'Hey Bobby, what's the French for OMG!!!?'

Absolutely dancing on the inside.

Most obvious questions out the way first: yes, he is that good-looking and yes, he is much taller than anticipated. It was the final of the Indesit Football Talents competition, in which people who had been selected for their ballin’ skillz played in a little tournament on the Emirates pitch in a vast range of different weather conditions. We had brilliant sunshine, to heaving rain, to actual hailstones. What a merry month of May we are having this year.

I was invited by Jess from We Are Social. Jess told me he would be there, but I didn’t think he would… you know, be there be there. Like actually be THERE, next to ME, at a table in the DIAMOND CLUB, TALKING. Bobby was there as the coach of the Arsenal team (the other teams were Gianfranco Zola’s PSG, Jean-Pierre Papin’s Shakhtar Donetsk and Daniele Massaro’s AC Milan.) Milan won and Arsenal’s stand-out player was a girl whose name I forget, but she had really nice hair. Just like Bobby.

A group of us (myself, MarrsioFootball, TheGoonerholic and keshani17 among others) got to chat to him after Arsenal had played their games (Arsenal came fourth, bad times.) Jess had met him before and was so ridiculously cool with him, it was unreal. I was less cool, but I still got to sit next to him, so whatevs. Anyway, I hadn’t thought of it as being a blogging thing really, until he pulled up a chair next to me, so I didn’t record our conversation. However, these were the highlights:

- His least favourite player to have played against was Gary Neville

- Arsene Wenger is his ‘second Dad’ and that while he might be a great coach, as a person he is ‘amazing.’

- He is not thinking about going into football management at the moment, but if he were to do so, he’d prefer to be second in command

- He played five-a-side with Jens Lehmann recently, and he (Jens) was not very good

- … he has however forgiven him for the Champions League final in 2006

We also spoke about the past weekend of football and his happiness for Patrick. He said he hoped RvP stays. He said that more than anything, Arsenal was always like a family and that it still is. I asked him what he thought of Tottenham. While I wasn’t exactly expecting the response we get from Carl Jenkinson during a warm-up, I also wasn’t expecting this: “I love Tottenham… Tottenham are my team.” So shocked was I that Bobby had to comfort me (he touched my arm, it was beautiful.) It later transpired that the reason for this was that he always scored against them. And just as quickly, Bobby was forgiven.

He posed for photographs with all of us, and also had many taken of him inadvertently… I am getting the camera on my phone ready in the second one, not rudely texting or Tweeting! Once the tournament had finished, we all went on a tour of the stadium. It was an absolutely brilliant day, and thank you so much to Jess and We Are Social for inviting me. I never thought I’d be sitting around having a laugh with anyone who played in our Invincibles side, like, ever… maybe in ten years’ time I’ll be kicking back reminiscing with Thierry or Thomas. A girl can dream.

Here are some photos of the highlights of the day. Part Two of the End of Season blogs will be up soon, but I felt Bobby more important.

Very dangerous entry to the pitch!

The teams lining up

Posh seats! So comfy, still cold

Zola, quite a vocal coach

I think we should keep the leaves on this, it's beautiful

Had to be done

You can read the (much more in-depth and eloquent) views of both TheGoonerholic and MarrsioFootball in the hyperlinks I’ve just made out of their Twitter names in this sentence.

The lows… oh my, were they low. I remember only staring into a jug of Margarita after 8-2. We don’t even have to mention the fixture or the date. ‘8-2’ is enough. We got ‘8-2ed’ 8-2 was the day even Ferguson and Rooney looked like they felt a bit sorry for us. And what’s funny is that, for me at least, 8-2 didn’t come even any way close to the lowest point this season. It was horrible, for sure. It was also a bit misleading though, given the teams fielded and the fact we had months and months to make it up. Nevertheless, it was awful.

And I’ve no doubt there’ll be fans of worse off teams than ours looking at Arsenal in Arsenal’s lowest moments and thinking ‘Oh bore off, you know nothing of horror.’ Well, that may be true for you. But I do not care for, nor love the team that causes you heartache. I love this one, and while its trials and tribulations may be a mere knee graze for you, I can assure you they’re a bloody great cliff plunge for some of us.

4-3 was the next low for Arsenal. Again, no fixture or opposition is needed, but it was the match after which I remember asking my dearest dadda if we were getting relegated this season. What a mug. That was the point at which the hand-wringing really started. Check this blog out from Arsenal Vision. I know it’s all hit-whoring, and you should really believe nothing you read in the papers… ever. But somehow we all continue to get sucked in. The worst of it is, at the end of the season when all of their articles have been wrongety-wrong wrong, you can’t even laugh at them, because they didn’t even think it in the first place. Mr. Douchebag Deadline was probably shouting over their shoulder that this was the message they wanted and ‘NO, PICTURE ED, I WANT THAT CREST SMASHEDER, MAKE IT MORE SMASHED, MAKE IT CRUMMMMMBLE!’ I’ve decided that as of next season, not a single journalist will wind me up.* How untorn my spleen will be.

We got through November largely unscathed, having lost Bacary to injury and our pride to Spurs at White Hart Lane the month before. They were playing so well back then. Proper contenders for the title, they looked. We hoped it would not last, but given the way our luck had been going, there was always a dirty dancing devil at the back of our heads telling us there was a chance. Losing Bacary was horrendous though. Like trying to finish a marathon with no legs or head or lungs.

The next real low was essentially January in general. We started off with a loss to Fulham, carried it on with a loss to Swansea, and then came home to lose to Manchester United. That United loss was particularly horrendous, the atmosphere about as poisonous as an infected blister. It seemed that even though we weren’t buried up to our necks in manure any more, even the bright ones started to question the wisdom of the manager. That was a proper hurty moment for me. But worse was to come.

For me personally, the lowest moment of all the low moments we could have been subjected to was AC Milan away. Sounds silly, no? Bit of an extravagant match really, not a league match, not against an opponent we should have easily beaten, rather more of a glamour fixture for us. But my goodness me, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so low in my football-supporting life.

Perhaps it was because we felt we were finally all on the same team. The players knew they were not the flashy superstars of Invincible times, but they bloody well worked hard and looked good. We’d got through January without a league point yet managed to turn things around a little in the early part of February. Interestingly, there felt little worry ahead of the Milan match. Maybe that was a contributing factor. But as we stood there watching the team get utterly torn apart by an ex-Spud and a giant with a really big nose, it felt like all that had come before it was lost. On a big stage, the biggest they’d seen all season, they’d choked in the most spectacular of fashions – even the reliable ones. When Thierry Henry walked over to the away fans – at this point dizzy with altitude sickness – and applauded us for the last ever time, I cried my eyes out. Lordy, what a night that was.

The 2-0 defeat to Sunderland away in the FA Cup didn’t feel that bad comparatively which was odd given it was the end of our last chance at a trophy, but it somehow felt inevitable. I also saw a really shit film at the cinema that night. Crap Saturday, really really crap Saturday.

We had to wait a while for the next low: QPR away. After moments of strength and power, it was all a bit net curtains for all involved. Ditto Wigan at home. Having not lost at home to anyone besides Liverpool and Manchester United, that one came a little out of the blue. Worse was maybe the loss of Mikel Arteta. Our record without him is horrendous, though I guess at the very most positive end of the thinking scale you could at least say it goes to prove what a great bit of last-minute business he really was. Considering the shit some people come home with at midnight on Christmas Eve, we did bloody well there.

And finally, Norwich at home. I like to think they were all just drunk. Given we no longer have to worry about it, the fact they were all just drunk and/or hungover works very very well for me. Lightweights.

All of this shite having come after a dreadful summer probably meant that all of the bad times were amplified somewhat. For me, I was a great big open heart wound of pain from the get-go, having had to say goodbye to Cesc Fabregas in August, so nothing was ever going to be easy. I’m a Weepy Weeperson in general, but that man got more tears from me than is decent.

In general, probably the worst part of this season – besides the injuries and the general unrest among fans – was probably the sudden question over whether an era was coming to an end. More people doubted Arsene Wenger than ever before. Even the sensible ones. We’ve all certainly aged far too much for nine months this season (only nine months, can you believe that? NINE MONTHS?)… but what is sure is that we’ll all start it over again in roughly two months’ time when the team begins training once more ahead of their pre-season tour.

We must be mad, but we will do it again because in spite of all these low points, there have been some MENTAL high points this season too. And they will be outlined in part two of this end of season blog.

PS. Even though this is the low points half, please remember we finished OK and we’re safe and we have Champions League football guaranteed and we’re the second happiest team in the league right now!

*until they start on Arsene, then the gloves are off and the teeth are out.

That was the commentary in my head as I handed in my final essay of my university career, The Beastly Dissertation, yesterday afternoon. It’s over, it’s ooowoover, it’s ooooooooover. Praise the Lord! And praise my darling Mac for not letting me down and breaking mid-type. And praise my darling parents for giving up their Bank Holiday to read my snoozeworthy dissertation and help me scan and print the arse off of it on Monday. The next chapter begins.

So, back to the football. Since Wigan, we’ve won three points out of nine. Brilliant form, guys. Think we can all agree that a point off Chelsea at home and a point off Stoke away is not BAD, but a point off Norwich at home is pretty shocking. Not because Norwich are a weak team – quite clearly they are not a weak team. But they are a team comfortably settled somewhere mid-table, who don’t have to worry about the ramifications of their results at the moment. They’ll still be in the Premiership next season, there’s no local rival vying for the same place as them, and everything is basically hunky dory. Not so for the HOME SIDE Arsenal.

I thought the first half of the match on Saturday was frankly stunning. In the bad way. It says a lot that our second minute goal from Yossi incited feelings (in me at least) of ‘Oh Christ, that was too soon.’ I’m not entirely sure they’d been given the message that we were playing for the retainment (it’s a word) of third place. Many did not seem to give any semblance of a shite, besides Robin van Persie and Tomas Rosicky. It somehow made it easier to assume we’d given control to the skeezy lot down the road. You can’t easily feel sorry for a group of men who don’t seem to give a toss.

The second half was better, but still even after having brought the three points back to ourselves with just ten minutes to go, there was still time to disappoint. Saturday was a highly depressing day. Fortunately, with City beating Newcastle and Aston Villa somehow holding Spurs to a draw, we were –and I do not know how- placed firmly back in the driving seat ahead of what is sure to be an edgy as heck final weekend of the season.

I was trying to finish off my dissertation last Sunday, but naturally not a jot of work got done during the footballing moments of that day. We on Twitter even took to holding ourselves in the positions we’d been sat or stood in when Villa scored, terrified as we were that anything anyone in the whole universe did would jinx them and give the Spuds another goal. Somehow, by the skin of our teeth, we are still third. Chelsea’s collapse against Liverpool (LOLOLOLOLOL) means they can’t catch us now, so it is only Tottenham and Newcastle to worry about.

It also means that had we, you know, defended for ten minutes at the end of the match on Saturday, we’d be strolling into this weekend without much of a care in the world. But we’re not, because we didn’t. Sweet baby Jesus, what ARE they like?

It has meant a week of subsequent worry-warting all over the shop. ‘Ahhh no Arteta’ ‘Ahhh away record’ ‘Ahhh record at the Hawthorns’ ‘Ahhh record of a Sunday’ To me, it’s quite simple. Win. Just win. If Tottenham and Newcastle win, and we win, we finish third. If Tottenham and Newcastle draw or lose and we win, we finish third. There is not a situation in which we cannot finish third if we win.

Look back to late August/early September. Could you ever have imagined we’d be protecting third place like a bird-mum of one egg? I can’t. Equally, could you have imagined in mid-March in the midst of our spunky comebacks and fierce wins we’d be troubled about a trip to the Hawthorns? Funny innit. Well, not funny haha at all, but funny peculiar all the same.

Nevertheless, faceacheing about it’ll help no one. Stick your doomy stats where the sun don’t shine because as far as I’m concerned, if we fail to win on Sunday, it’s the fault of no one but Arsenal. If we fail to win on Sunday, something we’ll have feared for a long time will have happened, and it’ll take another shitty summer to go some way to rectifying. Maybe something has changed in me personally, but the fact is, somehow, it REMAINS in our hands. And when you bugger up your own destiny, you’ve really no one to blame but yourself.

That said, if we win on Sunday, we’ll have had a better outcome to the season than any of us could have hoped in September. Also, the hilarity that we’ll have finished higher up than we did last year, this time sans Cesc (sniff), Nasri (toodles) and Jack (waaah), will be ricocheted around to infinity and beyond. No doubt we’ll all be a wreck come 2pm, but we’ve more control of what happens than others in the league. Just don’t sod it up. Really very simple. Win and be heroes, lose and trudge off into summer knowing you had it in your hands and you let it slip.

And they will be heroes. Not as much as they would have been had they secured third place two weeks ago, but in spite of the dodginess of the past few matches they’ve still put in some incredible shifts we could only have hoped of putting in a few seasons back. No, third place is not a ‘trophy,’ but people win trophies and get relegated. Trophies will come, of course they will. If they can keep their heads above water in spite of everyone and everything telling them it was impossible all bloody season, then yes they are heroes. (Sod off with the ‘No one saved lives, you can only be a hero if someone saves lives,’ comments, this is a FOOTBALL BLOG, gimp.)

As I’ve been writing this, confirmation of the departures of two loyal servants has come via Robin van Persie’s Twitter feed. Chill out, not that of Robin, rather those of Pat Rice and Manuel Almunia. Rice leaves after 44 years service and Almunia after eight. It’s unthinkable to think of Arsenal without Pat and his shorts, so it’s very bizarre he’ll no longer be there next to the be-duveted Arsene and his ever-gesturing arms. So #ThankYouPatRice. And to Almunia, much-maligned by many, but nevertheless a big Arsenal man and one who put in some magnificent performances for us when no one had any faith in him at all. Read his wife’s tweets and try not feel just a little bit emotional. Not sure I’d feel such a Gunner with some of the abuse that’s come his way, but hey ho I’ll make for a perhaps overly protective kind of wife.

Right, there we are then. An exciting summer could be ahead if we do the business on Sunday. But no crying if we don’t, please. It’s ours to lose.

Well last night was rubbish. Not really much more to say of it than that. Wigan wanted and needed points and played very well throughout (though both goals were STUPID) and we just looked like we were playing up against a glass wall. A glass wall that covered roughly the final third of the pitch.

It all went wonky from the moment they turned us around to be honest. We hate that, we really, really hate that. What’s funny though is that even at 0-2 down I felt like we’d be fine. This is 2012 Arsenal, we can turn anything around. Errr, except apparently not. The injury to Mikel Arteta was terrible for us and he will be really missed for however long it is he’s out for. Looks like our panic buy has been more important than anyone will give him credit for eh? All you can cling to is that we did manage to beat AC Milan 3-0 without him that one time. I know we had nothing to lose then, but we have everything to win now so hopefully that slightly warped logic works on our players?

Clueless as to what they were doing last night, though. Even Robin. The T(h)omases were about the only ones up for it and it was simply generally very backward all night. Nevertheless, I believe we will beat Chelsea and this week of worriesomeness will be curtailed. We needed a bomb up the bum (yes… another one) and we surely got one. Though as much as we were cack, Wigan were good. It’s a pity about 17 people were there to see it from a Wigan-supporting point of view, because it was a really good performance from a side who look like they will probably avoid the drop this summer.

Then some bloke I didn’t even know played for Wigan got arsey with Robin for not shaking his hand, even though he had given him his hand, he didn’t want that hand, no he wanted the other hand. People licked their lips at that one. He’s not been racist or broken a leg, so let’s get offended about a handshake incident that wasn’t. Incidentally, I think handshaking is the biggest pile of horse manure in the world. Guess what? Sometimes players don’t like each other. Sometimes managers don’t either. Shaking hands prrrrrrrobably won’t change their ‘He’s an arsehole’ opinions of one another. Performing the most perfunctory, token gesture at the end of the match won’t stop them not liking each other. And I frankly don’t think it’s in the slightest bit ‘respectful’ to do it, if it’s not genuine.

I used to work in a bar. Every time I went into work I used to have to kiss all my colleagues on both cheeks. I didn’t like most of my colleagues. They didn’t like me. The ones I did like, I would have happily cuddled until the end of time, because I liked them. But why did I always have to kiss the cheeks of morons I didn’t like?! It was the same with ‘friends of the bar’ (for this read ‘people who would often mention their great relationship with the owner every time the bill appeared YEAH I DON’T CARE HOW WELL YOU KNOW HIM, PAY YOUR FUCKING BILL’) Whyyyyyyyy. I’m here to serve your drinks, I’m not here to serve your ego.

But the bottom line is, handshaking is stupid. And Robin was pissed off that we’d lost. Fair bllllloody play my man. People wanted to crucify him for his antics against Newcastle, and they wanted to do the same here. But they have failed, again.

Time wasting was an issue, and I hate time wasting more than the most heinous crimes on the planet, but in this instance I can sort of understand it. At least they were defending a lead… Newcastle. Besides it’s really more the responsibility of the referee (OH WHAT A USELESS HUMAN BEING HE WAS LAST NIGHT) than of the players. Giving someone a yellow card for it about 47 seconds before the final whistle is really not going to change the situation that much. Unless Al Habsi gets banned for accumulating yellows and misses a match in which they concede loads of goals and then go down. In which case, lol. But I don’t really mean that because I like Roberto Martinez and I hope they’re OK this season.

We clapped them off at the end. ‘Cos we’re classy like that. And they may have had few travelling fans but they did all stay until the end, unlike the TOOL behind me who announced at 87 minutes “Nyaaaaaar [that's my generic posh noise] I’m not missing my train for this lot”, and walked out. You. You are all that is wrong with humanity, you utter turnip. Also, don’t announce your departure like we care. We don’t care. I hope you tripped up and lost your ticket and missed your train. Tool.

I didn’t blog post-Wolves because I have loads of deadlines at the moment and I don’t want to be all Posh-tool-behind-me in assuming you’ll care that I’m absent from blogging, but if you wonder where I am, I’m piled under books swearing at my computer. But my final deadline is 9th May so can I get a WOOHOO for that one!

So that’ll be that then. Ohhhhhh sorry to mention Cesc again but I’m afraid I still love Cesc, so I’m going to anyway. He was asked about his role at Barcelona in his press conference today (because Barcelona play Chelsea tomorrow.) He said he was really enjoying it there because his role is more defined, whereas at Arsenal he was a little ‘tactically lost’ because he was freer to play wherever he wanted and bla bla bla. Anyway I’m sure it’ll be reported with unadulterated GLEE tomorrow, so you really don’t need me to regurgitate the press conference. Anyway apparently this is really offensive to Arsenal in spite of being basically the truth. If he’d chosen to not talk about us, he’d have got clattered by ‘How dare he! Doesn’t he know we made him!!!!’ comments. So really what’s a fella to do?

Obviously it’s an English journalist’s prerogative to ask about English football, so ask about an English football team they did. After all, it’s not like they play an English team tomorrow and could have asked all their English-football-related questions about that English team oh noooooo. Cesc was done up like a kipper consistently when he was here, and he will be done up like a kipper consistently while he’s there. It is the way of the world and I still love him. The rest of you, be gone.

Soz if this blog comes across a bit angry, but we lost yesterday, I’ve got loads of work to do, I’ve finished all my Mini Eggs, I got rained on on my run today, and my knee hurts. Here’s to a good Saturday!!!

Such a strange season, this. It’s been billed (many times) as the worst season for Arsenal Football Club in the history of French managers, of Arsenal Football Club, of football in general, and of history itself. Truly. When the ancestors of yesteryear decided to start writing things down, thus creating history, they had in the back of their minds the tale of a little team up in North London. “Mwahahaha,” they chortled into their bushy bushy beards, their monocles popping out of their papery eye folds as they chattered. “Worst team in history, they will say! Power shifts, they will exclaim! Broken crests will litter the newspapers of our children’s futures, and headlines shall be twattersome! Ohhhh, what fun we have today created in this day, the day in which ‘history’ began!”

So what is odd to me is that in spite of the fact the movie poster for this season was “Come! Come watch the deserted ship be pants as its abandoned captain steers hopelessly against the tide screaming ‘Sacre bleu we are in the merde!’… it has somehow made me fonder of the Club than I have ever felt in all my (twenty-three) years. Perhaps the lowered expectation has helped. Perhaps the fact the chastened players kept their heads down, slightly embarrassed as we went through the worst of it, accepting our faults were part of their doing. (part of… PART of.)

Perhaps it is thanks to days like yesterday. OK, so last weekend was pants to the max. When two vertebrae in your team’s spine both have a crapper of a day, it’s difficult to stand up straight and go on to take anything from the game, but I guess we were unlikely to finish the season without dropping any points at all. In my head, I set us a little target before kick off at Anfield a few weeks back. You’ll be pleased to know we are still on track to meet our target. We’re allowed a small hiccup, but nothing bigger than a hiccup is allowed. Burping will be frowned upon.

Anyway, the result away at QPR had to be put to one side as we faced the hand that feeds us on Sunday afternoon. Manchester United had already beaten last week’s victors QPR earlier on and so City’s tails could have been very down or very up before kick off at the Emirates. Regardless, we had to not care about City. I don’t personally give a crap who wins the league, because neither of the Manchesters winning it will shake off the Chelsea, the Tottenham and the Newcastle currently clawing their ways up our back with their scabby little ogre fingers. We had to just play, play well, and hope that it would be enough to nick three points and a bit of breathing space in third.

And what a game it was! In keeping with today’s theme of ‘pants’, I think it’s fair to say City were largely ‘pants,’ but sadly our greatness yesterday seems to have been overshadowed by the supposed ‘Crisis’ at City and the antics of some berk with a really daft barnet. Contrary to the delightful Sun’s player ratings this morning, I thought Yossi Benayoun was fairly fantastic throughout, glaring miss in front of goal aside. They called him ‘lightweight in every sense of the word’ but that is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. He, Rosicky, Arteta and Song were as tenacious as little nipping puppies throughout the entire match. City created basically nothing, while we had absolutely no luck whatsoever.

Scoring Scoring Robin was denied by the back of Thomas Vermaelen’s head – which, frankly, just goes to show how incredible Thomas Vermaelen is, in my opinion. Van Persie has been unstoppable this season. Put Tommy in front of him, however, and he’s stoppable from point blank range. You jeal, Liverpool? That’s four games and no goal for our Robin now, incidentally… luxury player.

We should have been a man up when Mario Balotelli decided he had beef with Alex Song’s knee. I thought it was too high up to have been a leg breaker but then realised it was high enough to have bent his leg backwards. Then I tasted my lunch again. I’ve never understood the fascination with that tool. He’s a talented player, for sure, but all this ‘Word is, Mario’s been popping into primary schools and teaching kids their nine times table using just an apple and a piece of string’ tosh has been boring bollocks for a long time now. Blaming him for yesterday though is a bit harsh. He was a loose cannon yesterday, but his teammates hardly set the world alight.

Anyway, back to us and Robin hit the post and had a goal disallowed in the second half. Shortly after, Walcott, Vermaelen AND Benayoun ALL had the opportunity to put us ahead but somehow managed not to. Thomas’s shot skittered across goal, while Yossi’s went wayward. I truly don’t understand how it stayed out. We had to wait until the 87^th minute to finally put us one step ahead of them and it came from the best looking Spaniard we know. As Mr. Arseblog said this morning, it was reminiscent of Bac’s goal versus the Spuds with its palpable air of ‘Oh sweet baby JESUS, let me have a go you useless spanners!’ And have a go he did. For a team often afraid to whack it from outside the area, he didn’t half put his foot through it as it sailed in to Joe Hart’s left. Fina-bloody-lly.

Our fans began to ‘Poznan’ (shittest celebration of all the celebrations, by the way) as I screamed to all who’d listen (no one) “THEY MIGHT STILL EQUALISE!” But in fairness, I was wrong and it really didn’t look like they were ever going to score. It was an absolutely one hundred per cent deserved victory and the sweetest scoreline of them all. Of course, Aaron Ramsey could have doubled it just a few minutes later had he not gone for the drop goal instead, but the most important part of that miss is that it didn’t really matter. Had that happened at 0-0, I’m sure he’d have needed security. Largely from his captain.

It was another great day to be had in the season of doom and gloom. I honestly don’t care that we helped United out by winning or that we’ve probably kept Samir ‘I couldn’t possibly be part of the problem here’ Nasri’s trophy hunt going for one more season. I wasn’t even that bothered by seeing my leader Patrick Vieira wearing a City crest. Yesterday was a brilliant victory from a team of fellas who’ve managed to keep the light shining in spite of the fact the lightbulb has been covered in layer upon layer of horse shit from day one. Still six matches to go, but if we manage to finish third having limped in to fourth last year and having lost three of our best players to different teams and/or injury over the summer, it would be the best day yet in a season of unexpectedly bloody amazing days. And sooooo funny as well.

Finally, I think the crowd helped a bit yesterday. The players had 90% of it down anyway, but that little vocal push seemed to help as well. This time last season our fans were at war with the players. Now we’re sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. What a difference a year makes.

We’ve been having beautiful weather in London over the past week. I’m sure if you have friends or family here you will know this. We do like to go on about it. But we also like to be equally unapologetic about this because we so enjoy the snarky comments we get in return from outsiders. It’s all very passive aggressive but who cares when it’s SO SUNNNNNNNYYYYYYY!!!!

This great weather is also blatantly a side effect of all the nice feeling being spewed out of the Club at the moment. Forget global warming or the toasty front coming in from Seville or wherever toasty fronts come from, the entire city if not nation should basically be thanking Arsenal for this good weather. Remember how shite January’s weather was? Well, exactly.

The weekend’s match was another good one, though I’m not sure it counts given van Persie didn’t score… has anyone checked that yet? I’m sure there’s some kind of stat doing the rounds out there somewhere about how low the percentage of winnage importance is in a match not involving a van Persie goal. Nevertheless, Kieran Gibbs, Theo Walcott and Mikel Arteta gave us more than enough to smile about on Saturday, so who cares if the lack of RvP Points means we get docked the three we earned? We were actually fairly poor in the second half, not that Villa looked dangerous at any point at all, so Arteta’s blinder of a free kick at the end made the win look as emphatic as it had deserved to be in the first half. Lovely.

I can’t think of any other news items to talk about. Carl Jenkinson’s haircut? That’s a very good video. Very un-Arsenal. Also, who else thinks Theo Walcott’s Swap Shop has been the most amusing yet? And not just because he obviously thinks Thomas Vermaelen is a very handsome, intelligent man. Oh, and you should watch this video  of Arsene Wenger discussing languages. Not sure when it was filmed as I followed a link to it on Twitter posted by cristina0ana, but the footage of the unArsenalified stadium makes me think it’s a few seasons old. Either way, it’s really good and not just because it makes Mr. Wenger look as amazing and wonderful as he really is. The Cambridge answer… sweaty eyes. And I like this video of Mikel Arteta being a Thierry fanboy and a San Siro hater as well.

Finally, on 8th July 2012 there’s a run called the British 10k happening in London. It takes place a couple of weeks before the start of the Olympics and the route looks brilliant. Plus, look at all those Union flags – it really is the prettiest of all the flags, isn’t it? Anyway, on 8th July 2012, I’m going to run the British 10k with my good friend, Sky Sports’s Akhil Vyas. By the way, even though that video is as miserable as sin, Akhil is the male version of me in terms of his positivity for the Arsenal (look how fidgety he gets in the video when Arsene’s future is questioned haha!) ((also also, “maybe [Tottenham]‘ve become the side they just can’t beat in the league” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA))

Moving on. I can’t speak for Akhil, but I never run, ever. I don’t even run for the Tube because I’m scared I’ll get wedged and killed in the closing doors. I just wait for the next one and then show up late. So I don’t really know why I’ve agreed to do this, but I am training for it. We’re running it for two charities: Skyway and the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. People have been incredibly, shockingly, wonderfully generous so far and if you want to be incredible, shocking or wonderful as well you could always pop along to our donation page as well. I mean, if you fancy it.

At the end of it my face will be the colour of our home shirt (WHO SCHEDULES A RUN IN JULY?) and I will most certainly have twisted at least both ankles and a knee, so there’s comedy value in there for everyone. Photos will of course be posted. Oooooh maybe we’ll run in Arsenal shirts! I’ll be Mertesacker.

That’ll be that then. Places to run, people to bump into.

It’s quite cosy in Arseland at the moment. As we basked in the glow of everyone else ballsing up last night while we strode defiantly on, it was easy to get carried away in the glittery shower of happiness that befell us as we befell the third place in the Premier League. For the first time this season, non?

It’s been a funny old season. Up until summer, I thought that my best Arsenal memory since the glory days of invincibility had been the 2-1 home leg win against Barcelona in February 2011. I used to look back on that night with such fondness. I still do, but somehow it’s not quite as up there as some of the moments we’ve had this season. Maybe it’s because most of the team from that night is a goner now. Maybe it’s because that night was the sole night of brightness in a few months of total collapse and that that night seemed to be the final slap-up meal before we were left to feed on scraps from the shit kitchen for the next two months. Who knows? Either way, it feels a world away from where we currently are.

This season, we’ve had some proper stinkers. I need not remind you of Man United away or Blackburn away, or of the really quite unlucky home loss to Liverpool. I need not be reminded myself of the moment post Blackburn where I looked at my dad like I used to when I was about five and went “Daddy… are we getting relegated this season?” Obviously I feel a total knobber for having thought that now, but sod the taxi duties and wedding payments, dads are mostly there to reassure you in your time of footballing need. (FYI, he looked at me unblinkingly and said firmly “No”. See, belief runs in this fam!)

Anyway, the point is: our wins against Chelsea and Tottenham and Liverpool and Newcastle are occupying a more prominent place in my liking at the moment. Suddenly this team we see before us is all spunky and sparky and fighty. Alright we looked all wobbly and Arsenally after Everton’s wrongly disallowed goal yesterday (soz but SAHA 2011), but beyond that we look different to the teams we’ve seen in seasons gone. Those teams were capable of spectacular things no doubt… but they were still a little bit pansy at times. Six wins on the bounce used to be the norm for us, but four consecutive wins from a losing position never really was. Of course it would be good if we didn’t put ourselves in the losing position in the first place, but Rome wasn’t built in a day now was it?

There’s an interview with Kieran Gibbs on Arsenal Player (and YouTube - 4.00 onwards) which must have been recorded a few days after the Champions League exit to Milan. He says all the things you’d expect him to say, but he says it with a lot more feeling than most footballers have ever seemed capable of. Remember Rosicky’s pre-wrist slit interview that night? That was the most bluntly honest interview I’ve ever seen with a footballer. Gibbs is not quite so brutal, but this part:

“We put so much… we put SO much into the first half…” really struck me.

They gave SO much that their professionally athletic bodies couldn’t keep up the pace. They believed SO much that Rosicky looked actually shellshocked that they’d not gone through. This is new territory and I kinda like it.

No matter what goes on between now and May, this group of footballers deserves credit for going where previous teams have not gone before. One memory that will probably last in Arsenal fans’ minds from this season is Paul Merson kicking seven colours out of us on Soccer Saturday a few months ago. I forget the actual words he used as I blocked them out at the time with words of rage-fuelled venom aimed at my telly, but his conclusion was essentially that we were a disgrace. Given the cacky foundations this team was allowed as a result of the summer and the start to the season we had, I think calling them a ‘disgrace’ is a bit harsh, but it does seem as though there has been some kind of rallying speech delivered to the team that has motivated them somewhat. Let’s not forget, also, that this new improved Arsenal was kicked to life in Sunderland by an assisting Russian called Andrey and, maybe more significantly, a scoring Frenchman called Thierry. Coincidence?

Obviously maybe it’s simply the fact our fullbacks are FINALLY fit, but that sounds a lot less pretty so let’s just go with my theory. We still have nine matches left, which is more than enough time for our annual slide to begin getting its groove on. That said, this time last season we had already started down the path on which we were to end our season. Fingers crossed this year we’ve started down a different one?

Finally, I know my words don’t mean anything, especially given the enormity of the pre-existing pile they’re about to be added to, but this week can’t really go by without a word about Fabrice Muamba. I always think of him in that Last Season at Highbury kit and as having been good mates with Nicky B. Apparently they were in the cinema watching Miami Vice together when Nick was first called up to the Danish national team. What happened last weekend was horrendous to watch unfold and it’s wonderful news that his condition in hospital seems to be getting progressively better. I loved our shirts for him last night and I really loved the fact they said ‘In our thoughts…’ rather than ‘Pray for…’. Let’s hope that as his former club (the club he literally knocked on the door of in pursuit of a trial SORRY BUT IF THIS ISN’T THE CUTEST FOOTBALL STORY EVER)  – continues down the path to success, so too does Fabrice continue down the path of get-betterdom. If Thierry can motivate a team onto a six-game winning streak, surely his flying visit to him yesterday will have done that room-brightening grin of Fabrice’s a world of good. Keep on keeping on, Fabz!

‘Arsenal are the first team to have come from behind to go on and win the match in four matches consecutively in Premier League history’.

Saaaaay whaaaaaaaat?

This Arsenal? ‘Just not good enough’ Arsenal? Higgledy piggledy superglued together squad of rubbish Arsenal? The new Arsenal borne of the loins of failed youth and weakened spirit? The Arsenal that was unnecessarily and undeservedly arrogant for too long, who have festered under an ageing French loon and who will never win another trophy ever again, ever, as long as trees have branches and as long as faces have noses?

Well blow me down! What a turn up!

Hehehe. Truly though, what a good night last night was. It was sort of a mixture of the matches we’ve faced previously. Against Tottenham, we went a goal down before we showed any signs of life but were then magnificent for the rest of the match. Against Liverpool we were shite but held on to grab the points at the end with a stunner of a peach from Robin. And against Milan we were excellent throughout and then left devastated when full time came and our mistakes in Italy came back to truly, truly haunt us. Whack those three matches together in a big fat cauldron and whaddya get?

Arsenal 2 – 1 Newcastle United!

Sure it’s a shame it once again took a goal to knock some sense into us, but there is no better way of reacting to going a goal down than to score less than a minute later. And Arteta agrees with me. He phoned me to tell me earlier.

Naaaaah, he didn’t.

We had a few good chances before that Newcastle goal of doom, particularly when Theo Walcott – a man rejuvenated – sliced across a brilliant cross for van Persie, who missed connecting with it by about an inch. That cross, by the way, was brought to life thanks to the head of Bacary Sagna. Did he miss ANY headers yesterday?

Newcastle’s 14^th minute opener was aided by Vermaelen, who lost the ball in midfield to Tiote. Ben Arfa’s finish was brilliant, but it still went through two players and a keeper at the near post. Gah! My favourite part about that goal, though, is that we in the stadium had barely finished grumbling before we were level once more. Sky Sports had to hurry back to live action it came so quickly! Once again Theo Walcott and his cross – spectacular in this match – set RvP up beautifully to pull us back in. His finish at the near post was RvP to the core. In that it was left-footed and beautiful, obviously.

From there, we really could have been more goals up. The second half was a bit similar to the second half of the Wolves match, in which we battered the penalty area and got nothing from it. Tomas ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, except that you’re SO MUCH BETTER THAN A SUMMER’S DAY YOU FLUFFY HAIRED STUNNER’ Rosicky missed a massive chance when he somehow managed to left-footedly put it wide, so wide that it almost became a throw-in, even though he was right in front of goal. Pity, because he was epic yesterday. And I hate the word epic.

Gervinho missed a sitter, Robin whacked it across goal, even Gibbs had a go (not a very good one). Vermaelen then had a header saved brilliantly by Tim Krul. You got the feeling we wanted a goal, to be honest. When it eventually came, in the 95^th minute, it was bloody worth it. Funny that it came from a Newcastle throw in up their end, as that’s the kind of thing that happens to us. Funnier still that the goal involved about seven of our players as we went on continuing to prove we are a One Man Team.

Often, when we’re chasing goal, one of the first to step up is Thomas Vermaelen. He’s been a bit wonky lately, but think of times like the Manchester City match where he, the centre half (though he may have been playing left back then, anyway, a DEFENDER) had not one but two shots go very close. It seems like he’s often the first to get to the point of ‘Bugger this, I’ll do it’. He’d been making lots of runs forward before it finally paid off and he could have been caught out of position had we not kept possession. Krul probably didn’t have much hope of saving such a close range shot, but given the saves he’d made earlier in the game, anything was possible.

ENTER MANPILE.

The bench celebrations were as good as the pitch ones. Tommy R and his coat-shrugging sprint, the dancing doctor and the Santos-Wenger hug which has now replaced the Gervinho-Wenger high five in the Chelsea match in my Top Five bench celebrations involving a manager and a player. Unfortunately, it ended a bit ugly (if you’re a Daily Mail reader) and a bit funny (if you’re you or I). Let’s face it, Tim Krul had been time wasting throughout. Not to have a go, even though I hate time-wasting about as much as I hate war, but he was. I hate it when other teams do that and I hate it when we do that.

Who knows what was said but it sounds as though fellow Dutchman RvP said something along the lines of ‘Yeah, time waste now ya muppet!’ Which is fair enough. Were the roles reversed we’d no doubt be going “What a TOOL” at Newcastle’s captain, and rightly so, but the outrage I’ve seen from ‘neutrals’ is simply hysterical. Do you really expect Arsenal fans to be ashamed of this behaviour? A team so long accused of having no bite or oomph, of not being bastardy enough, ashamed of a player giving it a bit of welly and winding up the opposition? Have a laugh.

Plus it was good to see that even though RvP has grown up and taken on his captainly/fatherly duties amazingly well, has reigned in his spiky streak and has become all in all a stand up guy… he’s still a WUM with the grin of a five year old. Love that. Love that almost as much as Koscielny once again being the fight diffuser and Vermaelen taking on the role of bodyguard at the end of the match. Check out these GIFs 1 & 2 sent by @cristina0ana on Twitter. Not gonna lie, I’ve watched them a lot. A lot, a lot.

Gary Neville… oh God I’m referencing Gary Neville… said at the end of the match that emphatic wins are brilliant, but last-minute wins are infinitely better for the team’s spirit. And it’s true – we could have put one of those many earlier chances away and strolled into full time going “Yeeha baby, bring it man, peace and love, peace and love”. As it was we skidded in on our knees in the final minute of extra time going “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!”

Also, I have to mention Cesc. He was there last night too. Didn’t make a fuss of it, but to post a photo of the Emirates at half time (which just goes to show, he really is superhuman). It obviously caused uproar among the fans who care about him so little that they can’t stop talking about him, but I’m glad he was there. Partly because I love him and because I stand by all of this still entirely, and I know he still loves the Arse… but also partly in a kind of ‘Ha. See. Told ya. We can do this’ kind of way. We may end up trophyless once again this season, but this current team has started to show signs of the stuff we seem to have been missing a lot longer than any silverware. Finally. And it is really good to see.

Anyway, today’s blog (after the pointy lines) comes from FunGunner, who met with that most maligned of humans – The Agent – to bring us the interview that follows. It’s an interesting read and given the weekend’s stories about van Persie choosing to hop off to the most depressing city in the world for £200,000 a week, it seems quite relevant too. The agent will remain nameless, largely because I don’t know his name, but hopefully you will enjoy it. If you have any further questions you’d like answered, you can leave them in the comments or contact the site via the contact button (oddly enough) at the top of the page. Anyway, here it is. All work after the following pointy lines (what ARE those little beasts?) is that of FunGunner and I am not trying to take credit for it in any way at all. Thanks for sending this, FunGunner!

^^^

How long have you been an agent?

14 years. I got my licence by the time I was 18 years of age. There are about 400-500 agents working in the UK.

Do you have clients working in the Premier League? The Championship? Any foreign leagues?

All of the above. I have players working in Ukraine, Denmark, Italy and Russia as well as the English leagues.

Have you had any dealings with Arsenal?

A long time ago, I tried to get a young Brazilian player into Arsenal. We had talks but Wenger was not interested.

Why did you become an agent? How did you get started and what qualifications did you need, if any?

I played as a semi-professional briefly. A lot of my friends played and I knew an agent. I used to work for him as well. At that time young players had no-one to represent them and no advice when they were released from big clubs. I saw a niche in the market. I worked for other people for about 10 years, then formed my own company. I still represent the player who was my first client. You don’t need qualifications as such. I had to learn all the FIFA rules and regulations for agents. The ethical standards are included in those. And you had to post a bond of £30,000 for a domestic licence (to work in the UK only) rising to £100,000 for a worldwide licence. Nowadays you don’t need to put up the money, you just get indemnity insurance. The market is saturated as a result. There are a lot of agents around who don’t know what they’re doing and haven’t previously been involved in football. To advise your clients when they’re not doing well, to manage their career properly, you need a network of contacts in football circles and experience of the game. There is a professional association but it’s not particularly important and you don’t have to belong. They have get-togethers but I don’t go to them.

How do you see your job? What is the most important part of it?

The most important part is guiding a player’s career. It’s a short career and the wrong decision can ruin it. The player’s career is harmed and my relationship with him is over. So I have to get it right. Sometimes it can involve being honest and clear with a player, managing his expectations of what he can earn and who will employ him.

Does it help your career if you are intelligent?

Not necessarily. The main thing is your football talent. Being intelligent helps with making decisions.

What is your relationship with your clients? Friend? Mentor? Career adviser?

A career adviser. For the young players I take on I am more of a mentor. They always want a second opinion about how they played in the last game, for example.  I offer guidance. With the older players, who have been my clients for years, I am more of a friend.

What motivates you? What gets you out of bed every morning?

Football – I love football, I love my job and I feel lucky to be doing it. And I am always hoping to discover the next Oxlade-Chamberlain, the next Walcott.

Fans often don’t understand how agents can be brokering deals on behalf of clubs as well as their players – can you explain what happens?

Sometimes I will find out through my contacts that a player would like to move, or I hear that a club is looking for a particular player or type of player. Then I would contact the club with the player and alert the other one. If they want to make an agreement, I would negotiate the deal between the two clubs and take a percentage of the fee on that. But you never work for a club and your client in the same deal, as that would be a conflict of interest. In a deal that I have brokered between two clubs, the player’s agent will negotiate the contract between the buying the club and the player.

Transfers – what is the process? Who holds the power?

It can start with an agent putting the two clubs together, or the player’s own agent contacting another club. Then, not necessarily always in the same order, the buying and selling club agree a fee and the player agrees a new contract with the new club. Most of the time, the playing contract is the last thing you sort out, but if the clubs are 99% sure they are going to agree a deal, but haven’t agreed exact figures or terms yet, the selling club will often give permission for the player to talk to the buying club and sort out his contract, to save time. This happened with Gary Cahill – a fee hadn’t been agreed but Bolton allowed him to sort out his playing contract with Chelsea anyway. If the player talked to the new club without permission or behind his club’s back, it would be a very serious matter. As to who holds the most power, it’s the player. If the player wants to move, he’ll move. If he doesn’t want to, he won’t.

Why do transfers break down?

When you’re negotiating a transfer it’s not like going out to buy a Ferrari – you’re dealing with human beings. Everybody has to be happy. Another club can jump in when they hear that the player is up for sale and make an offer which blows the first one out of the water. They might hear about it on the grapevine but sometimes, if you think you could get a better deal or club for your client, you might try to get another club interested. It’s very, very rare that a transfer fails because of a relatively small amount of money. If everybody wants the deal they will try to make it happen.

What are the reasons players want to move?

Money is important – it’s a short career and players have to make sure that they will have enough money to maintain a good lifestyle and meet their commitments when they retire – they aren’t all going to become TV pundits or open sports goods stores. But what players are mostly concerned with is their career development. They want playing time. Most will happily take a salary cut if they can go to a bigger or more ambitious club.  They want trophies, to play for the big clubs, to play with and against the top players.

Location of the clubs matters a lot as well – I have a client working abroad who is desperate to come to London because he wants his kids to go to school in England. Or even players working in the PL might ask me to see if I can get them a move to a London club.

And why might a footballer not want a move?

Another reason that proposed transfers can fail to happen is because of family. As a professional footballer you are always uprooting your family. So if your partner doesn’t want to move, you might not. Or if the move would take you too far from your family support network, you might reject it for that reason. Family can be a massive factor. But having said that, footballers accept that moving frequently is part of the job.  It also could be that they don’t think get enough playing time.

How do clubs value their players for sale?

Good question. Some prices are unimaginable. Like Carroll. It really depends on the time of year and the interest in the player, and whether they think the buying club is desperate.

Apart from arranging transfers, what do you do all day?

The windows can be busy although the last one (January) wasn’t! It depends who is moving. In general I am managing my clients. I advise the young ones about whether they need to go on loan. I also might look on behalf of a club see who’s available (not one of my clients) to take on loan. Plus I do A LOT of scouting. Everyone is looking for the next big thing. When a young star comes through lots of agents will be vying for his signature.

There are rumours about “highest paid player” clauses in contracts – does this happen?

It does happen. I would say it would be a good thing to negotiate in the contract of a star player. If someone comes in on a higher wage, his wage goes up as well. Players can be very conscious of how much others are paid, but it depends on the individual. Sometimes a player will ask for more money because someone else is getting more. I might say to him, be realistic and look at the big picture, or I might try and get more money for him in which case it depends on how much the club values him as to whether they agree to renegotiate. But with a lot of players, the most important thing is whether they’re generally happy or not.

Money – has it ruined the game?

No. It’s made it better. Money has brought the best players to the PL. Man City’s owners have upset the old order and made it more exciting. Before it used to be like the Scottish or Spanish leagues – the same one or two clubs winning the league year after year. QPR have got rich owners now as well. It’s made the league less predictable.

How do you spot potential new clients?

By watching games, or word of mouth.

How are Arsenal viewed amongst agents?

They have no reputation for anything in particular. They’re like everyone else – if you’ve got something they want, they will talk to you, if you don’t, they don’t want to know.

Feeling after last night’s match couldn’t have been more different to feeling after the first leg in Milan if it had tried. After the 4-0 beat down we endured back then, there was anger, sadness, disappointment, confusion and serious panic. There were no explanations as to just how horrible we had been, nor why that awful performance had had to take place on such a massive stage. Some of our most consistent players had stinkers, leaving us questioning whether even they, our most reliable of reliables, were capable of doing anything but choking on the big stage.

What a difference three weeks makes! Yes, yes, we’ve had two lovely wins in the meantime which have most definitely gone some way to restoring belief in the team, but we all knew ahead of yesterday that even though the chances of us going through were malnourished to bony, a win would at least ‘maintain momentum’ and claw us some pride back. Who imagined we’d do just that in such a fashion, though?

We’re still out of the Champions League but really we knocked ourselves out of that three weeks back. There are still no excuses or explanations for that performance, but that it was a really bad day. But, you can do one of two things: you can look back on that night and think “If only and why and how and ARGH”, or you can look at it as a big fat ugly mistake that needed to be corrected as much as possible. I think they did just that last night.

Tomorrow it will have been a year since we went out of the tournament 4-3 on aggregate to Barcelona. A cracking first leg win was wrecked somewhat by a 3-1 loss away, in which our inability to get the ball was exacerbated by the loss of our striker Robin van Persie for… errrr… having a strike.  Today we find ourselves out of the tournament once again and the scoreline is oh-so-familiar.

4-3. The four part having come three weeks ago, and the three part having come last night. I honestly can’t remember a first half like it – even as Robin blasted the third home from the spot, there were no smiles or celebration. These men were men with a plan and that plan did not involve any premature celebrations. Also, they didn’t seem that surprised to find themselves 3-0 up. It was like they’d had some kind of secret meeting in a disused factory and planned it all out.

Can we have more of these meetings please?

We should be really proud of the goals we scored and the fact we came so close to taking the tie to extra time (although would we have survived that? As Koscielny told Sky afterwards “Everybody are dead”). However, more impressive is the fact we kept a clean sheet as well. After all, one goal and we suddenly went from having to score four to keep ourselves alive to having to score six. It’s a big shame we couldn’t maintain the intensity in the second half, but then probably only robots could have. Both Gibbs and Vermaelen (the former having played especially well) looked injured at different points. Gibbs looked to have a thigh problem, which he seemed to run off, and Vermaelen looked to have aggravated the back injury he picked up against Liverpool, this time by diving in for a tackle. Either they played through the pain (hopefully not), or they ran them off. The Ox played WITH THE FLU and has just announced that he’s on his way home to be looked after by his mum. Imagine beating tonking AC Milan with the flu. Imagine playing football with the flu. Imagine doing anything but make dying noises and try to bury your head into your mattress with the flu.

It was also funny seeing everyone else crap themselves. I’m sure many are devastated it was Robin who missed our best chance to get our fourth, and that he only scored one goal, because that sliced off the possibility of ONLY talking about his contract in the post-match discussions. Check out this madness from Charlie Nicholas though – brilliant!

There’s not really much else to say. Three brilliant goals from three different sources (TOMAS ROSICKY WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN EATING?), some excellent Szczesny saves and lots of ‘LOL @ you, Gobby Ponytail Boy’ moments are really all we could have asked for. That, and a great performance from the fans too. It was funny seeing everyone going “No no no no don’t let me believe it”, but the thing was, they did believe it, and that’s probably what got us a 3-0 win over AC Milan yesterday.