game by the referee full marks for Phil Dowd

All teams suffer their fair share of injuries, so it’s up to the manager to manage those injuries through squad rotation and depth. Wenger has to take responsible for not having the squad to cope with those injuries— or does he?

The main problem today is the lack of goals/power from the forwards as a result of van Persie being out, resulting in 3 games without a goal since that injury. So Wenger should have bought a striker when he sold the guy to Man. City. That would have meant at 5 strikers, just like the best teams in the world. Remove the two regular strikers from those teams and compare our paucity to that of other clubs.

Manchester United

• Michael Owen
• Danny Wellbeck
• Federico Macheda

The other north london club

• Crouch
• Pavluchenko
• Dos Santos

Liverpool

• David N’Gog
• Andriy Voronin
• Nabil El Zhar

Chelsea

• Salomon Kalou
• Daniel Sturridge
• Fabio Boroni

Wow a scary collection of talent available to those teams, should they suffer a similar combination of injuries I wonder how much stick they will get for not having adequate backup. Any team in the league would have major problems without 6 of their first 11.

The argument may be that Arsene should know his players are “injury prone”, I don’t buy that. You cannot claim someone in injury prone when they get injured due to bad, late, or over enthusiastic challenges form the opposition. Van Persie didn’t pull a hamstring, or hurt his groin neither did Walcott, Eduardo, Nasri, Djourou or Gibbs.

The goals will come, Eduardo and Vela are good players just like it took van Persie 5 games to get in his groove Eduardo will regain his touch, a year out of the game and an intermittent run of games does not help with sharpness.

The bigger worry is at the back, on the Manchester City showing Silvestre showed just how important it is the Gallas and Vermaelen stay injury free, any of those two getting hurt will be an absolute catastrophe. I am certain that far from buying a new striker in the winter transfer window it is more likely that Arsene will be picking up a new centre back in January.

Drogba opens the scoring, claims he is lucky

The propensity for the mainstream media to resort to tried and true stereotypes is palpable and in their infinite wisdom it came down to men against boys, Chelsea’s physical prowess easily swatting aside Arsenal’s delicate beauty. That however is a disservice to both teams, Chelsea was tactically astute and executed their manager’s gameplan, Arsenal didn’t.

We we not sharp, strong, smart enough up front. Chelsea was relatively comfortable in handling our forwards, they were well organised and this was the one area where the physical difference showed us up.

We controlled the midfield completely, not only were we smarter in the middle but we were stronger. Converting that midfield prowess into attacking/scoring opportunities was a different story, once we got into the final third their organisation snuffed us out.

Ashley Cole has become a much better player, he hurt us. Sagna wasn’t up to his expected standard, it can be argued that he was up against it today against both Anelka and Ashley Cole. Neither Nasri nor Arshavin did much to help, until Walcott appeared in the second half and pinned back Ashley Cole, Chelsea had an awful lot of freedom on their left flank. That was Walcott only real contribution.

Good delivery in the box is always dangerous, a slight touch from anyone can result in a goal. Chelsea had that delivery courtesy A.Cole. What did we have? Well even the greatest delivery in the world wouldn’t have mattered, none of our forwards would have been able to get near any crosses.

Chelsea wasn’t 3 goals better than us, but that’s what happens when you take your chances. The first goal was always going to make the difference, and after Chelsea went up all they had to do was keep organised at the back something they are very adept at.

So what now? In reality the two points dropped against West Ham and the three against Sunderland is what makes the difference in the league. Games against the top four can always go in any direction and there’s no reason why we can’t win at Stamford Bridge. Unfortunately even if we go on an amazing winning run — which is entirely possible— we are now dependent on other teams dropping points.

Eduardo da Silva signed a new long-term contract with Arsenal

Cheating happens all the time in the game everyone claims not to condone it, but ultimately we do. Whether it’s claiming a throw-in when you know it’s off your body, or having a tug at the opponents on the ref’s blind side, or leaving your foot in for a split second longer, it’s all cheating and I doubt anyone can say they’ve never done it in any level of the game. It’s not right but it happens.

When you’re caught cheating you accept the punishment knowing that there are times that you have gotten away with it, I cannot understand the idea that some people claim that Henry should tell the referee that it was a handball. This is absurd, no one in their right mind would do such a thing especially with the stakes so high. In fact while feeling hard done by Thierry the Irish players admitted they would probably have done the same. A distraught Sean St Ledger said:

“We feel cheated. It’s cost a lot of us our dreams – as a boy I used to dream of playing in the World Cup, and now I’m not.

“I’m not sure Henry’s reputation has been tarnished. It doesn’t look great but he’s got his team to the World Cup finals. If it had been one of our team, we’d have probably done the same.”

The striker Kevin Doyle added:

“I don’t know about the ref not seeing it but the linesman had as good a view as anyone and him not seeing it is embarrassing. It’s instinctive and, if you can get away with it … I’m sure he was expecting the free-kick to be given and I can’t believe it’s not been caught.”

Anyone who claims they’ve never cheated in football is a liar, anyone who says that the would tell the referee is a liar, and everyone who takes this for more than an unfortunate incident is a hypocrite. If it was an Irish play who did this I doubt there would be much if any recrimination heading his way.

My biggest problem with all this is that somehow, Arsenal is to blame for all this. Henry is a Barcelona employee, what the hell does that have to do with Arsenal? Comments like “His status as Arsenal legend has gone” and “Next time Arsenal are cheated, no one can complain.” and worst of all from Pyles “Thierry Henry, you are the scum of Paris, the scum of world sport, the scum of the earth.” is so over the top it’s crazy. Although in the end Pyles asks “Is Thierry Henry any more immoral than 10,000 other footballers?

So on to real Arsenal matters Eduardo has sign a new long-term contract which can only be a good thing. In a subsequent interview, Eduardo said:

I’m very happy and I hope to stay at Arsenal for as long as I can. This period is good for me now. I feel strong in my body and I feel ready to play 90 minutes every three days if it’s needed.

What pleases me more is that the player seems totally over his injury and feels ready to put that to the test. He also said that he is ready in both his mind and body to put in winning performances for the rest of the season.

On the injury front the team medical staff has concluded that Gibbs injury is not as bad as first feared and he will time out of the game will be “short-term”.

I really didn’t want last night’s game to go into extra-time as it meant Gallas and Sagna played 120 minutes for their team. It means that Wenger has to know decide whether or not to rest the French duo. We could see a back four of Eboue, Vermaelen, Silvestre and Traore or even Eboue, Vermaelen, Senderos and Silvestre — oh joy.

That all for today folks, thanks for dropping by and don’t forget to leave a comment.

Van Persie suffers another injury during a useless international friendly

The question is how much van Persie’s injury will affect Arsenal’s title ambitions?

The prognosis on Robin van Persie torn ankle ligaments ranges from 4 weeks if you believe the Dutch medical team, to the rest of the season for those more inclined to believe the sun’s sport medicine experts. The truth is that no one really knows yet, however for the sake of this post let’s assume RVP will be out for 8 weeks, which is more than the rather optimistic Dutch estimate and includes extra time to regain some match fitness.

Before we jump to judgement as to how much it will affect the Arsenal lest list the upcoming fixtures up to January 9th.

Fixtures up to Van Persie's return

A cursory look at the fixtures shows that Robin won’t be missing too many important fixtures, Chelsea on the 29th and Liverpool in December looks to be the biggest games. It would not be so wrong to assume that Van Persie would have been rested for the remaining Champions League fixtures, he wouldn’t have been taking part in the Carling cup games either, which leaves 9 Premiership games and an Fa Cup match (depending on the opponent I’m sure he would have been rested for this game also).

For all the talk of how much offensive options we have I find it rather silly that the loss of RVP would mean a collapse of our season. The same people who were doubting Robin’s effectiveness in a 4-3-3 formation now is questioning Arsenal’s effectiveness without him.

I am confident that Eduardo will step up to the plate, at the very least the laughable rumours of his impeding departure to Liverpool has be quashed. I don’t see Eduardo as being less effective than RVP in the striker role, more likely he will relish the opportunity to show how good he can be.

It seems that we forget there is also Carlos Vela and Theo Walcott coming back from injury lay-offs. Theo in particular will bring something we’ve been missing on the pitch… pace. We’ve already shown that we can get goals from all over the pitch, add to the team Rosicky and Nasri and you’ll see that there’s really no need to fear.

When we started the season Van Persie scored only once in the first 5 games, there was talk of him not being up to the task, now we’re doomed without him? I’d be more worried if we had lost Gallas or Vermaelen, but I don’t think losing a striker is going to affect us that much.

I can’t see any reason why we won’t continue scoring 3 goals a game without RVP, yes Van Persie was on a run of form, but the team is red hot too bringing in Eduardo is just adding fresh wood to the furnace.

Derby goalscorers, enjoying the win as much as we did.

Speaking of humility, It has been reported that Almunia’s absence in the team was not down to a chest infection — of course we didn’t believe that story for one minute — but rather Wenger allowing him time to deal with the accidental death of his mother-in-law.

Although Almunia stuck to his training schedule Wenger thought it better not to put the Spaniard in goal. Sagna suffered a similar loss last year and admitted it affected his form for a while, it was prudent of Wenger not to use Almunia in a position where any mistake means a goal conceded. Good call by Wenger, and my condolences to Manuel Almunia and Family.

The difficulty for some in the media to acknowledge Arsenal as true title contenders is incomprehensible, most of the weekend reports put the reasons for the humiliation of the cockerels down to their inept defending. The view of Fabregas’ goal was a complete contrast to the masturbation we witnessed over Owen’s goalscoring exploits.

One person who has the humble pie in the oven is Alan Hansen. His piece in the telegraph acknowledges the defensive improvements in the team, and although not making us the leading title contender he has replaced his beloved Liverpool in the top 3 contenders with Arsenal.

Robin van Persie has been enjoying the weekend as much as us, remarking saying

It always feels good to beat Spurs. It even feels good when we don’t play them and they get beaten, so it’s especially good when we’ve played them.

He described Fabregas’ goal as brilliant, and had more to do with his ability than Spurs’ defensive frailties. The Dutchman would love to have an opportunity to avenge the loss at the Eastlands, but he won’t get his chance just yet. It seems that van Persie is enjoying is life right now, let’s just keep things that way with a win against AZ Alkmaar on Wednesday.

Thanks for reading, don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comment section.

attempt on goal for “Robbie “blabbermouth” Keane for even that shot was off target. O how his preposterous ranting came home to roost. If that was an attempt to gee up his team-mates then he should have kept it indoors, the witless sod.

The second goal put the game away at a time when Tottenham was quite comfortable in their tactics. Fabregas left 2 players on the arse in that run for the second goal.

3 goals obviously, No.3 Bacary had a good game putting in exactly 3 good crosses, 3 bad crosses, 3 good clearances, and setting up 2 goals.

Bad passes by Diaby Diaby, all game. I know I had to look at this again, while watching the game I’d swear that Diaby was playing for the opposition, he actually lost the ball a 11 times during the game, 5 times trying to take on his man.

seconds elapsed between the time Fabregas got his first touch and the time he released the shot for his goal. Lots of talk about how Tottenham switch off for that goal, none about how good Fabregas’ dribble was. If it was Torres or Rooney we’d never hear the end of it.

6 shots off target, but does it really matter when you create as many chances as Arsenal does. Arsenal are often accused of having no end product, this season so far we’ve proven this to be wrong, we’ve created 132 scoring opportunities in 10 games and scored an average of 3.2 goals a game if we can score 20% of chances created then we are projected to score 106 goals this season.

Tackles won by Song, some people still refuse to give Song credit. To question the wisdom of Wenger in not signing Palacios is absurd, again it come down to the mentality of going in hard. Palacios look more of a hardman than Song, but is he more effective? Palacios is inferior to Song in nearly every department, tellingly Song conceded 50% less freekicks than Palacios, won 42% more tackles, and had 40% more interceptions than his counterpart.

first team players out injured for Arsenal, so much for Spurs “injury problem” they have a grand total of… 4 players injured, what was that about strength in depth?

Nine different managers since the last time they beat us in the premier league, back in ‘99.

An unusual mix of youth, experience took the field for Arsenal v Liverpool

The assertion in my last post about the value for money that last night’s tie offered was vindicated by the quality on display from both sides. Unlike most of Arsenal’s Carling cup games, the line-up for Arsenal boasted a fair amount of experience, with Liverpool fielding a similar mixture of youth and experience.

A 2-1 victory for Arsenal was a fair reflection of the game with Arsenal just edging out Liverpool in all areas. While Aquilani will have you believe that they were denied a clear penalty, it would have been extremely harsh to have adjudged Senderos of bring his hand to the ball. We could make a similar claim for a penalty when Sanches Watt was brought down Kuyt.

There wasn’t a player who you could say had a bad game, the obvious stand-outs were Merida, Ramsey, and Eastmond. The former performed more or less to the level that we would expect from a player long hailed as good as Fabregas. As similar to Cesc as Merida is, he looks to be stronger than our Spanish captain.

Eastmond is one of those players that has recently made the switch from defence to midfield, while he had a few appearances in the middle last season, it’s only this season that he has played regularly as a midfielder. It says a lot of his talent for him to have not only made the switch but has been good enough to make it into the Carling cup squad.

There was enough in Eastmond’s performance to suggest if he were to continue in the way he has then it won’t be long before some first team players start really worrying about their places. If I were Diaby, I would have been worried about my place in the team.

Wenger has persisted with Diaby, but with Nasri coming back to fitness, and Ramsey pushing for a starting place in the first team, the player most at risk of losing his first team spot must be Diaby.

There is, in reality, a huge difference between having a good Carling cup game and being ready for a run in the first team. It is encouraging for us to see these youngster up to the task in games like last night, and they deserve the praise they receive. The games coming up will only get tougher and those guys need us to be 100 percent behind them.

The draw for the next round is on Saturday and includes Manchester United, Manchester City, Blackburn, Portsmouth, Chelsea, Tottenham and Aston Villa. It would be nice to get Blackburn or Portsmouth, but I’m sure the players would be happy to test themselves against one of the bigger teams.

Good game, good win, goodbye, thanks for reading.

Tonight’s probable line-up:

Subs: Szczesny, Randall, Frimpong, Sunu, Merida, Senderos, Eastmond

The biggest disappointment will be the omission of Jack Wilshere who will be out through an ankle injury, Armand Traore who was really looking forward to tonight suffered a groin injury and will miss out. Wenger is set to use this game as to give some players returning from injury —Eduardo, Bendtner, and Nasri — a workout, which will mean even less opportunity for some.

I am looking forward to see how well Bartley does, at 6′3″ he could be the centre half we’ve been craving. I hope Wenger doesn’t go with Senderos tonight.

Francis Coquelin is my favourite player in the reserves, his performances in that league has been nothing short of exceptional. Although he had a good game when arsenal played West Bromwich Albion, it wasn’t what those who’ve been watching reserve games have come to expect from the young frenchman. Tonight gives him the chance to shine it what will be the biggest game of his career so far.

Merida will have to take a seat to Ramsey for the time being, and will replace Nasri on the hour mark — jezz, I sound like I know exactly what Wenger is thinking

The last time we met Liverpool in the Carling cup we scored 6, I don’t expect another 6 goal drubbing but we should progress to the next round. My bet would be Arsenal win 3-1.

Arsene has been speaking about his last minute U-turn on sending Merida to Levante for a season’s loan, his statement reinforces the idea that he is reluctant to send his “better” players out on loan.

I nearly gave him out on loan in the pre-season but, in Valencia, I made the decision to keep him because I feel he is a classy player. He just has football in his blood and these players always have a good chance to come through.

“On the day I had to make the decision and I decided to keep him. He was going for the year to Levante. It would have been good for him but I felt that he has too much quality to go out.

It seems to me that saying he has “too much quality to go out” is sending a message to those that are out on loan that they have a lot more work to do.

That’s all from me today, I’ll be back tomorrow, thanks for reading. Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Another centre back goal, they are determied to outscore the forwards.

I’m sure that Wenger has continually repeats the mantra of keeping concentration, taking chances when presented, and killing off teams. They know that, but somehow they can’t carry it the tasks at hand.

Results like yesterday are very disappointing, especially as Arseblogger puts it,

It’s one thing being taken apart by nice football but when you’re gifting the opposition goals then you’re going to have problems. We’ve conceded 15 goals so far, I’d suggest 10 of those goals were totally avoidable

It’s even worse when the players recognise the problem, continue committing the same crimes. Vermaelen, Sagna, Clichy, Diaby, and Sagna, all came out with statements pointing out that lessons must be learnt concentration must stay sharp yet we fall at the same hurdle.

Looking at the big picture we are in a good position, yet the missed opportunities leave a sour taste in the mouth. A win would have put us 3 points behind Chelsea with a game in hand, now we will be at least 2 points behind after playing our game in hand.

There’s a lot of blame going around, most of it falling on the usual suspects. Diaby especially is coming in for what I think is undeserved stick. The free-kick that changed the game was not his fault in fact it wasn’t a free-kick even Hansen said it. Some say that he (Diaby) lost the ball too much, or gave too many bad passes, simply not true — 45 out of 48 passes found their man, and he made 8 interceptions.

The player that most disappointed was Andrey Arshavin, left on only because he is always capable of creating a moment of magic which I suspect Wenger was looking for by keeping him on. The question is whether playing with 10.5 outfield players worth that one moment of magic? A tough call to make.

Strangely I never felt that we were in control of the game, we were 2 goals up but not playing well, we needed to step up our game and in the end we didn’t.

It’s been a feature of our season we concede late goals, 7 out of 13 goals conceded in the last half hour, 4 of the 7 conceded in the last 15 minutes, it’s something to worry about. If this doesn’t stop soon, it will become a a major psychological problem, once it comes to the last 10 minutes players will start to worry about letting in that last goal instead of concentrating on the task at hand.

Hopefully we’ll keep scoring more than the opponents, because at the moment it seems we will always concede one.

We were in control, there were no big chances for AZ but in the last minute they scored. It feels like a defeat.

It is disappointing but here 5 reasons why it’s not the end of the world.

Vela goes down for what looks like a stonewall penalty.

1.) Even if it feels like a defeat — it wasn’t

So we didn’t win, so it feels like a loss, but it isn’t. We’re still top of the group, a win at home in the return game will see us needing at most a point from the last 2 games inn order to qualify for the next stage.

2.) We won’t be complacent at The Boleyn Ground.

So we were complacent last night, not even bothering to move out of 2nd gear, and it bit us in the as with a last minute equaliser. If anything it reminded the team that there is no place for complacency in sport.

An easy win last night might have meant a little less focus at West Ham, the equaliser should have the team looking to bounce back and show a bit more than what was on display yesterday.

3.) Alex Song

Is Song the league's most improved player?

Although he was at fault for the equaliser, Song put in another man of the match display.

I thought the turning point came for Song in the 2008 ACN, at this point he became a mainstay for Cameroon, putting in consecutive man of the match performances, and being named in the tournament’s best XI was a marker for the young man.
Despite having an indifferent 2008/2009 season he has now become on of our most important players, the problem now is who’s going to replace Song in January.

4.) Competition for places

A lot of us was of the view that the was a lack of competition for places in the squad, some player could afford to be complacent as their place in the starting 11 is secure.
It may have been an accurate assessment, but now were are seeing a genuine battle for starting spots all over the pitch which bodes well for the future.

Arsene choosing to start Manonne instead of Almunia is a clear indication to everyone that they have to work hard to keep their pick. Of course there are a few who will obviously start when fit, but the realisation that no one is immune to a “chest infection”.

5.) …and finally Arsenal could do a Spain

Here is Fabregas’ theory on how Spain went from a team that plays lovely football to European Champions.

I don`t know.  I think it was in one game we played against Sweden and we lost 2-0.  Everyone was saying they wanted to sack the manager; everyone was saying that we were the worst team in Spanish history, stuff like that.  And, from that game, I don`t know, something happened.  We came all together, we wanted to win more than ever.  We did it for ourselves and, from then on, just clicked like that.  We started playing well, confidence came back, the fans started realising we were playing well and they came next to us, next to us, following us everywhere and, at the end, we were all so together that you could see, even when I was on the bench or when I was playing, even if we were losing 1-0, you were relaxed because you knew you would come back always, and the way we played football, it was amazing.  And I think the togetherness in that team was something special.

Sound familiar?

One of the most pervasive myths in English football is the “he got the ball first, so it’s not a foul” nonsense I keep hearing in every single football game I watch.

The tackle which lead to Walcott’s 3 month lay-off is a prime example of the ignorance of the English football fraternity.

The laws of the game state that,

A direct free kick is awarded to the opposing team if a player commits any
of the following seven offences in a manner considered by the referee to be
careless, reckless or using excessive force:

• kicks or attempts to kick an opponent
• trips or attempts to trip an opponent
• jumps at an opponent
• charges an opponent
• strikes or attempts to strike an opponent
• pushes an opponent
• tackles an opponent

Notice that there is no mention of winning the ball or not, as long as a tackle is careless, reckless or using excessive force, then it’s a foul. So it is down to the referee to determine what is careless, if in his opinion it wasn’t at least careless then it’s no foul.

So how do you define “careless”, well the referees handbook defines careless as follows.

“Careless” means that the player has shown a lack of attention or
consideration when making a challenge or that he acted without precaution.

No further disciplinary sanction is needed if a foul is judged to be careless

Ask yourself if Ridgewell acted with consideration or precaution in that challenge then let me know if it wasn’t a foul.

Now that we agree it was a foul did it warrant a card? Again going by the referees’ guidelines it was at least a yellow.

“Reckless” means that the player has acted with complete disregard to the
danger to, or consequences for, his opponent

A player who plays in a reckless manner must be cautioned.

It is clear that the tackle fits with FIFA’s description of Reckless perfectly. There was a blatant and obvious disregard for the consequencies of the tackle, so yes it was reckless.

Surely Ridgewell may have deserved a yellow, but no more. Again you may be wrong on this point, and again it comes down to ignorance of the rules.

“Using excessive force” means that the player has far exceeded the necessary
use of force and is in danger of injuring his opponent.

A player who uses excessive force must be sent off.

It can be argued that there wasn’t “excessive force” in this case, another player might not have been hurt by the same tackle.

However there was no need to go in with this amount of force in the first place, at the velocity and angle Ridgewell came in there was always going to be one outcome, taking out the ball and the man.

A slightly different angle could have seen Ridgewell win the ball cleanly, but that wouldn’t have been the Birmingham way, would it?

Nikopolidis was determined to do a Mannone.

Fortunately the same van Persie scored the goal that we deserved on the night.

We all deserved a performance like last night. Perhaps determined not to have a repeat of Standard Liege, Arsenal came out with all guns blazing. Unfortunately we forgot to calibrate the gun sights, 22 shots at goal with only 2 goals to show is testament to the inaccuracy of our aim.
Wave after wave of attack came upon the Greeks’ defence only for us to be denied by our own profligacy and a determination by the Olympiacos custodian to “do a Mannone”.

Patience and discipline was the bywords for last night, Wenger summed it up saying,

“We kept our composure and kept going. We played with a desire to keep the discipline in the team. We did not do anything crazy. I always felt we could score. We have matured and a game like this shows just that.

We could be forgiven to think that the goal would never come, reminiscent of our first loss at the Emirates when West Ham was the recipient of a footballing master-class yet they left the Emirates with 3 points. I would have been cruel for us not to win last night, and the team showed the maturity and discipline to continue playing to get that result.

The popular man of the match was Arshavin, but I was particularly impressed with Rosicky who reminded me quite how good he is. He showed incredible touch, balance, pace and vision, once the Czech regains full fitness teamed with Fabregas and Arshavin our attack should be the most potent in the league.

There was not much to be done by the defence, but Eboue again is solidifying his status amongst the Arsenal faithful, whilst Clichy had one leery moment overall the defence was virtually given a night off by Olympiakos.

The final goal by Arshavin — a bit impudent, surely offside — was the icing on a cake, the champions of Greece was resolute in defence but the scoreline was no more than Arsenal deserved, another step for the gunners in their quest for that elusive trophy.

Mannone keeps Fulham out .

Apart from Mannone’s great game there were a few things that caught my attention.

How do you solve the Diaby connundrum?, for a player with such a huge talent it is infuriating to see him time and time again fail to do the simplest things right.
Don’t be fooled Diaby brings a lot to the team, he gets his fair share of tackles and interceptions, display some great pieces of skill, and can turn a nothing situation into a goal scoring opportunity with 2 strides of those long legs.
In as much as he can present a danger to the opponent, those same attributes can create a danger for us. We just want Diaby to keep the play ticking over, pass the ball when you have to, don’t try to dribble his way out of every situation, and don’t lose concentration. Will we get this from him? Only time will tell.

Cesc is having a poor run of form I know it, you know it, Wenger knows it and I’m sure Cesc knows it. However, as they say form is temporary class is permanent.
Even with his lack of form he has the class to unlock a defence with the deftest of passes as we witnessed on Saturday.
Talk of Cesc’s head being turned by Barca is way off the mark, Cesc just know he isn’t playing as well as he is capable of playing.

Pace is relative, Some people have been slating Song pace or lack of based on being left in the wake of A. Johnson, now I’m not saying that Song is pacy but there aren’t many player who could keep up with Johnson.
Other examples of comparing apples to oranges include Bellamy/Denilson, Wright-Phillips/Clichy, Rooney/Gallas.
How many midfielders have the pace to keep up with Walcott, Johnson, Lennon, Bellamy, Wright-Phillips, etc? not many.

When is Arshavin going to be 100%? I didn’t expect him to be on Saturday, but even with a full pre-season he has not yet, come on Arshavin sort it out.

Bendtner had to start against Fulham so did Diaby, simply to counter the power and Height of Fulham. Can you imagine defending set pieces againd Zamora, Hangelland etc, with Eduardo and Rosicky instead of Bendtner and Diaby.

Finally, record profits again. Arsenal financial statement for last year is out. It makes for good reading, lots of numbers with pound signs before them.

That’s all from me for now, I’m looking forward to Olympiakos, thanks for stopping by.

Eduardo left to rue is attempt at fancy football

Going down 2-0 within the 1st 5 minutes is either bad luck or lack of concentration and I’d go with the latter, there was no reason for Eduardo’s heeled attempt at a pass and to compound it no one thought it prudent to close down the attacker (Mangala). Diaby could have done the job but somehow thought it a better idea to mark the space on his left —where that boy’s head is? I don’t know.

There is no question about it, our play was atrocious misplaced passes, bad marking, poor tackle and a complete bastardisation of the term free kick. Cesc was the poorest of the lot, nowhere close to what we expect from the captain and up until the second goal seemed intent on wasting every freekick.

So we were a shadow of our usual standards and letting in two goals looks bad, but the truth is most of us were confident of a comeback. Teams like Standard Liege are just not good enough. Losing those goals so early meant that we had enough time to score the 3 goals needed to win. It was just a matter of keeping our heads in the game, and once Bendtner scored that crucial goal just before the half you knew we’d go on to do the job.

That Vito Mannone had nothing to do was a testament to how much of the ball we had, with 10 men behind the ball Liege made it a chore for us and the lack of movement by some of our players made it even more difficult. The effect of our overwhelming possession would eventually be manifested in the weariness of the opposition and the last 15 minutes showed just that.

This game can only be seen as a boost for the team, who have suffered two defeats after outplaying the opponents. It’s much easier to believe that you can win from a losing position, or you can win when not at your best, when you’ve already proved it. I have the feeling that some on the team needed a game like this.

I can’t go out without mentioning something that’s been bugging me for a while. What is wrong with Clichy? I know he’s saved us from 2 goals last night, but recently he has put is in difficulty far too often. It could be that he lacks the discipline to play the current formation, or that he’s just having a slow start to the season, but his performances have been at the least worrying. He has been well known for reading a pass and nipping in just in time to intercept, but when he gets the timing wrong it can be disastrous and lately he has been getting the timing wrong. You need to sort it out Gael.

Back to Wengers comment, Shepherd admitted that in an interview Beckham was asked something similar and the answer was to the effect that he would cheat to win the World Cup. The topic of handball came up and it was noted that Sir Geoff Hurst had confessed to scoring his first of six against Sunderland with his hand. So even revered English gentlemen can pull one over the refs then eh.

Amazingly the hypocrisy does not end there. Shepherd had the audacity to say that if Rooney did a Maradona to win England the world cup it would have been instinct not cheating. Even going as far as outrageuosly claiming that diving is premeditated but putting the ball in goal with your hand is not, that’s just pure instinct.

So apologies then to Mr Maradona, we now understand that England got knocked out of the 1986 world cup by a legitimate instinctive goal.

Wenger spoke of the ridiculous rules that Platini, Blatter, and other wants to introduce to football restricting the movement of players under 18. I honestly don’t understand the uproar about children moving teams or even countries. FIFA and UEFA always seem to be reactive, instead of thinking things through they always come up with some spur of the moment edict.

What purpose will the new rules serve, if FIFA is worried about child trafficking maybe the should set up schools in poorer countries instead of giving handouts to Football Associations in exchange for votes. I am from one of those countries and have seen the good use that FIFA dollars has been put to, houses and cars for association members.

Wenger musical analogy is spot on, talent will just go to waste with no chance of blossoming. Ask people like Eboue, Song, and Drogba, ask Eduardo what chance he’d have if he didn’t move to Croatia, would Messi ever been European player of the year if he’d been left in Argentina?

The ridiculous notion that is is better for the children is a fallacy, of course if you’re from France then moving to England is not much of a difference, but tell me what is the difference between moving from Mali to France (Tigana) or Gaudeloupe to France (Thuram)? Yes they are French departments, but it’s the same upheaval as someone moving from Montserrat to England.

It’s all about protecting the investments of smaller clubs, something which we have accused Wenger and Arsenal of doing too well. There is a much better way to deal with the movement of young players, instead of a blanket ban on under 18’s.

Any club holds the registration of their players up to the age of consent in that country, they can always sell the player if the price is right. If the parents decide to move then the club has to relinquish the player’s registration. So what of teams paying off parents, or getting jobs for them? Well I don’t see the problem there, a parent must have the right to do what is best for their children and if they feel moving from Malawi to Sunderland is best for their children then so be it.

I have a nephew who this season is playing top level football in my home country (Dominica) at the age of 13, he has never done well at school but he can play football. I know his parents would willingly move to any Western European country if they got any whiff of a chance. If that doesn’t happen then I know very well what his future may hold, and if he has a slim chance now, how demoralising if FIFA get’s their way.