• How long have you been an Arsenal fan? Most answered with a date range of when Wenger was already on board.
• How do you think we fix the current situation? This one was simple, most answered with “Wenger out!”
• And of course my final question was, who should replace him? The answer was something along the lines of what crickets do, “chirp, chirp, chirp.” They gave answers I’ve seen in this blog from some, as well as some showing their knowledge or lack thereof of who could actually be a suitable replacement with all things considered at AFC(transfer budget, wage caps, style, etc.)

So you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this? Well here’s where I’m going. The overgrown dissent amongst Arsenal fans that I’ve seen of late seems to be common with those who have only seen the glory years of this club i.e. the last decade and not what I consider the dark years. As an Arsenal long, its difficult for people like myself, some posters in here like ‘Tom’ and a few other objective thinkers, to see the backlash against a manager who brought us back from those dark years. With that said, I am not going to say the Professor is without guilt here. He is as much as part of the current problem as he WILL be as part of the solution. The difference in what I believe and what I’m finding the “Arsenal fan opposition” to believe in is simply that I still trust in our manager to fix the situation.

The following will be my first of two posts about the outlay of the current affairs at our club amongst our players and staff, as well as how we WILL climb out of this funk and head back in the right direction…

Part I: Current Table and Season Outlook
A quick look at the table currently and you’ll find Arsenal in a dismal 10th place…

An objective person would look at this table and would see that just as well as the Arsenal being in 10th place, the 3rd place team is a mere 5 points off ahead of AFC. That’s precisely 2 matches difference. Someone with a little more knowledge of the league would also see that the clubs ahead of us up to 3rd place have easily shown the same inconsistencies we have, but have managed to eek out a win or two more whereas we’ve drawn those matches. We were never, ever going to challenge for the league this year, I’m fairly certain we all know that. If your expectation was as such, well that’s another argument to be have, but for now we’ll stick to this season & the current affairs.

Looking ahead for the season, the outlook from most is that we’re not strong enough to finish in the top 4. To that I say, fair enough, but we’ve played 15 matches, are only 5 points behind 3rd, and I know that we have the quality in the team to achieve the feat. Will it be a hard fougt, tooth & nail struggle to the 3rd/4th spot? MOST DEFINITELY. Can this Arsenal team do it? MOST DEFINITELY. I mean, why not? We are no worse than the other clubs ahead of us like I said, and we’ve already seen the scoring power in this team, if we can get the run of confidence that is so direly needed and figure out how to bring back that cutting edge, I think you can objectively see the team has every much as chance as CFC or West Brom (yeah right) or Everton or the Spuds.

Part II: Staff Issues – Quick & Long Term Fixes
So now that we can all agree that AFC still has a reasonable possibility to make top 4 (I know, I know not good enough, we should be competing for the title!), let’s move on to the root of our current funk – the combination of squad implosion & lack of confidence and the questionable managerial decisions being made.

As much as many want to put an emphasis of blame on the manager, the professor, the guy who wears that Marshmellow Man jacket, I beg to differ to some extent (note the “some extent”). Look, I know Arsene is not without fault, and I’ll actually dive into some of the faults I’ve seen recently where a few magical tweaks could be the difference between a draw and a win, but to put the level of blame people have on him might seem fair, but I think he deserves the opportunity to fix this situation. If he cannot fix it this season, then even the “longs” would be on board to say it’s probably time to at least start looking at who a suitable replacement would be. Beyond that, I’m baffled at the treatment of Wenger by Arsenal “fans”. I honestly have lost a bit of respect for the some Arsenal fans even in my circle, because this is not the way you treat a man who has given us quite a bit and this is not the way THEE ARSENAL FAN REPRESENTS HIMSELF.

Arsene’s current faults mostly come in the form of squad selection in my opinion and could be remediated in the short term rather easily. First off, and I’m sure I’ll receive some backlash for this, but Ramsay should NOT, I repeat should NOT be starting for Arsenal. He is not of the starting quality for a team competing for top 4 honors. As I’ve said before, if he’s ok with being a rotational, squad/depth player then we have use for him, but beyond that, I’m sorry but I’m thoroughly tired of seeing his poor runs, poor control, poor crosses, poor lobs time and time again. He might have had a glimmer of prospect before his horrific injury, but sadly I think that really took the momentum he built up and I’m not sure if he’ll ever find it again, at least not with Arsenal.

Secondly, we’ve got to stop playing Gervinho centrally. We were very lucky and I think duped into believing he could with his early season exploits, but it’s become apparent now, he’s far better played as a winger and wide (we finished 3rd last season with him there), than having him central and missing an 8 yard, open header. In my humble opinion, I fully understand having to give players a rest (i.e. Giroud), but we really should be using a guy like Podolski centrally who has a ton of familiarity in the role with prior clubs and has a good goal scoring record to boot. Hell, even if we’re going to sell Walcott, for the mere purposes of trying to salvage the season, I think Wenger may finally give him the go centrally to see if he’s up to par (I personally don’t think he will be, but that’s not for me to decide).

Lastly, as good as Arteta was for us last season and earlier this season, I think we need to let him come forward a bit more. He’s one of the best passers on our team, and I think we could use his cutting edge. I alluded to this in his post-season assessment and I think if he’s free to roam a bit, our creative juices might start to flow again. Cazorla has been a godsend, but I think he can’t be absolutely and definitively our sole creator because defenses are wising up to us.

That last statement, “defenses are wising up to us” is probably the biggest culprit for our issues in offense right now. It’s time to get a little creative and I know this is Wenger’s biggest fault right now. He’s going to have to start thinking outside of the box again like he did when he first came to the club. I could be wrong and it could be too late as he might be too adament about his ways, but I still give the Professor the benefit of the doubt in this department to turn things around for Arsenal Football Club. I’m still firmly in the category of “IN ARSENE WE TRUST”, but fail to get us back into the top 4 le Profess and even your most ardent supporters (Perry S., Tom, Gigi & Sh31kh to some extent) will probably be saying it’s time to look into a change.

For the long term fix and future outlook, I think we are actually starting to see some of that in action already and will continue to see a revolution at Arsenal, even as soon as January. We obviously do need further, quality investments into the club and I think come January we’ll be seeing a player or two coming in and at least a player leaving. The continued effort and expunging of the old and the insertion of new is absolutely the right direction for Arsenal. We’ve got an incredibly brilliant group of homegrown youngsters who are hungry and will get better with every match played, but equally we’ve got to surround them with the Artetas and Cazorlas, the Mertesackers and the Poldolskis of the footballing world. The expecation laid upon AFC is always going to be high, but I think it’s not unreasonable to say we should at least temper our expectations a bit while the we work through these growing pains of gelling a new squad together. The least you can do the “longs” is look back at the last 30-40 years of Arsenal history, and then look at what we have now, I could stretch to say you might consider yourself fortunate. With that said, I’m definitely not saying we should be satisfied, not nearly the case as I fully expect a classy, hard working, quality team fielded yielding positive results in most situations. BUT, and a big BUT (I like big BUTs, what can I say?), to essentially turn your back on the manager not even half way through the season puts you in the class of a Chelsea or City fan, probably the worst fan there is. We compete, we stick behind the team, the staff, until the last day of the season and then assess the situation then. The players and staff need us, they really do. So I’m looking to you match goers out there, don’t boo the team or manager, be frustrated, vent it, be angry, vent it, but support the classy club that is Arsenal FC, so you can have the opportunity to say you supported them through thick and thin.

On a final note for this first part of the two part post, Arsenal is making good strides towards offloading the “deadwood” contracts (some expiring, some sales, and some “permanent” loans). Combine that with the new Emirates deal, the stadium debts being paid off, the new players on contract, some additonal player resources coming in, and I still see a good future for the team. I’m far more of a fan of consistency than I am of a funding a trophy only to see us drop to 12th the following season and risk further obscurity with poor financial decisions. We’re not Chelsea, we’re not City, and we’re not United, we just don’t have that owner who will give fuck all to buy himself a trophy. We do things the right way at Arsenal and because of that we have remained consistent for ever so long. As I said above and I’ll conclude at this, if we somehow don’t finish with UCL this year, then I won’t question anyone who says it might be time for a change up top, but until then, we owe it to Arsene, Bould, and the team to work their way back from mid-table obscurity to top 4, and still the possiblity for a cup.

I look forward to your comments, upwards and onwards Gunners, upwards and onwards!

Perry S.

Predicted Arsenal Starting XI: Szczesny; Sagna, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Vermaelen; Arteta, Cazorla, Wilshere; Walcott, Giroud, Podolski

Match streaming can be found @ atdhenet.tv (or directly: http://atdhenet.tv/55917/watch-everton-vs-arsenal)

I expect a hard fought, exciting match as I stated in yesterday’s preview. Both clubs are desperate for the win, so I expect to see some good scoring chances at both ends.

Come on you Gunners! Chat you guys in the Liveblog…

Let me start with a quote from our beloved Gigi via Arseblog:
“There’s obviously been lots of discussion about Villa and where it all went wrong over the last few days. And perhaps it’s a sign of the times that it all going wrong is a 0-0 draw. As frustrating as it was it’s not the worst result in the world, and maybe at a time when Arsenal fans can find the cloud in every situation, we need to look at the silver lining a bit.” Moving on from that draw and the angst that ensued from some, I’d like to fiddle this little fact your way: Arsenal, fresh off a scoreless draw with Aston Villa Saturday, are unbeaten in their last five matches. To add, even though we did not score against Villa, we have scored 10 goals in our 3 prior matches including the thumping of the Spuds and the end-to-end win against Montpellier.

So while we sit in 6th place right now, “the season of no defending” has us sitting only 1 point behind 5th, 5 points behind 4th, and 6 points behind 3rd. Doom and gloom? I think not.

Moving on to tomorrow’s matters then, shall we…

Everton has again shown they have a fighting spirit. A favorite of mine led by who I’d like to succeed Arsene at some point, Moyes’ club started off in the league with a scintillating start at 4-1-1 start, but have since tapered off and have the Gunners and Spuds right behind them. A win and the Toffees can buy some breathing room. Everton have not lost in six home EPL matches this season, but their recent run in the league (just one win since September) could soon put a notch in the loss column.

Belgian star Marouane Fellaini without a doubt has been the shining start at Goodison Park and will be the main man our boys will have to mark. Considering after playing us, Everton have to deal with the likes of Manchester City and Tottenham, this match will have a significant level of importance for them, so I fully expect them to be at their best.

For our boys, coming off a hard-fought & frustrating performance on Saturday, I expect the squad to be ready for this big match. A win here obviously moves us up the table and a step closer to 4th, but will be significantly important since this will be the start of a 4 match crunch of matches. Everton first up tomorrow, then Saturday we’re home against Swansea, come Tuesday we’re away in Greece for our final group match in the UCL, and then finally conclude the crunch that Saturday against current 3rd place holders, West Brom. So take all of that in, and then realize that this could be the most difficult stretch of matches for us thus far, so starting off with a win is vitally important for: standings, morale, and overall momentum.

The biggest problem I see of late is the struggle to find room to roam for Arteta and Cazorla, our Spanish wonders. If they can unlock some space, then the trouble with scoring away from home – just two all season – should start to be resolved. On our side is the current form of Giroud and Poldi, both showing they are finding their footing in the EPL after a slow start to the season. Giroud, in particular, has been incredibly impressive not only on the front, but his defensive acumen is blatantly apparent. Nothing more I love than seeing a big, tall striker being involved on both ends of the pitch. On the defensive end, it’s great to see Gibbs back giving us a better distributor on crosses than we’ve seen of late, and showing solidarity with our other boys back there. With Gibbs healthy, we are now able to field our strongest back 4 since the start of the season, and also have additional, quality depth on the bench.

The greatest challenge for our boys at this pivotal point in the season is finding the right balance between attack and defence. If we’re able to find this balance, then we’ll surely find the form and start gathering points in heapings, hopefully starting that “W” tally tomorrow.

In health news: It sounds like Walcott may be back in contention for tomorrow’s match after suffering a shoulder injury against the Spuds which held him from play against Montpellier and Villa. Rosicky is back in training (YEAH!) and will be back with the first team in the next 2 weeks after getting a few matches with the reserves. Diaby is still a month out, so nothing new there and there are no other injury concerns that I am aware of at this time. *KNOCK ON WOOD* if you read that.

Perry’s (bold) prediction: Arsenal 3 – Everton 1. Goodison Park is one of the toughest grounds to go to in the Premier League, but we have a great record there, winning our last three visits. In fact, Arsenal have not lost a league game at Merseyside since March 2007.

Match starts at 2:45 EST. Streaming will likely be found @ atdhenet.tv. LiveBlog will be up and running tomorrow during the course of the match, so I look forward to your comments below and your participation in the LB!

UP THE ARSE!!

Arsenal are fresh from two consecutive victories; the 5-2 win over Tottenham in the league and our midweek UCL 2-0 victory over French champions Montpellier. We MUST find a way to use this boost to our advantage because today is as good as any to make up some ground and inch closer to 4th (and hopefully continue our run to fight our way to 3rd).

Many of our players – Cazorla, Giroud, Poldi, Walcott – are in great form at the moment, so I don’t doubt we will pose a great threat for Villa, who have only 1 win in their last 6 Premier League games.

Aston Villa will be hoping to take advantage of our leaky defence which is always suspect to letting in the odd goal or two. Even when we thought we sealed the win against the Spuds, somehow we gave them hope…hopefully we can keep a clean sheet today as it’s good as any opportunity to do so. Although we have conceded a total of 13 goals in 12 games, our defence is still on paper one of the best in the league due to our 3 clean sheets at the start of the campaign.

We will need to keep our eye on Villa striker, Christian Benteke, the Belgium whom Arsenal targeted over the summer. He’s a pretty dynamic striker, so if he finds some space, he could give us trouble. Darren Bent is may return from injury for Villa, but would start on the bench if he does make it back.

Team News

Arsene Wenger confirmed that Theo Walcott remains out with a shoulder injury picked up in the win over Spurs. Andre Santos is also out with a stomach problem, but Kieran Gibbs and Gervinho are both back in contention after returning from injury to be on the bench against Montpellier.

Abou Diaby is still four weeks away from fitness, but Tomas Rosicky is due back on Monday. I’m really excited to see Rosicky coming back!

Arsenal Lineup:
Starters: Wojciech Szczesny, Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny, Carl Jenkinson, Kieran Gibbs, Mikel Arteta, Lukas Podolski, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Aaron Ramsey, Olivier Giroud, Santi Cazorla

Subs: Vito Mannone, Bacary Sagna, Thomas Vermaelen, Jack Wilshere, Francis Coquelin, Andrei Arshavin, Gervinho

Big surprise I must say to see both Sagna and Verm on the bench today, very unWenger-like. However, definitely a good opportunity to have some squad rotation today and rest some players. I’m also glad to see Jack on the bench, and likely subbed in later in the match. Can’t stress enough that he needs to continue to be gradually eased in. Very nice to see we’ve got some players coming back from injury to give us some much needed depth. Can’t wait to see Rosicky back in the team in the next few weeks.

Prediction:
Arsenal 2 – Villa 1

Match starts at 12:30 EST and can be streamed here: http://atdhenet.tv/

Chat you guys in the LiveBlog…COME ON YOU GUNNERS!!

Lineups are:
Starters: Szczesny; Sagna, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Koscielny; Arteta, Wilshere; Walcott, Cazorla, Podolski; Giroud
Subs: Mannone, Jenkinson, Santos, Coquelin, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arshavin

You will notice Wojo is back in goal and Wilshere is back after his 1 game suspension. We are fielding likely our strongest squad we’ve got outside of Gibbs absence in the back, so I really hope our players are up for today’s match. On paper we are a better team that the Spuds, but we all know that doesn’t mean much of late. My only hope is that the unnecessary mid-week international friendlies haven’t fatigued our players such as Santi (though he was an unused sub).

For Tottenham, interesting that all of the Americans on the squad have been dropped to the bench, and Lloris is getting a big start today. Let’s hope we make him wish he joined Arsenal and not the Spurs. We will need to be very cautious of Tottenham’s squad, however, with their formation today being 4-4-2 with both Ade and Defoe both starting up front.

Anyhow, UP THE ARSE and we start in 10 minutes! Catch you guys in the chat…

So on to my post. I was going to do something yesterday. I sat down at my computer and couldn’t work out what to write. I mean, what is there to say? The game on the weekend was very disappointing, and in general, our season is looking very disappointing. I am getting a bit upset about it to be honest.

I sat down on Sunday night and watched a recording of the match with my girlfriend. She doesn’t know a great deal about the game, let alone Arsenal. I was telling her that Arsenal never score from corners, and as such I count a corner as a lost opportunity. Within minutes we scored from a corner. I have to say that I was pretty happy. Next up was Arteta (I think) who did really well in the box to tee up Podolski for the tap in. 2-0.

I then explained to my partner that I was still nervous, as Arsenal are renown for giving up big leads, and this time Arsenal didn’t fail to deliver. Some poor defending and some very poor play from Arteta lead to us being down against a clear mid-table side after having a very solid lead. How can we go from having a very solid defence (best in the league) and unable to score, to the opposite of each in one game?

Giroud scored a second and put us level, but I just had this feeling that we wouldn’t be able to go in front. Then we got a penalty. Being Australian, I am quite familiar with Mark Schwarzer’s ability to stop penalties, and I honestly didn’t think that Arteta was our man. He would have been a bit low on confidence after giving away the penalty earlier in the match, and as such I thought Giroud or Cazorla would have been the better option. Podolski would have been even better.

Anyway, I’m sure you all know how that ended up, and we don’t need to go over it again. I guess the fact that it shouldn’t have been a penalty didn’t bother me too much given what happened to us at Old Trafford last weekend. At the same time I thought we deserved the win (despite the commentary claiming Fulham deserved the win).

One thing I did take from the game was that we really could have done with signing Berbatov. I know it would have cost us 15 million pounds over two years, but I think given the money we brought in over the summer from selling another goal scorer, it really would have been worth it. An experienced striker up top would have been very handy. I’m not going to be too critical of the fact that we didn’t sign him though, I guess its a lot of money to pay for an older player, and I can’t say I’m that familiar enough with the guy to get stuck in over us not signing him. It is purely an observation.

And on that topic, Julio Cesar claimed this week that he was in contact with Arsenal before his late move to QPR about a potential move. I guess there are two ways to look at this: it is good that the club are actually trying to get hold of an experienced, quality keeper to provide some competition to Szczesny. The other way of looking at it, is why didn’t Arsenal sign him if we were interested. Was this a Schwarzer incident all over again? Did he not have faith in where the club was going? I am more in favour of the latter to be honest. He claims he moved to QPR because of their ‘project’, but I am more inclined to believe that he was offered a bigger pay packet by QPR. Whether that was because they made him an excessive offer, or because we weren’t offering what he was worth, we will never know.

Anyway, back to the present.

So here we are. The worst start Arsenal have ever made in the Premier League. Last season was worse thanks to that drubbing, but at the same time, after the deadline signings, there was always hope. Last season we had Robin, and this season we don’t. I can’t speak for everyone, but I just don’t feel like we have hope this season. That is really concerning.

Looking at the table and seeing that we are only 4 points out of the top four is nice I guess. But the bottom line is that I am not even really paying much attention to the three teams above that fourth spot. We are only 11 matches into the season and we are as many points away from the leader.

I’ll leave it at that for today. I need to get to training, but I will put up a better post tomorrow I think, a bit more structured.

Thanks for reading.

Lineups are in and we’re fielding a very strong one indeed. Not sure if it’s truly due to his weekend debacle – not only his play, but his poor shirt swapping decision – but as expected, Santos has been dropped from the starters and replaced with the captain at LB. Thank god the rumors weren’t true and Djourou is on the bench because my jaw dropped when I heard he might replace Ramsey who picked up an injury over the weekend. Also, you’ll all be happy to notice Walcott overcame his weekend illness and is starting today. First start in the UCL this season, show us what you’ve got Walcott.

Starters: Mannone, Sagna, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Arteta, Wilshere, Walcott, Cazorla, Podolski, Giroud.
Subs: Shea, Santos, Djourou, Coquelin, Arshavin, Jenkinson, Chamakh.

Match starts at 2:45 and is being televised internationally on many outlets. Links for streaming can be found at atdhetv.net

Look forward to chatting with you guys shortly…off to grab some lunch…

COME ON YOU GUNNERS, YOU OWE THIS ONE!

For United, our ex-captain Robin van Persie will lead the line for the Red Devils and Rooney the Cabbage Patch Kid assuming a deeper role once again, with additional support from Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young on the wings. Shinji Kagawa and Vidic are still out for United while Phil Jones and Chris Smalling are both nearing a return, with some pundits saying one or both could feature tomorrow. I have my doubts over both starting, so hopefully our team can take full advantage of a still weakened United defence.

We will have to cope without our top scorer in the league, Gervinho, after he injured his ankle in his substitute appearance against QPR last week, which likely means Wenger will stick with the team that forced a late win over QPR.

With Gibbs still out, Santos will continue at left-back, while Vito Mannone will start in goal as Wojo continues his rehab. If there was one area I’d say I’m extremely concerned about being exploited tomorrow, it’s that of back left. Santos has shown us nothing to put confidence in him this season, and you have to believe Fergie’s match plans are to exploit this very area. I really do hope Wenger really reinforces the importance of “staying put” to Santos tomorrow, otherwise we might be in for a long match.

Theo Walcott is pushing for a start after his Capital One Cup heroics against Reading, but it is more likely he will/could be used as a substitute after featuring for all 120 minutes midweek.

The guess for starters would be (will update before match start): Mannone; Sagna, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Santos; Wilshere, Arteta; Cazorla, Ramsey, Podolski; Giroud

Honestly, I wish we had a more useful option than Ramsey as he’s shown us time again he’s not up to par for the “big” matches in the season, and all we can hope for is that he and Santos play to their roles, not getting too fancy, and just playing a fundamentally sound match in both roles. We’ve got plenty of other boys starting to round out the rest of our needs. Good news for us is that both Sagna and Wilshere are back to health and should start. Wilshere might be the ace in our pocket tomorrow, as I feel our midfield is superior to United, while their strike force is obviously superior to ours, so our defence is going to have to be exceptionally alert as United are averaging 3.25 goals a match right now (kind of alarming for us). Some other good news for us coming out of the midweek match, Arshavin looked lively as ever and Chamakh scored not one, but two goals! AMAZING! So if we’re in absolute need, we’ve got a super sub in Arshavin available to us and an additional “confident” striker ready to play.

If we play our game fundamentally sound, there is no reason why we cannot come out ahead. That’s a BIG IF, I know, but just as much as United is scoring their way to victory, they’ve come awfully close to losing matches had it not been for Van Peepee bailing them out (sound familiar?). If we can shut him down, we can make dreams happen.

Match starts at 8:45 AM EST and will air on various sources worldwide as you can expect. Locally, it will be ESPN2 for the American viewers.

The LiveBlog is pre-scheduled to start at 8:30 AM EST, so please come back then to begin chatting live. Until then, post your thoughts below. I sincerely hope our boys bring their A++ game tomorrow, nothing will feel sweeter than getting 3 points and beating the man we all loved and now hate so very much. COME ON YOU GUNNERS. SHOW YOUR INTENT!

Chat you all bright and early…

Since our last entry we have squeaked out a 1-0 win against QPR, with a somewhat controversial goal I might add. I’m not going to dwell too much but I will say that we again (like against Norwich & Schalke) looked pretty awful going forward. It looked as if there was not a goal to be had for the Gunners until the scrambled Arteta goal that gave us the eventual win. You can say, “A win is a win” and I would agree. I would go a little further and say that a decisive win is still a bit better. Our win against QPR was anything but decisive. We will need to play much better this weekend in our next EPL match if we are going to take any points.

Is there anything up there?

So the boss had two days to pick a squad to take on Reading in the Cap1 Cup. He obviously made some drastic changes, including many of our younger players and fringe players in the starting 11. The likes of Chamakh, Djourou, Walcott, and Arshavin all got starts along with youngsters like Miguel, Gnabry, and Frimpong. The squad looked like they had never played together and subsequently went down 4-0 in the first 40 minutes! Koscielny is going to take a lot of blame (as he should) for the first two goals; losing his marker and scoring an own goal. I give credit to him for keeping his head up and playing much better in the second half though.

I was at work watching at my desk (shhhhh) and was very close to shutting it down and eliminating another trophy from our possible grasp. I decided to at least finish out the half and go from there. Walcott got us one back just before halftime with a nice break (down the middle I might add) and classy finish chipping over the oncoming keeper. 4-1 down going into halftime, shit. I’m not sure why I continued to watch in the second half as I really did not feel that a comeback was in the cards, I guess I just really didn’t feel like working! Needless to say, the second half was completely different. Arsenal started to look like Arsenal.

Wenger brought on Giroud and he had an immediate impact scoring a classy header from a corner to make it 4-2. Okay, maybe there is something to this I thought. But our momentum slowed at this point and Reading settled back into the game a bit. The optimism that I was feeling the in the 65th minute was long gone by the 85th being down 4-2 still. With just a minute left in regular time Koscielny got some redemption and headed home another Arsenal goal from a corner. 4-3 but with very little time left, only 5 minutes of stoppage time. With the seconds ticking away, a hopeful ball was played into the Reading box and somehow it fell to the feet of one Theo Walcott, our most threatening player throughout the game. His shot trickled past the keeper and looked to be cleared off the line, Jenkinson was right there to make it a no doubter and thump it home. As it turns out it wasn’t needed as Theo’s first attempt did barely cross the line. All square at 4-4, holy crap.

What, no badge kiss?

We obviously had the momentum going into extra time and had a good amount of possession throughout the first half of extra time. With a few minutes left Chamakh would put us ahead; yep good old rooster head was able to find the back of the net for the first time in ages. I must say that it was a pretty solid finish creating space for himself with his first touch and fake shot before firing home from the edge of the box. But the drama wasn’t done yet as reading would find a fifth goal in the late stages of the second half of extra time to tie it 5-5. Arsenal was not going to let this one go to penalties though. Walcott would again get a late crucial goal with just minutes left to put us ahead. Chamakh would then put the game out of reach with a breakaway chip over the reading keeper. 7-5 to the Arsenal. Wow. Just wow.

First off, I probably almost lost my job for screaming out loud on multiple occasions for what must have seemed like no apparent reason. Thankfully the office was pretty damn empty due to that pesky hurricane that dumped a sizable pine tree on my roof. Second, I will never bash the Carling/Cap1/Kiddie Cup ever again after watching this game. The Chelsea v. ManU game the following day was damn exciting as well. So kudos to the Capital One cup for having an incredibly exciting couple of midweek games. Third, what the hell should we do about Theo Walcott?

He was the difference against Reading, no doubt. Without his impact we could have lost this game 6-0 or 5-1 very easily. With very little time lefty in the first half he could have been lazy and jogged into halftime. Instead he makes a cutting central run to be recognized by Arshavin leading to our first goal and some momentum going into halftime. Can you have momentum down 4-1!? I guess so. He worked his ass off throughout the entire 120 minutes, was always our most threatening player, and was rewarded with a hat trick. All this from a player that has had a hard time finding any substantial playing time in the league. So it obviously begs the question; what does this mean for Theo moving forward?

I have never been a huge Walcott fan and have always found his game to be fairly one dimensional. A few weeks ago I would have said to let him leave as he could be easily replaced with another pacey winger. Our lack of scoring prowess in recent games coupled with this inspiring performance against Reading has changed my mind (a bit). I still don’t think he deserves a crazy pay raise in his next contract but I feel we should do our best to keep him around. He has shown much improved finishing and his runs off the ball are improving as well. Why suffer through years of development on a player only to let him go elsewhere when he starts to shine? I think Theo provides a different option than any other player in the squad right now and is obviously a threat to score goals. With goals being a hard thing to find of late, Theo needs to be in the lineup more often.

So we head into the weekend on quite a high. Good, because we have to play Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday. If that’s not bad enough, we will see RiP lining up against us for the first time in a ManSpew jersey. Prepare yourselves fellow gooners; he is going to get a goal against us.

BLECH!!!!!!

Let’s just hope that it’s not a decisive one. A win over ManUre would follow up this historic comeback quite well. Don’t count on seeing Theo in the starting 11 though, that dude has to be completely gassed after the work he put in on Tuesday. I see him coming off the bench and making the difference for us. One can hope right!?

At a time when I think I could really do with a boost by the team performing well, they have let me down a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not too concerned for the long term. I think if we continue to fail to score goals, then things will change in January, but I don’t foresee that happening.

There has been a fair bit of news in the past few days. Most of it has revolved around the fact that Jack might be playing today. I think that if Jack plays it is great news. I’m not convinced he is definitely ready, but if Wenger thinks he is ready, then I’m sure he is. Mind you, this is the same Wenger who hasn’t brought in a new player for the midfield, because he thinks Diaby is up to filling that role.. Damn..

Also, Bacary Sagna might start today, which would also be a real boost. The extra experience could be very handy I think.

Also there have been some rumours about Arsenal signing a new it deal with Adidas worth 25 million each year. I’m not convinced that is true, but nevertheless, it sounds like a good rumour to me. It would add a significant amount to the clubs revenue, and it gives us a good idea of what the clubs commercial value is.

Rumours have also continued about Pep moving to London. I think the obvious club would be Chelsea, but any intelligent manager would stay away from Chelsea. Abramovich seems incapable of being patient, and it doesn’t seem like a job with a good future. I think Pep would be wise to choose Arsenal, but I personally can’t see the board choosing him anyway.

Onto the lineup then:

Gibbs is still out, but Sagna, Wilshere and Frimpong are available. Oxlade-Chamberlain is a possibility, but I personally can’t see him starting. This is what I think the lineup will be:

On the bench will be:

Martinez, Jenkinson, Koscielny, Ramsey, Wilshere, Arshavin, Gnarby

If the Ox is available he will probably come in for Arshavin or Gnarby, not sure which one though.

Anyway, on to the Liveblog:

We have about an hour and a half until kick off, so I hope to see you all then!