Gooner's Diary Rides Again

You can keep your commercially packaged, glitz and glamour of the Emirates Cup, there’s something far more real and resonant about the annual curtain-raiser amongst the ramshackle environs of Underhill.

I recall a 7-1 schmeissing some seasons back, but although in recent years the footballing fare at this annual friendly has tended to be more somnolent than scinitillating, somehow a full-house of 5,000 Gooners are drawn back to Barnet’s sloping ground every summer, like moths to a flame.

I don’t want to get overly romantic about it, but for me, for some strange reason it’s an annual event not to be missed. It’s a rare pleasure to be able to get so up close and personal to our heroes, in an age where supporting the Gunners has become such a remote business, where although I’m privileged to be able to watch them perform in the flesh so regularly, more often than not, I require my binoculars to see the expressions on the faces of the ant-like icons, doing their thing in these cavernous modern temples to commercialisation.

I’ve never had the pleasure of a trip to Bloomfield Road and so perhaps Blackpool’s promotion will present us with an opportunity to step back in time, when we travel to play the Seasiders. But for the most part nowadays, the Arsenal players have become so closeted and so removed from the fans who pay their wages, that unless you happen to have a tuxedo and a spare 150 quid to spunk up on a charity dinner, the opening friendly at Underhill is just about the only guaranteed opportunity nowadays to actually see our heroes in the flesh, where the kids can wrestle one another to get in there for an autograph and the majority of players tolerate having arms thrown around their shoulders, for the hastily taken snapshot.

At Barnet you have the annual ritual where the players leave the stadium after the match, walking half the length of the pitch, from the dressing room to the exit where the team coach is parked, with hundreds of Gooners waiting patiently behind the barrier along the touchline, for this increasingly rare opportunity to reach out and touch our heroes. I don’t normally hang about after the final whistle, but on Saturday I had the excuse of being there with a mate’s son. So I ended up standing with them, whilst the youngster hung over the barrier with his clipboard, hoping his heroes would deign to put their scrawl on his paper as they passed.

Although many of the big stars are still to return from extended summer holidays, there was a respectable turn out of star turns at Underhill and in an age where footballers are so often accused of being spoilt brats, I must admit to being pleasantly surprised by how much respect they showed to all the fans who’d bothered to wait, by patiently acquiescing to all their many demands for signatures and photos.

I don’t know, perhaps I should give him the benefit of the doubt and being one of the last out of the showers, maybe Shava was told to hurry up and get his arse onto the coach. Or perhaps the Ruski has a phobia about being touched and pestered by the fans. But of all the 22 players who turned out on Saturday, it seemed to me as if Arshavin was just about the only one amongst them who marched straight down the pitch, without stopping once to give a little back to his adoring public, while all his teammates (perhaps knowing that they weren’t going anywhere until everyone had boarded the coach) took their time to work their way along the touchline, trying to ensure that the vast majority of Gooners came away feeling more than satisfied with their metaphorical pound of Gooner flesh.

While we were standing there, someone nearby hollered out to Gerry Peyton to enquire as to the whereabouts of Manuel Almunia. According to Peyton, Almunia had cried off at the last minute, with a sore throat.

During the game, we’d noticed that Scezny was wearing the no. 1 shirt when he came on as a sub late in the second half and it was only when we realised that Fabianski and Mannone had been wearing shirts with different numbers on (their regular squad numbers?) that we jokingly pondered as to whether we could read any significance into this?

As they say “many a true word spoke in jest”, as the word on the Gooner rumour mill has since cast the aspersion that Almunia actually walked out on Saturday in disgust, having been informed that he was no longer the club’s no. 1.

Whether this means that the no. 1 shirt will be going to an as yet unnamed new arrival, or having failed in their (feeble?) efforts to purchase a viable replacement, the young Pole is to be given his shot, this remains to be seen.

Hopefully all will be revealed on the annual pre-season trip to Austria. Personally speaking, like everyone else, I was really hoping that with Wenger having finally acknowledged the goalkeeping issue, the club would go out and make a real statement, sparing no expense to buy the best available keeper on the planet. Mark Schwarzer might be a slightly improved model, compared to our current triumvirate of timid goalies, but to my mind he’d feel more of a half measure, than the sort of world-class player who’s arrival would really set the pulses racing.

In the absence of Schwarzer and in the knowledge that we have witnessed that Fabianski and Mannone just don’t appear to have the sort of presence necessary, to make them viable long-term candidates for the job, then I feel that we might as well give Scezny a go. Never mind about experience, to my mind being a top class keeper is largely about confidence and personality and whether he’s 19 or 90, either he’s going to have the ability to dominate his area, or not.

I’m not sure the young keeper even had a shot to save, in the short space of time he was on the pitch on Saturday. If you didn’t see the game, I’m sure you can find any number of blow-by-blow accounts on various other blogs elsewhere, without the impediment of my premature Alzheimers. From the little my sadly addled brain retained of the afternoon, it was great to see a fresh-faced Arsène marching onto the pitch before the game, in buoyant mood, without the haggard expression and the hundreds of worry lines that we’ve grown accustomed to with his end of season demeanour.

First impressions of our new centre-back weren’t particularly promising, on seeing a Barnet striker get goalside of him as the Frenchman was caught napping on at least a couple of occasions. But then my mate said to me that Vermaelen’s first appearance in the same fixture last season wasn’t particularly impressive (although I’m sure I remember Tommy doing something in that game which gave me cause to be optimistic about our new arrival last summer).

As for Marouanne Chamakh, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed that the Moroccan didn’t play in the first half, because as is often the case in this fixture, all the changes at the break result in the game becoming so disjointed in the second half that it’s very hard to give any sort of honest appraisal of his performance. In truth, all I can say is that I only hope the Moroccan lad devotes nearly as much time to learning his trade on the pitch, as he undoubtedly does to styling the sticky up bit in the middle of his barnet!

The opening ten minutes of the first half were full of promise, as we looked like running rings around a team that’s three divisions below us. It took Shava only 90 second to expose the gulf in class, as he meandered past Barnet’s statuesque defence, who all appeared to stand and admire Shava’s opening goal after only 90 seconds. Jack Wilshere put the second on a plate for Jay Simpson to pass the ball into the net, which was due reward for fifteen minutes of domination that defined Barnet’s uphill struggle (both metaphorically and literally in their case).

We had to wait until a few minutes before the break for the third, but it was one to savour and undoubtedly the move of the afternoon, a typical Arsenal team goal, to match anything the Spanish did in the World Cup, admittedly only against lowly Barnet but an absolute joy to behold and as the saying goes, “worth the price of admission alone”.

After Shava had struck the bar with a stunning curling strike from the edge of the area, moments later the Ruski played in Wilshere down the left and again Jack unerringly found an unmarked Jay Simpson at the far post who in turn found the back of the net.

I can’t tell you much about the defensive capabilities of Havard Nordvelt, as aside from the fact that Barnet’s first-half forays up the slope were so few and far between, we spent the first half sitting in our designated seats in the Community Stand, a small stand in one corner of the ground and in our seats at the back, we had no view at all, whenever the play ended up in the right-back’s corner of the pitch! The Norwegian lad looked confident enough whenever he made a run directly in front of us down the right flank, although I commented that it’s hard to imagine hollering out “Come on Havard”!

You can’t fail to be impressed by Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, no matter where he plays on the pitch, because he’s such an awesome specimen, who if he wasn’t playing football could probably be a heavyweight champion in the boxing ring. Mind you I get the impression that this is Jay’s biggest problem, because as yet no-one seems quite sure what position he’s best suited for. Doubtless Jay’s quicker on his feet than Nicholas Bendtner, but to my mind he still seems a little wasted playing out on the right flank where he was in the first-half on Saturday, when he could have a more influential role, dominating the middle of the park?

Considering there’s healthy competition for the left-back slot, I was a little disappointed in Armand Traore because we saw him bursting down the left with his trademark energetic runs in the opening minutes of the match and then he appeared to stop at home for the remainder of the opening period, when he could have been terrorising the Barnet defence. In truth I would’ve expected him to be doing a little more to try and impress le Gaffer.

Similarly Thomas Rosicky was relatively quiet, perhaps feeling aggrieved that he’s not still lounging in the sun alongside some of his teammates. While Jay Emmanuel-Thomas looks a hulk of a man when seen up close, we noted that this might be something of an illusion in their very fetching new kit (for a traditionalist like myself), as with their shirts outside of their shorts, this kit seems to elongate their bodies and even Rosicky looked relatively tall on the pitch, while with his shirt tucked in, Shava looked as diminutive as ever.

I hear good things about Manny Frimpong and how dedicated the youngster is, compared to many of the Arsenal youngsters, who sadly think they’ve nothing left to prove as soon as they graduate to their first flash sports car. Manny didn’t disappoint on Saturday and didn’t look out of place. Hopefully his earnest endeavours will be rewarded with him being given an opportunity to prove himself in the remainder of pre-season. Often the pecking order for the line-ups out in Austria are a good indication of where the youngsters stand and whether they’re in with a chance of earning their first team stripes.

We moved during the break and were fortunate to find three seats in the main stand, not wanting to endure the restricted view of the goal the Gunners were attacking second half, but it wasn’t as if there was much action to miss. As I said, with a complete changeover of players, there was very little fluidity to the football after the beak, with Theo sadly only continuing where he left off last season, by getting down the right flank several times (or should I say “up the right flank” considering they were playing against the considerable slope second half), only to end up putting a cross over to an invisible teammate.

It was great to see Johann Djourou back in the saddle. His return at centre-half after such a long absence is almost like a new signing. I couldn’t for the life of me work out who was playing alongside him but thanks to the Arsenal mailing list and the marvels of my iPhone, I soon discovered this to be Catalan youngster, Ignasi Miquel. I have to admit that I’d not heard of this lad before (although he played several times for the U18s and had a couple of reserve outings last season) and with him barely being tested by Barnet’s limited goal threat, I can’t really offer an opinion on his ability.

Chamakh and Barazite ran around a bit but I can’t really recall either of them doing anything of any note and if I’m perfectly honest, if he hadn’t been in the right place to pounce on a defensive error and score the final goal of the afternoon, I could’ve easily forgotten that Samir Nasri was playing!

Still while we all turn out for the Barnet friendly with a feint hope in the back of our minds of seeing one of the two new arrivals, or one of our talented array of youngsters turning in the sort of blistering display that might fill us full of optimism for the forthcoming season, in reality, with all the players still needing to shake the suntan lotion baked sand from their rusty limbs, this fixture isn’t really about the football.

It’s more about a reconvening of the Gooner faithful, an opportunity to try out some new chants and above all, for far too many Arsenal fans, it’s a rare opportunity for a family day out, where folks can actually afford to take their kids to watch the Gunners play live. Unbelievably, a season ticket for the under 14s in the main stand at Underhill costs the princely sum of 25 quid, a season’s worth of footie for a fraction of the price that we’d pay to take a child to a single Premiership match! I know that one invariably gets what one pays for, but it pains me to admit that if I had kids, I’d be wanting them to enjoy the live experience at affordable grounds like Barnet or Watford every other week, than sitting indoors, going goggleyed in front of their Playstations every Saturday, waiting for a once a season treat to see the Arsenal .

Seemingly our latest import from Bordeaux has already got his own song, with a “Chamakh, Chamakh, Chamakh” variation of the “attack, attach, attack” chant. Michael “Shirts” Farmer also entertained us with a personal rendition of a Thomas Vermaelen chant to the tune of Bob Marley’s “We’re Jamming”, while we were waiting for the players to appear afterwards.

I’ve included a couple of pics just to give you a flavour of the post-match melée. There’s a few more friendlies with a trip to Crawley tomorrow and Welling on Saturday, but with the squad off to Austria, I guess these matches will only involve those left behind. Then there’s a game against Dagenham & Redbridge on the Wednesday before the Emirates Cup and Wimbledon on 7^th August, but sadly, for all these fixtures, the Arsenal web site states it’s “highly unlikely that any First Team squad players will be involved.” Shame!

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e-mail to: londonN5@gmail.com

My World Cup Tuppence'worth

I would’ve dearly loved to have used the 2010 World Cup as an excuse to finally fulfil a lifelong ambition to visit South Africa. Instead of which, sadly I spent the first week of the tournament, watching most of the matches in 30 minute snatches, between interval changes, backstage at the Royal Albert Hall. My enjoyment of what’s often billed as “the greatest show on earth” was interrupted by what was supposedly the largest ballet in the world.

Fortunately the Arsenal Box Office granted me a couple of weeks grace on the 1st June deadline for season ticket renewals and the offer of a fortnight’s work with the stage crew proved to be the answer to my prayers, with the relatively lucrative remuneration guaranteeing me my Gunners’ pleasures for another season, enabling me to rustle up the funds, rather than risk the threat of my highly-prized pitch being released to one of the many punters on the waiting list.

I suppose it’s a small price to pay, as if I was going to be deprived of watching a World Cup group stage, I couldn’t have picked a better one. In truth I’ve never been a massive fan of international footie. Philistine that I am, I’m even less of a ballet lover and yet I’ve little doubt that most nights there was more entertainment to be had watching the fancy footwork of the sixty swans prancing around the Albert Hall lake, than there was to be found on the proliferation of TV screens backstage, all tuned to the positively turgid fare on offer in so many tedious encounters during the opening stage of the tournament.

Mind you, with such a massive cast of dancers from all four corners of the planet, I can think of many far less salubrious circumstances to be watching footie. If I was down the pub I certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed the distraction of a procession of nubile nymphs in various states of undress, whereas we had to ‘suffer’ a fairly constant stream of cast members wandering into the crew room to find out how their respective countries were faring.

However having watched something like two-thirds of the live coverage of most of the games, in between the three interval changes in this protracted four act ballet, the vast majority of matches seemed so excruciatingly drab that I was hardly about to dash home, just so I could suffer the negligible highlights again on the box, in order to catch the odd moment that I might’ve missed. As a result the competition reached the knockout stages, with me having seen most of the action, but without ever really feeling as if I’d absorbed any relevant information about the individual form of the various runners and riders.

In fact the only lasting impression of the first week of this World Cup was the blissful joy of silence, when eventually turning off the box and escaping the interminable swarm of bees blare of those blasted Vuvuzelas! I fully appreciate that these horns are an integral part of South African football culture and unlike those nouveau footie fans who get narked by the noise-level, I’m the last person to complain about football’s fabulous cacophony, as someone who often inflicts headaches on anyone in earshot, by hollering my own head off for the entire 90.

Nevertheless, the more I watch of this World Cup, the more I wonder about the impact of the ubiquitous Vuvuzela. It wouldn’t be so bad if noise from the horns waxed and waned, according to ebb and flow of the football, rising to a crescendo with an imminent threat on goal. But it’s the fact that it’s an incessant drone that drowns out all other crowd noise which quite frankly gets on my and apparently most other viewers’ tits. You’d have thought that by now the TV sound engineers would’ve sussed out the specific frequency, so that they could reduce the noise of the horns and afford us all some respite.

Sadly I’ll never know what the atmosphere is like for those actually present in the stadiums. But from an armchair perspective, what bothers me most about watching on the box is that the horns principle achievement is to have turned this into the homogenous World Cup, where instead of each game having an individual atmosphere, generated by the respective fans idiosyncratic rituals, every single game sounds identical!

Worse still, I’m even beginning to wonder if the Vuvuzelas are partially culpable for the monotone tempo of far too many matches (let’s face it, it’s no less far-fetched than blaming the bloomin’ Jabulani ball!) because the constant blare means that there can be no potential boost to a team’s momentum from the traditional twelfth man, with the horns nullifying all prospects of any “sing up for the lads” impact from the terraces.

England have no such excuse, as seemingly their no. 12 was the only performer to have bothered turning up at this tournament. Thus far they’re the only fans who’ve managed to make themselves heard above the din (albeit that this duly developed into a collective expression of their disapprobation!). I’ve always found the England support a little too jingoistic for my liking, but living in this country, it’s impossible not to get caught up in all the ballyhoo. I’m sure most of the Murphy clan would’ve been mortified to hear Rona roaring at Rooney. Myself I pondered upon how many euphemisms the Beeb’s commentary team could possibly conjure up, before eventually admitting that Wayne was simply having another ‘mare !

Obviously my Jewish ancestry means that I always live in hope of an eternal return on the Krauts bad karma but I wanted England to win, if only because an entirely irresponsible British media are guilty of imbuing our national sport with such a thoroughly disproportionate significance, amongst both lovers of the beautiful game and those who are more likely to mistake Fabio’s chosen team formation for the unordained relative of Bishop Tutu, that the resulting national mood of well-being would ensure that one would be more likely to be greeted by a “hello” than a headbutt when walking the capital’s increasingly mean streets.

Perhaps the nuances of British dressing room banter escaped Capello’s laughable command of the language, as the lack of unity within his squad was evident to me from their opening game, at a distance of over 5000 miles away and only became more apparent, to the point where Terry couldn’t resist going public. Even then Fabio doesn’t appear to have got the message, judging by the hope he invested in Emil Heskey to save the nation’s skin on Sunday!

Terry was far from alone in his selfish lack of team spirit and personally I’d have preferred to watch a team of journeyman Championship players fail valiantly, than suffer England’s preening squad of prima donnas. But then judging by the ignominious early exit of the French and the Italians, sadly a failure to perform for your country as if your very lives depended upon the result appears to be a recurring theme in this particular competition (for all but the North Koreans – but then perhaps their’s does?). Football’s excessive trappings of wealth and fame seem to have finally taken their toll, to the point where players aren’t even prepared to feign the prerequisite passion and pride in wearing their nation’s shirt

There wasn’t even much satisfaction to be gained from Domenech and his French squad receiving their just deserts. After cheating the Boys in Green of their rightful seat at the South African party, the very least the buggers could’ve done was to give it a bit of a go!

Mercifully the impromptu return of Stevie Gerrard and his teammates (who won’t surprise me if they lack sufficient respect to be suitably shamefaced!) might at least signal the end of a positive plague of England flags. I’ve nothing against displaying ones patriotic pride, if there was something to be proud about. Nevertheless, there’s something I find unnerving about the sight of so many crosses of St George, flapping at every car window and hanging from every other house and home. Perhaps it’s a hangover from the flags previous hijacking by the National Front and the BNP and the lingering xenophobic connotations. Or maybe with the bouillabaisse of cultures in this cosmopolitan city, I believe we should be celebrating the commonality of humankind, rather than revelling in our nationalistic differences?

With the tabloids doing all in their power to stir up patriotic fervour in the days leading up to Sunday’s game, the resulting epidemic of England flags put me in mind of the story that gave it’s name to the Jewish Passover, but with an unhappy ending. Never mind the first born, the Gerry Angel of Death passed over and well and truly did for all the English menfolk!

Once More With Feeling

Hi folks,

The end of season report for the Irish Examiner always proves to be a mammoth chore, as I have enough trouble fitting my regular diary missive into a thousand words, let alone an entire season.

I made the big mistake of going back to the fixtures/results list in Sunday's programme, just to ensure nothing important had slipped through my sieve like memory. But all I achieved was that I ended up remembering hundreds more things to write about and before I knew it, I'd bashed out at least a couple of thousand words and still hadn't finished!

As a result I then spent several more hours pruning it down to a more acceptable size before daring to file it to the paper and by which time I was already late for work (nothing new there then!). After unloading four arctics full of scenery, I was so cream crackered that I'm only just now recovering.

I thought I'd add all the bits I'd edited out in this preamble but I know that if I get started, with a whole season to muse over, I will be tapping away at my keyboard all night and I'm getting a bit past burning the candle at both ends. So instead of it taking me another three weeks to get around to doing it, only for my missive to become irrelevant, I'm going to go with that I have and just this once try to live up to that "always leave 'em wanting more" expression.

Tagged on at the end are the unedited responses I sent in to the Observer, for their The Verdict column, if only to explain some of my answers. A WHU pal texted me to ask why I voted for the Trotters as the best away fans, as according to him Bolton only brought 300 to Upton Park. So I concluded that the paper didn't include the fact that voted for the Trotters fans who trudged all the way South in the snow, only for the game to be called off a couple off hours before KO.

Meanwhile to one and all, enjoy the summer, hope all your teams prosper in South Africa and more importantly, that all the Gunners involved come back healthy. I only wish that Ireland were going, although I guess I'm not half as gutted as my brother-out-of-law. Con has Thierry Henry to thank for the fact that he's not getting paid to go to the World Cup as part of the RTE contingent. Based on the "what if the shoe was on the other foot" suggestion, I imagined they might have begun to come to terms with their misfortune but apparently Thierry's name is still mud in Ireland and he isn't going to be forgiven any time soon. So if there's one certainty about South Africa, it is that there will be a glass or two raised in the Emerald Isle, if the French make a swift exit

Keep the faith
Bernard
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Once More With Feeling

The surprising sight of an obvious amount of empty seats belied Sunday’s sell-out attendance figure, with the absentees from the terraces a reflection of the apathy witnessed on the pitch in recent weeks. That so many fickle fans should forsake a last chance of a Gooner fix before the summer break was a telling indicator of our anti-climactic campaign.

Thus, despite being desperate for the point to avoid the embarrassing possibility of being leapfrogged by the Lilywhites, this was a depressingly subdued affair. While everyone went through the curtain call motions of an emphatic 4-0 win, I listened in enviously to the radio commentary from Chelsea, where they described the best ever atmosphere they’d experienced at the Bridge (which is no great shakes, considering it’s often as limpid as our library-like gaff).

As the flame of this campaign finally spluttered out, with the occasional hint of the sort of fantasy football that has been on the missing list these past few months, the stadium announcer reminded us that the players would be returning onto the pitch for the now traditional “lap of appreciation”. With so little to celebrate and the habitual premature evacuators already heading for the exits, they couldn’t afford to dawdle, lest they be left wandering around a stadium that was as desolate as our empty trophy cabinet.

The Gunner’s season has fizzled out in such a thoroughly disappointing fashion that it’s hard to equate the team that’s stumbled over the finishing line, with the same Arsenal side who caught all the commentators unawares, when we stormed out of the starting gate at Goodison. In fact I had to go back to my matchday programme to remind myself of all that early season euphoria.

It was all so unexpected, after the predictions prompted by Arsène’s customary reticence to raid an alleged war chest, left everyone expecting the Gunners to be the team most likely to do a Liverpool. With Vermaelen’s steely presence, at least our solitary new arrival proved an instant hit. But despite a stonking left-foot and leaping like a salmon, to contribute to the goals flying in from every angle, we could hardly expect Tommie the Tank to be a panacea at both ends of the pitch.

Such was the lack of expectation early doors that our self-inflicted demise at Old Trafford didn’t seem nearly so traumatic because it was such a pleasant surprise to leave Manchester feeling as if we had played Utd off the park. Although sadly it subsequently proved that this wasn’t quite the litmus test of quality that I’d imagined. Having lost Ronaldo and in the absence of Ferdinand & Vidic for such long periods, it was largely Rooney’s enthusiasm that enabled Man Utd to remain slightly less inconsistent than the rest of us.

Having notched up 50 goals by the start of November, Wenger’s failure to replace Adebayor didn’t seem nearly so negligent. Van Persie’s injury in a meaningless International was exasperating, but who could’ve predicted his long-term absence would have quite such a devastating impact. The writing was on the wall in the capitulation of Wenger’s ‘Time Bandits’ at home to Chelsea. But it was presence and personality, not physical size that was the principal issue. Chelsea have enough players who’ve been the distance, to be able to draw on their reserves of experience and impose themselves on matches, when the chips are down.

Fabregas is an undoubted winner and he stepped up manfully this season. The sight of Cesc scything through Spurs was a highpoint. Yet in truth, it was the example 'el Maestro' set, while captaining the team and somehow managing to keep us in contention through the dark mid-winter that was his most impressive feat, as the Gunners endured for the best part of 3 months without a recognised front-man.

For a manager who’s never taken a backward step, le Boss left us all agog, when Sol’s return turned out to be the sum total of our transfer window salvation. I’m happy to eat my derisive words, as Campbell’s been an absolute rock in recent weeks, without whom our irresolute ship might’ve capsized completely. Hungrier than players nearly half his age, he lends that ‘been there, done that’, unflappable presence to a young squad, where an ageist wage policy so often precludes against retaining our most experienced stars.

Following successive, comprehensive defeats against the top two, supposedly it was all over bar the shouting by the time Bendtner made his long awaited comeback. But we somehow clawed our way back into contention. Or perhaps complacency elsewhere resulted in contention coming back towards us? There was little of that early season joie de vivre in a succession of injury time triumphs, but where Eduardo’s traumatic GBH derailed the campaign before last, the disturbing sight of Ramsey’s distorted limb only seemed to stiffen our resolve.

With each passing match and in spite of our mounting injury woes, there was this growing optimism for an unlikely, against all odds outcome. No sooner was I suckered in, than fate contrived to throw a wet blanket over our false hopes with Birmingham’s last gasp equaliser at St. Andrews. Our season peaked with the ecstasy of clawing back a two-goal deficit against Barca, but it came at too high a price, with the loss of both Fabregas and Gallas.

One might’ve thought that there’d be no hope of redemption after Messi had made mincemeat of us in Spain and our demoralising defeat to Spurs had gifted our arch rivals the glimmer of the Champions League Holy Grail. But in this “just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water” season, the poetry of Van Persie’s 20 minute (albeit futile) cameo at White Hart Lane was a poignant reminder of the mediocrity we’d grown accustomed to in his absence.

Despite Chelsea’s teasing last invite back into the title party, Wenger inexplicably left Robin on the bench as our “easy run-in” took us up to Wigan. Where the Lactics nailed the lid firmly shut with a last 10-minute spell that’s right up there, as one of the most miserable denouements to a match that it has ever been my misfortune to endure.

In the cold light of day, considering the number of significant long-term injuries, we’ve not done so badly. You only have to contemplate the Scousers’ woes to put the Gunners season into some perspective. While I can’t exactly envisage Wenger breaking the bank to buy the likes of Buffon, hopefully the renaissance at the wrong end of the Seven Sisters Road and the way in which we’ve run up the white flag in recent weeks will at least force his hand, if only to guarantee bums on seats in the immediate future.

With so much promise on the horizon, it’s not that our squad requires wholesale change. But if Arsène is to tempt Fabregas to roll the red & white dice one more time, he’ll need to offer more than just Chamakh to share the responsibilities, when Cesc & co. return from their arduous South African adventure

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e-mail to: londonN5@gmail.com

Plus Ca Change

With a late KO at Blackburn on a Bank Holiday Monday, I assumed there wouldn’t be a train back to London that night. Nor could I find anyone else meshuga enough to want to accompany me on an eight-hour road trip in the motor, for such a meaningless encounter. The appalling levels of apathetic end-of-seasonitis evident elsewhere, in matches where there was much more to play for, didn’t exactly hold the promise of an entertaining reward at the end of an exhausting Ewood Park rainbow. And yet I’m the sort of masochist who revels in paying my Gooner dues, chasing just such a pot of fool’s gold, in the certain knowledge that such unglamorous outings are guaranteed to sort the genuine Gooner wheat, from the glory-hunting chaff.

There was hardly a surfeit of highlights to show during half-time at the City game. It was only when a mate mentioned travelling by train to Blackburn, that I suddenly remembered that instead of replaying our single effort on target, the big screens revealed details of a surprising Travel Club train trip. It’s been some years since the infamous “Football Specials” formed an integral feature in the awayday landscape.

These charabancs comprised the slowest and most dilapidated carriages amongst British Rail’s entire rolling stock. The sort that couldn’t possibly end up more trashed than they were already. The catering facilities consisted of a mail wagon at the rear, where a steward protected by a wire mesh enclosure served Polyfilla rolls from a couple of postage sacks, lovingly prepared with a nondescript slab of either ham or cheese. The alcohol ban on official outings meant that if we were lucky, this stale fare was made slightly more digestible, when washed down with a can of pop.

However my curiousity as to whether such spartan facilities might have improved in the interim wasn’t about to be satisfied. In looking up the details on the Arsenal web site, I discovered that the train had been cancelled due to a lack of interest!

Up until recently, Ewood Park was the only ground in the Premiership, where one could obtain a cash refund on unused tickets. Sadly Rovers have wised up since. Otherwise there’d have been a long queue of Gooners with wads of tickets at the box office on Monday, wanting refunds for all their mates who’d had the sense to stop at home.

Instead of which, it should the players digging into their own bulging pockets, to offer recompense to all those staunch fans who stay the pace to the bitter end, enduring the sort of tepid, uncompetitive fare that’s a blatant breach of the trades’ description act.

Still, while the participants might be more focused on working on their tans, or self-glorification in South Africa, this doesn’t stop the media from turning up the heat, in their concerted efforts to hype up the climax of this campaign. As the pundits discuss the various permutations for the denouement of all the remaining unsettled business, doubtless my disillusionment is a direct consequence of being an uninterested party in this debate, as demoralised Gooners once again find ourselves with our noses pressed up against the window.

Circumstances which are made even more galling, knowing my Spurs mates are gearing up for their crucial clash against City tonight. Considering I can’t recall the last time our season was over before theirs, I suppose I shouldn’t really begrudge them this rarity. If there was some slight solace to Monday’s defeat, it’s the resulting possibility that our final encounter against Fulham won’t feel nearly so flat, if we are left going into this game still needing a point to guarantee us 3rd place.

The only other comfort in our increasingly embarrassing efforts to scrabble over this uninspiring hurdle is that this half-hearted malaise appears all-pervasive throughout the Premiership. It’s hard to equate our lacklustre mood of late, with the remarkable optimism that abounded early doors, when the pundits were made to eat their words, while we plundered goals with such gay abandon. If the flame of this campaign hadn’t petered out in such a thoroughly disappointing fashion, Arsène might’ve been able to paper over the cracks. Not for the first time, I’m left hoping that our irresolute form in the finishing straight will at least force le Gaffer’s hand, in addressing patent inadequacies along the spine of our squad.

Encouraged by the feats of the likes of Sanchez Watt at Leeds, Emmanuel-Thomas at Doncaster and Jack Wilshere at Bolton, it seemed as if every other player mentioned on the box the Saturday before last was an Arsenal loanee. With Fergie having already secured three of his summer signings, I sure hope Arsène has something up his sleeve. Perhaps the suits will be twisting his arm to ensure the maintenance of their highly-prized Exec Box & Club level revenue streams?

It’s not that we require the sort of wholesale revolution that might be necessary at Anfield. The inconsistency shown by all the other runners & riders suggest that this season was a missed opportunity. Yet the source of my greatest frustration is that despite the makings of a competitive squad, there’s little, or no apparent sign of progress. With the exception of the void that appeared up front following Adebayor’s departure, the deficiencies that exist today are no different to those that we were whinging about at the beginning of this barren run. Instead of remitting next week's missive, I might just as well perm any one from four of the respective end of season reports from our recent unrequited campaigns.

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e-mail to: londonN5@gmail.com

A Little Taste Of Their Own Lilywhite Medicine

Hi folks

One of my Spurs pals sent me a text after Saturday's 0-0 saying "You should be ashamed of yourselves" and perhaps I would've been left feeling ashamed if the Gunners performance was any more tepid than any of the other Premiership teams who played this past weekend. Moreover, if we were to feel ashamed, how on earth should the City fans have felt, having schlepped all the way down from the North-West to see their team and the talented likes of Tevez hardly manage a single shot on target (mind you, according to my unreliable recollection, we only managed about two, one in each half).

At least I only had to walk around the corner to see that pile of poop and I felt sorry thinking about my pal Aidan who'd travelled all the way over from Ireland and who on top of the cost of his flights and accommodation, he had to stump up a hundred quid for a Club Level seat. Paying for our season tickets up front, I imagine we don't feel nearly so aggrieved about Saturday's game as someone who's actually been forced to fork out readies on the day?

Then again, with season ticket renewals growing increasingly imminent, with only one more home game to go before the end of the season, I can't help but wonder whether a similarly woeful display against Fulham might impact on people's propensity to renew. With so many Club Level seats going empty for all but the most high profile games, it will be interesting to see if there's still a Club Level waiting list come the end of the summer?

Then again, I assume that the cost of a huge proportion of the Club Level seats are written off as a company expense, using money which would otherwise only go to the tax man. This seems to be the only logical explanation for the number of kids to be seen screaming down from the posh seats at half-time, trying to get Gunnersaurus to fire a t-shirt up in their direction, as I simply can't believe there can be that many Gooners who can afford to pay a couple of hundred quid a match out of their own pocket to take their young progeny.

Meanwhile, win, lose or draw, the only thing I demand in return for my annual investment in the Arsenal, is the feeling that our players have left everything out on the pitch. I rarely get that sense any more, as with each passing season we are confronted with more and more incontrovertible evidence of our heroes shallow commitment to the cause, which only runs skin deep, or more accurately only as deep as the pocket containing their over-stuffed wallets.

In some respects I was a little saddened by the vitriolic reception given to Adebayor. Not that it stopped me from booing as loud, if not louder than anyone else, but then there was little else that passed for entertainment in this match than participating, or getting carried away with the "blood lust". I think back to the anecdote about Adebayor's visit to a Crouch End tattoo parlour, where he was told of the tatooist's pal who has a whole house stuffed full with Gooner memorabilia and Adebayor's interest was piqued to such an extent that a visit was arranged and the Togolese striker spent an entire evening enjoying a personal tour of this unofficial cottage museum.

The account I heard left me feeling that the man was sufficiently interested in the club's history to have a genuine appreciation of our domestic club culture. Surely this couldn't have been the same player who caused such an uproar, by revelling in the disrespect shown to his former employers and their fans up at Eastlands only a few months later? I've not read any of details in the media but my guess is that if Adebayor could turn back the clock, he probably wouldn't have gone out of his way to antagonise us Gooners in such an OTT fashion if only because no one likes to feel quite so despised.

Nevertheless, in Adebayor's failure to do the right thing that afternoon, in the same way that so many before him who've scored against former clubs have shown sufficient respect in limiting their celebrations, he just demonstrated his lack of class, adding another notch on the bedpost of disillusionment that leaves us fans ever less convinced by their insincere badge kissing antics.

I enjoyed Andrey Arshavin's innocent "I am Gooner" exclamation as much as every other Arsenal fan when the diminutive Ruski joined the club on deadline day last winter. But I've becomes so inured to the mercenary "have boots will travel" nature of the modern footballer that I don't expect any more loyalty to the Arsenal cause from Shava, than any other player who views a couple of seasons with the Gunners in terms of their post-retirement pension plan.

Having grown so cynical over the years, sadly I couldn't hear tell of the Ruski's preparedness to play through the pain barrier, unable to kick the ball with one foot at one stage this season but supposedly still turning out because we were so desperately short on strikers, without questioning the veracity of this tale. I'd love to be able to believe that there are players in this Arsenal squad who are as desperate for success as we are and who are prepared to put their bodies on the line for the Gunners cause.

I often get the feeling that Arsène's "spirit and belief" mantra is something he might make come to pass merely by repeating it enough times. But it would be a whole lot easier to swallow if there were a couple of homegrown players in the current squad. I'm not sure it's that relevant to their success as they hardly abound with more "never say die" spirit than any other squad (but perhaps this down to the fact that they are Spanish?), but I haven't stopped mentioning my envy of the dozen homegrown players and half a dozen Catalans in the current Barca squad since recently discovering this fact. Nor do I think he's a particularly brilliant player, but I would give my eye teeth for a captain with Puyol's daddy like presence at the Gunners.

Then again, I wonder would it make that much difference nowadays. Jack Wilshere was set to become the first homegrown player to figure in an influential role in the first team, since Cashley Hole. Jack's pre-season efforts were sufficiently impressive that he looked ready to grab the big time by the balls and I'm convinced that if he'd progressed as expected, there would've been no way he'd have ended up being loaned out to play in Lancashire. I can only speculate, but my guess is that Wilshere's sojourn in Bolton is intended to bring him back down to earth, because all the hype and attention had resulted in the youngster becoming a little too "big time" for his own good.

I haven't seen too much of Jack's efforts for Owen Coyle's side but the most recent highlights I've seen suggest that Wilshere's been overshadowed by the talented Man City loanee Vladimir Weiss. But then the Slovakian youngster has a lot more to play for, with his dad about to pick the Slovakian World Cup squad. Whereas the problem with so many British youngsters is that they achieve such levels of fame and fortune at such an early age, that they believe they've nothing left to prove and that sadly the intense passion and determination of youth inevitably dissipates, before they've actually achieved anything.

Because he's British, we tend to forget that Theo Walcott made his bones (influence of the recent Sopranos reruns!) at Southampton. If he was a foreign import and hadn't scored a hat-trick for England, I'm sure we would've long since lost patience with Theo. But even a level-headed kid like Theo seems to struggle to keep his feet on the ground, in the current climate of celebrity idolatry. I'm blissfully unaware of most of the football gossip because I don't tend to read newspapers nowadays. I rely on the tidbits that Róna passes on from her perusal of the bible of ostentation that is Hello magazine and I seem to recall some tale concerning Walcott's WAG, where he bought her a £140k Ferrari for her 21st birthday (who needs the key to the door when you've got a Ferrari California?) which she felt was just too flash for her to be driving in to university.

I can tell you what cars some of the Man City players drive, as I was amazed to see their flash Audis parked up outside the stadium, waiting to be keyed by any malcontent amongst either set of supporters and I imagine there must be some petrolheads amongst you who can advise me what sort of supercar Walcott can currently be found at the wheel of, but I somehow doubt it's the VW Golf he bought when he simultaneously passed his driving test and picked up his first England cap (imagine parking the Golf next to the missus Ferrari!)

Listening to Soccer Saturday on Sky this weekend, after watching the Spuds abysmal failure at Old Trafford, it seemed as if every other player mentioned was a Young Gun out on loan, with Sanchez Watt working some magic for the assist in Leeds first against MK Dons, coming only seconds after Jay Emmanuel-Thomas had scored his fifth goal since going out on loan to Doncaster and then Wilshere putting in the cross for Klasnic to score Bolton's first.

Sczcz.....our young Polish keeper continues to impress Brentford fans in the Bees 11 game unbeaten run (lord knows we could do with lad making the first team grade pronto, if he's a less timid personality than any of our three other incumbents and it's only checking for the spelling of his name on the AFC web site that I've discovered he must be a determined lad, having come back from breaking both arms in a training ground accident in 2008) and with centre-back Kyle Bartley at Sheff Utd, Jay Simpson at QPR, Henri Lansbury at Watford, Gilles Sunu at Derby and Gavin Hoyte at Brighton, surely some of these nine players who kicked such serious butt in the FA Youth Cup last season, have got to come into contention at some stage?

Meanwhile it's more than a little ironic that it's an aging old pro like Sol Campbell who's the only player to come out of the last few matches with any credit, showing the sort of stamina and determination that a few more of our squad might learn from, as he almost single-handedly flies the Gooner flag of commitment. With prospective members of Capello's World Cup squad going down like ninepins, there's even some suggestion that Sol could be an outside bet for forcing himself into contention?

But then as someone who claims such complete disinterest in salacious gossip, I suppose it's more than a little hypocritical of me to suggest that the England camp might be more than a little distracted by their efforts to keep Fabio's latest captain off the front pages of the Red Top rags with the rumours of Steven Gerrard's latest off-field exploits?

Having lingered in contention for the Premiership marathon, until hitting the wall in recent weeks and having reached a Champions League quarterfinal despite the sort of significant injuries which left us without a recognised front man for so long, ultimately I guess the Gunners have over-achieved this season, compared to what was expected of us. And yet there's little satisfaction to be gained from this, when by and large we've been allowed to do so, courtesy of the inconsistencies of others, rather than us having earned the right as a result of playing entertaining football. Since by Arsène's high standards, we've hardly enjoyed a surfeit of beautiful football this season.

Nuff of my downhearted deliberations
Big Love
Bernard

__________________________________________________

I honestly can’t recall the last time the Gunners were involved in an end of season encounter, where Spurs fans were hoping for us to do them a favour. We’ve grown accustomed to this particular shoe being on the other foot, with the Lilywhites season invariably long since over as we enter the league’s last few furlongs. Many has been the occasion when we’ve endured watching our remaining hopes of silverware ebb away, on the back of a positively heartless end of season Spurs performance, where they’ve failed to even ruffle the feathers of one of our Premiership rivals. Thus the knowledge that my Spurs pals were experiencing the sour taste of just such a disappointment was about the only consolation to Saturday’s tedious goalless draw with Man City.

You know you’ve endured an insipid 90-minutes of football, when the highlight of the afternoon has been the haranguing of Adebayor. But City were no less guilty participants in this pantomime of a competitive encounter. If it wasn’t for Nasri’s solitary effort on target just before the break, there would’ve been absolutely no material for the halftime montage on the big screens!

In some respects it was a relief that our feint hopes of maintaining a challenge had evaporated in those execrable last ten minutes of football at Wigan the previous weekend. This at least meant that Saturday’s non-event wasn’t quite so frustrating. But if the Gunners had the excuse of having nothing but pride to play for, I’m not sure how Mancini’s mob could defend a display of such apparent indifference, to the couple of thousand Mancunians who’d travelled South in the hope of fulfilling their Champions League dreams, by capitalising on what’s fast becoming our customarily woeful finishing straight form.

Whereas for us Gooners it was an afternoon of polar opposite emotions, as we welcomed back both cast-iron heroes and those who’ve cast themselves as comedic villains. With his buckwheat ‘barnet’ and harlequin style boots adorning his bandy, stockinged legs, the tall Togolese striker was entirely in-character as the puckish circus clown. Distracting the crowd from the prosaic contest on the pitch, Adebayor spent the first-half sporadically stirring up a chorus of ‘he’s behind you’ type boos, every time he came off the bench to stretch his long legs on the touchline.

A first-half which was only noteworthy for the number of times and the apparent venom in the way Kolo Touré kept clattering into the back of Van Persie. I know there’s no love lost between Kolo and Gallas and I’d forgotten how fond our Dutch striker is of hitting the deck, but for a centre-back who has always come across as a fairly laid-back character, there was more than a hint of malicious revenge in the Ivorian’s incessant harmful attentions. These were all the more perturbing with Van Persie starting his first match, following such a prolonged spell on the treatment table.

Our striker’s absence is a convenient excuse for the Arsenal coming up short, in another ‘so near but so far’ campaign. Any team would miss the world class promptings of a player of Robin’s calibre. Where Nasri (Fabregas et al) will float over the sort of set-pieces that are meat & drink to a keeper of Given’s quality, sadly there doesn’t appear to be anyone else in the current squad capable of consistently striking a dead-ball with such lethal intent. Although at the same time, Van Persie reminded us on Saturday of the age-old problem that our best striker can’t be in two places at once, whipping in corners at pace and getting on the end of them! But to my mind Robin’s more Berbatov than Rooney, stamping his class on games when given the opportunity, rather than grabbing matches by the scruff of the neck and forcing the issue week in, week out.

Having worked up the crowd with his Dick Dastardly warm up, I wonder if even Adebayor was taken aback with the frenzy of disapproval that greeted his eventual introduction soon after the break. It was positively bizarre as fifty thousand rose to give Vieira a fitting farewell ovation, applauding Paddy one moment and baying for his replacement’s treacherous blood the next. It occurred to me that Sol Campbell might have felt some sympathy, as he alone has experienced such fervent acrimony in the past.

In truth, I’m not sure one mindless goal celebration makes Ade a deserving recipient of quite such malevolent hostility, but this didn’t stop me and the majority of other fans from joining in, in the hope that in the midst of this surreal circus, a football match might break out. Sadly the sum total of the second half was Diaby’s speculative effort, leaving Shay Given writhing in agony with a dislocated shoulder, which would’ve been devastating, if only Ireland had made it to the World Cup.

Aside from a typically astute Van Persie set-piece, for me, the evidence that the scales in this Arsenal squad are weighted too far in favour of pretty passing football, to the detriment of instinctive goal-getting greed, were patently demonstrated by our failure to even try and test Given’s replacement. Without some intervention from the touchline and lacking intuitive striking nous, we neglected to adopt the shoot on sight policy, which might’ve been appropriate against a keeper with only two caps for the bloomin’ Faroe Islands (how bad does a goalie have to be, not to get picked for the Faroes?)

Perhaps it’s the cynical indifference of my advancing years or the fact that we’ve ended up in the 3^rd place doldrums, as the only team in the top half of the table with nothing to play for. But I somehow struggle to get enthused by all the hype, for what appears to be such an exciting climax on paper, when the participants’ claims concerning their lofty ambitions are thoroughly contradicted by events on the pitch. Even the most blinkered fan can’t fail to notice that their overpaid heroes have grown so fat and lazy that it’s become a struggle for them to even feign their commitment.

There was a time when all issues at the business end of the season were defined by which team wanted it the most. Whereas it would appear that nowadays it’s merely a matter of willing one’s team to lose out, in a competition of mutual indifference!

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e-mail to: londonN5@gmail.com

Our Kingdom For A Keeper

Hi folks,

The last thing any Gooner might want to see is another table in which the Gunners feature even further down than 3rd, but I've reproduced this one in response to the increasingly disconcerting rash of critics coming out of the woodwork to denigrate le Gaffer, after yet another barren season.

The evidence above of clubs nett spend on players since the inception of the Premiership, highlights Arsène's amazing achievement over the last 16 years, maintaining the Gunners as a competitive force, for a fraction of what other far less successful clubs have forked out on their squads. Moreover, in answer to the clamour from impatient Gooners, who are convinced that the solution to our silverware drought is to spunk up millions, the figures above patently demonstrate that breaking the bank to bolster one's squad brings absolutely no guarantee of success.

To the contrary, with only three domestic trophies to play for each season, many Premiership managers have mortgaged their club's future in the pursuit of self-glorification and short-term success, with little or nothing to show for all the millions they've blown on modern football's "have boots, will travel" mercenaries. Whereas the Gunners have amassed shedloads of silverware over the same period, stumping up a relative pittance by comparison.

For the most part, our minimal nett spend compared to much of the competition is a reflection of Arsène's incredibly shrewd transfer dealings. Although if these figures include all those youngsters who've gone on to forge careers elsewhere, because they were unable to make the grade with the Gunners, I wonder if they've factored in the substantial cost of their development. And if I've one regret it is that sadly (as yet!) we've had barely any homegrown players who've played their part in the disproportionately small outlay on the Arsenal's squad

With the income from the 100,000 seater Camp Nou and 12 homegrown players (inc. 6 local lads) in the current Barca squad, it's no wonder the Spanish champs can afford to blow us out of the water when competing for star players. What's more, after having endured the Arsenal's multi-cultural bouillabaisse being caught napping, when out for an afternoon stroll at the DW Stadium on Sunday, unable to regain any momentum, after Fabianski's gift gave Wigan cause to believe that there might just be a point in them turning up for the last ten minutes, I couldn't help but wonder if the Gunners would've let themselves and the travelling Gooner faithful down so badly, if there was just a soupcon of a homegrown vibe at the heart of this Arsenal squad.

Then again, the homegrown double act of Scouse scallies, Gerrard & Carragher were no less guilty of swanning around in Liverpool's encounter with the Hammers last night, a game which was no less significant for both sides than our match against Wigan, but which from what I saw (as it wasn't exactly riveting fare!) seemed to have the fervour of a testimonial match. Despite the fact that like Wigan, West Ham were supposed to be battling to avoid the relegation trap door and the Scousers should be scrabbling to secure themselves some sort of European competition next season, both sides seemed to be suffering from a severe case of end-of-seasonitis.

Perhaps I'm growing more cynical with old age, or could it be that our overpaid footballing heroes are making less and less effort to disguise the fact that far from being prepared to sweat blood for the cause, as each successive season draws to a close they're actually only prepared to make a patently obvious token effort to prove themselves vaguely interested in the fortunes of an institution which is merely viewed as their cash cow. And if they can't be bothered to expend the sort of graft necessary to prevent its demise, or to achieve the level of success necessary to keep them in the extravagant fashion that they've grown accustomed to, well then there will always be another mug along in a minute for them to feign kissy-kissy with another shirt badge.

My Spurs mates were hoping that we would get a result at Wigan, in order that we remained sufficiently interested in the title shake-up to turn it on against Man City. I'm hoping that the Gunners are going to feel sufficiently shamefaced about events on Sunday, that they feel obliged to try and make up for it by putting on a bit of a show against City.

Although I have to admit that if we were to lose this weekend and this would guarantee that the Lilywhites would be left watching Eastenders again next season instead of joining us in the Champions League (I suppose there could be room for amusement in watching them get all excited about qualifying in fourth, only for them to fall at the first knockout hurdle in August?), I for one wouldn't be so disappointed to suffer a defeat against a team where, with the potential involvement of the likes of Vieira, Kolo, Adebayor, Silvinho & Wrighty's lad, it could end up taking on the uncommitted ambience of an inter-club practice match.

Meanwhile, Arsène has to appreciate that for the majority of football fans, sound economic housekeeping doesn't rank anywhere near as important as bringing home the baubles for us to celebrate at the end of a long season. The Irish Examiner sent me a note reminding me of the deadline for our end of season report and for a moment there, in the immediate aftermath of Sunday's massive disillusionment, I felt like suggesting to the paper that they need only cut and paste any one of the corresponding missives from the previous five, ultimately disappointing campaigns, since they've all basically said exactly the same!

Jens Lehmann fell on his feet, walking into the Arsenal's Invincibles in 2004 but Jens was found out the following season. Basically since then, I have been saying that until Arsène invests in a keeper who truly possesses a world class presence, our only chance of winning the title would be by default. With Chelsea seemingly falling over themselves to throw the Premiership crown and Man Utd having one of their least impressive seasons for many a moon, we've perhaps come as close as we are ever going to come, to being gifted the title this season.

Believe me, I wouldn't have turned it down, but it would've taken some of the gloss off, if we'd have ended up being domestic champions, largely due to the inconsistencies of others. But as far as I'm concerned, until such time as Wenger addresses the goal keeping situation, instead of continuing to insist on making do with the sort of monkeys that result from only being prepared to pay relative peanuts, we will always be dependent on the charity of others.

I've referred below to Arsène's apparent blind spot between the posts and I wonder if this is related to his clinical, scientific approach to football, compared to more instinctive managers. In my humble opinion it's both part of what makes Wenger so brilliant, while at the same time being perhaps his greatest weakness. Where the likes of Mourinho might send on three subs after the break, based solely on a hunch that the changes might throw a spanner in the opposition's works, Wenger will wait until the last 15/20 minutes because his decisions are based solely on statistical analysis of perhaps his players fitness, or his subs potential for having a significant impact. Le Gaffer's approach to the game is evident in his habit of describing every single facet of football in terms of a percentage.

Seeing our goalkeeping problems through le Prof's eyes, it is perhaps the case that a top notch keeper might only improve the Gunners' goal difference by a relatively small margin and as a result, Arsène cannot see the logic in breaking the bank and spending 30 odd million quid on a goalie, who is only half a dozen goals better than what we have already. Doubtless Wenger believes he can get away with spending a hell of a lot less, on players with the ability to balance the books at the other end of the pitch.

This might make for great entertainment, but the fact of the matter is that you simply can't outscore the opposition every single week. Instead of putting so much pressure on our front men, how much better would it be, if we could count on our keeper to assume some of the responsibility, so that we are not still sat on the edge of our seats, wondering if a two goal lead will be enough because of our inability to shut shop at the back.

Arsène's pragmatism perhaps prevents him from being able to compute the real value of a world class keeper, in terms of something quite so intangible as the benefits of having a big personality between the sticks, the sort of colossus, not necessarily in size, but in stature and presence, who's capable of intimidating opposition strikers and who spreads an air of calm reassurance amongst the rest of our defence.

I can't envisage our opponents nowadays giving a monkey's about which of our far too timid triumvirate of keepers they find themselves playing against. Whereas I want a goalie who's reputations is sufficiently intimidating that opposition strikers are forced to hesitate, or to over-analyze any attempt on our goal, in the belief that they need do something a little bit special in order to beat him.

Moreover, there's often an air of calm composure between the likes of Ferdinand & Vidic, or Terry & Carvalho when they need to clear their lines at the back, which I assume is due to the fact that they have complete confidence in a keeper who is thoroughly consistent in everything they do. By contrast our centre-backs all too often seem to express the exact same feelings of blind-panic that we endure on the terraces, in their frantic efforts to address the danger whenever our defence is put under pressure, because the frequent change of keepers and the fact that all three lack the self-confidence to dominate their area, means that our defence never quite knows what to expect from the man playing behind them.

The relationship between a keeper and the two centre-backs is just about the most important one on the pitch. I don't know for a fact, but I've always had this sense that le Prof's technique in attempting to instill "unbelievable belief" in his charges, involves treating them all as adults, expecting them to have learned their trade by the time they reach the Arsenal first XI. Sadly, in my opinion, Don Howe was put out to grass soon after Arsène arrived at the club. Seemingly Howe's sergeant-major methods were bad "feng shui" and all that screaming and shouting didn't fit in with Wenger's Zen philosophy.

Arsène not only revolutionised the Arsenal, but the ripple effect of his approach to the game changed the entire face of British football. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that absolutely everything the new broom swept clean was all bad. If they do, it's certainly not apparent in their actions on the pitch, but I can't envisage the current squad spending time on the training ground, enduring the sort of regimented defensive drills that are likely to have been an integral part of Don Howe's "old-school" training technique.

I'm all for the fluid, unfettered nature of the Arsenal's beautiful football, but at the back you want players to be so well versed in their expected role in any given situation, that their actions are entirely second nature. Amongst the best defences there is no thinking time necessary because centre-backs and goalie have the sort of intuitive relationship, which means that they're instinctively aware of what each other will do.

Jens Lehmann might at least have had the sort of confrontational personality which meant that unlike the current incumbents, opposing teams were aware of his presence (Jens could start a barney in a phone box). Yet I always had the feeling that all the bluff and bluster was something of a pretense, designed to distract from the fact that underneath, the big German goalie wasn't the bravest of characters. With opposing teams having learned to disrupt our defence by having a man stand right in our keeper's face at set-pieces, where Lehmann would have a row with anyone who stood on his toes, in recent times our keepers appear content to accept this tactic, as their excuse to stop at home.

In such circumstances, with two six-foot plus players standing nose to nose, it always amuses me to see a relatively diminutive schnip of a team mate tasked with separating the two, by standing in the middle. As far as I'm concerned, it will be perfectly obvious to me when (if?) the day should ever come that Arsène ever gets around to solving our goalkeeping quandary because he'll have drafted in a goalie with the sort of dominant, intimidating personality that has his team mates requesting permission to enter his six yard box.

Moreover, he won't need any protection at set-pieces because he has sufficient confidence in his own physical presence (and the fact that the use of his arms affords him a three foot advantage) that instead of trying to get around the player obstructing his path to the ball, he will simply go through them, to either claim possession, or in the process induce the ref to award a foul.

Every season of late, I've tried to find comfort in the thought that our success would've only enabled Arsène to paper over the cracks, hoping that our failure would at least force our manager's hand and his short arms, into long pockets, in order to address the more obvious of our squad's deficiencies. Sadly I've been proved wrong, as each summer Arsène has shown himself to be a mean pontoon player, preferring to stick instead of twisting and potentially going bust.

With his tendency to keep a tight rein on the purse strings, as if he was spending his own daughter's inheritance, I keep hoping that Arsène's frugality is due to a basic lack of spondulicks, rather than him being parsimonious by nature. With each passing season I expect the club to have reached the promised land, where all those highly profitable revenue streams from our new stadium and the purported additional £3 million per match begins to have some impact on the Gunners purchasing power. After all, since I already had my guaranteed (and far superior) pitch at my former home of football, this was the principal basis on which we were sold the new stadium project.

Meanwhile I've been waffling on for so long that Barcelona have lost to Inter since I began this lengthy preamble. I don't want to sound too smug, but in all the slaverish "best ever club side" type praise that followed our pumelling in Spain, I said that I fancied that the paucity of the Arsenal's performance would only be truly reflected in the fact that Barca were likely to make a lot harder work of defeating Mourinho's aging mob.

Driving down Aubert Park these past few gloriously bright sunny mornings, as I approach the bottom of the hill, the backdrop of a cloudless blue sky is suddenly filled with vista of the new stadium and the looming mural of the backs of the likes of Mclintock, Bould, Parlour and Rice, framed by the new apartment developments on either side.

It's a sight which has moved me to wonder what on earth some of these old Arsenal legends would make of the sort of limp-wristed displays that pass for end of season commitment from their modern day counterparts?

Come on you Reds
Bernard

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If there’s one thing that never fails to amaze me, it’s a football fans eternal propensity to rebound from the very depths of heart-rending disillusionment. In light of the array of significant injuries that have exposed the limitations of Arsène’s squad and all the pre-season predictions that we’d be the team most likely to end up in Liverpool’s predicament, until we were banjaxed by Barca, I felt that by and large the Gunners hadn’t done so bad, managing to stick around to the end of the season, like a not so malodorous smell. But it’s all gone pear-shaped since our capitulation in Catalunya, culminating in our disgraceful demise at the DW Stadium on Sunday.

Whereas by contrast if I was a cock-a-hoop Spurs fan, after their remarkable derby win double this past week, I couldn’t help but wonder how it is that my side suddenly bears absolutely no recognition to the team of impostors who threw in the towel against Pompey at Wembley?

Hard as they tried, my Spurs mates couldn’t get much of a rise out of me after our Derby debacle. For all their gloating about scuppering the Gunners last glimmer of a title challenge, their incessant leg-pulling wasn’t nearly so excruciating, when a Premiership trophy this season has always seemed little more than a pipe-dream.

Obviously I would’ve rather it had happened absolutely anywhere else but White Hart Lane, but in some respects there was almost a certain sense of relief to the perceived finality of events last Wednesday night. The length of the pole has been extended and retracted game by game, in direct proportion to the inconsistencies of the other two main contenders, but there was some solace in the belief that we had at least seen the last of this unattainable carrot that’s been dangling from it all season long.

If this Gooner Dobbin was in any danger of believing that there was still some slight chance of sinking my oversized molars into that juicy Premiership carrot, all such feint hopes of glory evaporated, the moment Vermaelen limped off the Lilywhite’s field of dreams, 1-0 down, after only 20 mins.

I couldn’t have been more wrong to mock Sol Campbell's comback. Faster, stronger and more committed than many players nearly half his age, Sol’s reminded us that unlike the majority of our decimated squad, he still retains plenty of the 'right stuff’ aura of a genuine title-winner. The Gunners have proved positively porous in Alex Song’s absence, with Sol’s unstinting resolve all too often the only bulwark between a potential landslide of embarrassment prompted by his team mates flaccid efforts.

Meanwhile I couldn’t escape this image of Fergie falling off his sofa for the second successive week, laughing hysterically at the success of his secret weapon, having successfully slipped the handicap that is Mikael Silvestre into the Arsenal camp - a defensive time-bomb designed to implode just at the point of maximum, devastating impact. Gawd love him, Silvestre might’ve scored on Sunday but for the most part he should be playing in a hooded cloak and carrying a scythe, having acquired the mantle of our very own Grim Reaper! Personally I’d much prefer to see the likes of Kyle Bartley, or any of the Gunners’ youngsters given a go, than to suffer the torment of Peanut Head’s obvious limitations.

Having skulked back down the Seven Sisters Road after our midweek humiliation, needless to say, there wasn’t too much Gooner gusto for Sunday’s crack of dawn departure for a lunchtime encounter with Wigan. After Wednesday’s ‘too little, too late’ cameo display from our much missed Dutch striker, the prospect of Van Persie starting his first match since November was perhaps the only saving grace for a long schlep to the North-West.

With inconsistency the only consistent element in this topsy-turvy campaign, even if Robin had remained fit there’s no guarantee that his contribution would’ve made a considerable difference; especially with le Gaffer’s current fixation on a 4-5-1 formation. Nevertheless, Van Persie’s introduction for the last 23 minute against Spurs was like turning on a light. Our tempestuous front-man immediately produced the sort of scintillating skills that highlighted exactly what we’ve missed these past four months from Arsène’s motley selection of pinch-hitters. By contrast to the delicate artistry of our Dutch thoroughbred, suddenly Bendtner, looked a clumsy, leaden-footed Danish dray horse.

In the past, the Gunners could often be guaranteed 'to get their groove on' with the sun on their backs. With Chelsea seemingly intent on stumbling over the finishing line, following their unconvincing efforts against Spurs, we’d not quite seen the last of the carrot. Myself I would’ve much preferred to see Van Persie and perhaps a big stick! Judging by the apparent apathy on display, for 80 insipid minutes on Sunday, it was hard to believe the home team were playing for their Premiership survival and that fate had left the door ajar, for the Gunners to make one last push for glory.

I’m sure this was far from being the only Premiership game with an ‘end of season’ feel, in spite of incredibly high stakes, where loyal fans on the verge of a nervous breakdown are forced to suffer the indolent efforts of overpaid mercenaries, who are already more focused on the prospect of working on their tans, or self-glorification in South Africa this summer.

Up until Fabianski’s costly fumble, it felt as if Wigan might as well have handed us 3 points. Instead of both sides merely going through the motions, we could’ve avoided the expense of a costly outing and all enjoyed a leisurely lie-in. Doubtless many Gooners will believe our Polack keeper culpable, but his momentary cock-up was symptomatic of an overall lack of concentration that's eventually brought the curtain down on another barren season. It’s not so much the defeat that bothers me, but the depressing fact that our season has expired with a shameful whimper, when the very least loyal Gooners deserve is a far more fervent bang for our hard-earned bucks.

Having gifted Wigan their Premiership lifeline, while hardly winning friends amongst the Hammers, Hull & Burnley faithful, how many more seasons will we have to endure our prospects of silverware floundering on a triumvirate of powder-puff goalies, before le Gaffer gets dragged to the opticians, kicking and screaming, to cure his genuine blind spot when it comes to the Gunners desperate need for dominant personality between the posts.

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