Is anyone else starting to wonder if the young guns are actually out-performing the senior team?  Granted, the United result was brilliant but other than that we've been average to abysmal all season.  In case you need reminding we lost to Fulham, Hull and even fucking Stoke.  We are 10 times better than any of these teams on paper so why aren't we smashing goals past them?  The first team always seem like they're lacking a certain drive to win and are happy in the knowledge that they can individually have an average game and still be picked next week.  I've always defended A Weng his team pretty much picks itself.  Without injuries the only decision he ever has to make is whether to play Walcott or Eboue, which most Arsenal fans feel is an obvious choice anyway.  Can you really see him dropping Adebayor? No. RVP? No. Gallas? No chance, and all these players have been guilty of playing below par or complacently this season.  Even Fab's had an iffy start but I'm not suggesting for a second that Wenger drops him.  He always gives his all.

However, as a sub plot to all this gloom and doom we've had two rays of sunlight.  Both in the Carling Cup.  The first, a 6-0 thrashing of Sheffield United, was beyond belief.  Yes, we did get praised for it but it was also written off as an easy game.  Hold up.  Sheffield United are currently 4th in the championship and have been performing consistently well the whole season.  They could quite likely be the Stoke of the 2009/2010 season and the kids walked over them like they weren't there.  To back this up then came Tuesday night's Wigan game which has been reported on enough but no-one has looked beyond the fact it was the Carling Cup.  I genuinely believe that the first team would have come close to or actually messed up one of these ties given their current form.

Some people are calling for some of the kids to be given a chance in the league and I heard ex-Arsenal man Alan Smith say that he thought 2 or 3 of the kids may make it into the first team squad in the long run.  Not sure if he's been watching the same games as me?  I know it would never happen but I'd love to see Wenger drop the entire first team for a league match and see how the kids fair.  Even if they didn't win it might wake the 'big boys' up a bit and realise that they aren't untouchable.

TP.

Afterthought: Dropping the entire first team is ridiculous.  I just wish they could play with the same desire as the young guns!

vs Manchester United at The Grove

F*ckin’ Get In!!! Well well well…Saturday was a nice surprise. And before I start just let me say if it wasn’t for Bendtner up front we may have been celebrating the biggest win over United for years and years and years. He was bad, so SO bad…he was indecisive, he lacked composure, lacked vision, and towards the end he even gave up chasing the ball and putting pressure on the defence which had been his only positive all game…and that’s all im gonna say on Nicklas..quite simply awful....

Now, don’t get me wrong, we should be thankful to United for being so wasteful, we didn’t dominate or anything, but when we had the ball we were fantastic. When we didn’t have it we were much improved, and despite a few occasions it being glaringly obvious we lacked someone to sit infront of the defence on the whole we defended well as a unit. Obviously Nasri was the stand out player, and he just produced what he has been building up to already in his impressive early days as an Arsenal player. The goals from the midfield that we lacked last season maybe? Fabregas was creative and worked hard to not forget his defensive duties. Walcott batteld away and his most memorable moment - a superb slide tackle on Patrice Evra - was unfortunately followed up by giving the ball away and letting Anderson through to have a shot at Almunia’s goal. Speaking of Almunia, he did ok, but when Fabianski came on with time running out, when we needed to keep the confidence that we could hold on the youngster made at least 2 superb catches to kill the attack when you feel that Manuel may have chosen to punch and the pressure would have still been on. The defence worked well together for the first time and it was probably Silvestre’s best defensive performance since he moved from Utd. I thought that my conspiracy theory had been right after a few seconds when he played a criminally short back pass to Almunia who’s bleached brain cells didn’t have the capacity to remember the back pass rule and picked it up at Rooney’s feet. Fortunately we got away with it and Silvestre worked hard to make it up. Gallas was pretty solid and actually got caught on camera a couple of times doing leadershippy type things, could have been my imagination though….

This match was different to matches we have struggled in recently and really sums up why we tend to be ok against teams that we aren’t expected to beat and struggle against the underdogs. United like to play football. They come at you and that allowed us to play our own game. We struggle when teams set up to just snuff us out and that’s the problem that we need to work on solving if we are to make ourselves title contenders. That plan B that gives us the cutting edge. The other thing is the ability to kill games off, such as on Saturday when United were throwing everything forward and with a bit more composure we could have created several goals on the counter attack. We need to make sure we finish our chances and make sure we take the chance to make chances when it arrives….

So overall a good performance topped off by a fantastic second goal for Nasri which showed all the teams positives - we were patient in the build up, we switched it around, the movement off the ball was good, the passing was precist, we made the space and for once the finish was emphatic! Superb goal. Just a mention to Rafael Da Silva who looked good for United, and continued the Premiership’s trend of scoring wonder goals against us. My prediction of goal of the season featuring all the goals being against Arsenal is still on. 

And so to Wigan…Stick with the kids Arsene…D3   

vs Fenerbahce at the Grove

Well it was bonfire night, but there were no fireworks at Ashburton last night. The performance was an improvement but in the second half we lacked imagination and seemed void of ideas on how to break down the defensive Turks. In the first half we created clear chances on numerous occasions. These are the kind of chances that we need to start taking 9 times out of 10, not once.

Aswell as the forced changes, Wenger found his balls for once and made some changes for the better. He dropped the suddenly awful again Almunia and went with our young Pole Fabianksi between the sticks. He looked more assured on crosses, attacking the ball with confident punches, and got down well on a few occasions to make smart stops. One occasion when Fenerbahce tried to counter attack he made the wrong decision to stay when he should have been playing the sweeper role, but had the shot well covered in the end so will live to play another game. Im sure Wenger will restore Almunia to no1 for the Utd match but it was a good assured performance and a clean sheet for Lukasz. Into the defence and Wenger finally brought in Djourou to the middle alongside Silvestre with Toure occupying the right back berth. Johan made the difference as far as im concerned and was the reason for the improvement in the defensive performance. When crosses came over he attacked the ball, dominating the area and not allowing the Bahce players time on the ball. Toure played well at right back and although he's no Sagna, he's looked weak at centre half recently and looked more comfortable galloping down the wing. A few good crosses came over from here and he always was there offering support. Up to the midfield and Wenger included Aaron Ramsey from the start. The youngster had a good game until he was replaced towards the end. He didnt have the creative influence he may have liked but he slotted in well and certainly wasnt a weakness. Nasri was impressive as always but sometimes struggled to get his passes through the two banks of four infont of him. Van Persie ran his socks off, all night, trying to make up for last weekends stupidity it appeared, and just lacked the goal after failing to take a couple of chances and being superbly denied by defender and then goalkeeper on a couple of other occasions. Bendtner was shocking. Really bad last night. Just wasnt at the races even more so than usual. Im so annoyed that Vela didnt come on sooner as when he did we had already ran out of energy and ideas and whatever he tried just didnt seem to come off.

With Bendtners failure to perform last night i really fear for us on Saturday. We're not that great at defending and now cant attack either. With Eduardo, RVP, Walcott and Adebayor all out, i fear Wenger is going to do something mental like leave Vela on the bench and play Bendtner up top solo with Diaby supporting or something along those lines. I fear for us in that situation. I really do.....

Til then...D3

vs Stoke at the Brittania Stadium

We lost. against stoke. 2 goals conceded from Rory Delaps long throws. The defence proved again how fragile they are. Wengers starting line-up was shocking. We also lost our ability to outscore the opponents. It wasnt good enough. We have Fenerbache and Man Utd this week. We are most likely to be without Theo, Bacary (both devastating losses) & Adebayor (normally that wouldnt be bad) but Van Persie will be suspended after his moment of stupidness which leaves us with Bendtner (oh dear) and will produce a chance for Vela but its kind of throwing him in at the deep end. We MIGHT scrape through against the Turks but Man U's attack against our defence...we better be really careful or we are gonna get absolutely hammered! I have nothing more to say on the match itself. I want to move on and forget about it as quickly as possible.

Facing up to the fact that this season we just aren't gonna be title contenders...D3