Such is our form that a point away is seen by some as a bad result. But is it really?

Since the season kicked off some six weeks ago we have played 4 Champions League, 7 League and a COC game with an injury ravaged squad.

That’s 12 games, 2 per week , with basically the same starting 11.  Is it any wonder we were not at our scintillating best?

The Referee was dire.  More on him later.

We played a team that had their tails up, having beaten the current champions in their fortress just last week.

And yet, and yet I say, despite going a goal down, we didn’t lose. No, we did not – we drew. That dear friends is a good point, let me tell you.

Ok,there were some less than convincing performances. Such is the nature of sport.

Jack had a bit of a mare. After 20 minutes I wanted him hooked. That’s what I would have done.  Off he would have come and up Rosicky would have popped.

That is why I am a dumb-arsed blogger, and not a football professional (well its one of the reasons anyway) because his spirit and drive got us the equaliser. It was his first league goal for 3 years; it took a very lucky deflection for it to go in, but in it went. You don’t win a raffle unless you buy a ticket, and Jack bought a ticket.

The same tired arguments about him not being a wide player are being trotted out. He is a very talented player, he should be able to play anywhere other than defence and centre-forward. He had a bad day. Nothing more.

Let us not forget that someone has to play wide, and in the absence of all our regular wide players, why not Jack?  It helped Aaron with his development. Why not Jack?

Also, hard as it may sound, he is not playing in his preferred position simply because there are other players who are better than him taking those places.

As I saw it the problem was that West Brom set out to stop us playing through the middle.  That meant the flanks were where the space was, but neither Jack nor Aaron are best suited to that role.

So it became somewhat of a slog.

This is exactly the sort of game we used to lose. But not now it seems. Oh no. This is a different animal, this Arsenal.

Now to Mr Mason, our nemesis on the day.

He was crap. He allowed Jack to be kicked from pillar to post, tripped, barged and bumped off the ball. No wonder the lad could not get into any sort of a rhythm.

Personally I thought Jack could have had two penalties, the second of which was the tackle from behind of the type that has seen penalties awarded against us when Laurent has done it.

As I said, I thought we needed the flanks to be exploited and Carl and Gibbs were not very good going forward yesterday.

Anyway, given all of the above, we have to be pleased to be sitting on top of the league going into the international break.

More troops will be back after the break and we can march on.

Happy days .

Can’t guarantee this blog will be worth reading. There are two reasons for my starting a little with the handbrake on. Firstly I could have sworn I already did West Brom just the other day and secondly I have a raging toothache and just necked a chemical cocktail of pain killers including some prescription pills we found when we cleared out Dad’s bedside cupboard after he died in 2004. He had them for his bad back but anything will do when the hot tea hits the root canal. I will persevere for as long the words swim in a vaguely legible fashion but once the old pink pachyderms start floating across the page I shall retire gracefully from the fray.

Our opponents today have been the surprise package in the early part of the season. Apart from routine wins at places like Old Trafford and creditable draws against Fulham and Everton they really raised eyebrows by managing to take Arsenal to extra time and penalties in the Carling Cup. Rumbelows Cup. Milk, Littlewoods, Coca Cola, Whatever The Hell It Is Now Cup. You know the one. Here’s an idea, let’s all go back to calling it the League Cup and we’ll know where we are. What the hell is Capital One anyway? No idea. Could be a chain of airport jewellers or an Albanian Lama Farm for all I know and frankly I don’t care to be educated on the subject.

I have watched the Baggies twice this season and found them to be a bit of a curate’s egg. They were in the one instance prepared to commit a range of niggling and unnecessary fouls and in the second showed themselves capable of some scintillating skill on the ball, good movement off it and against admittedly poor opposition in Manchester they played with a calm maturity which did them credit. I was particularly impressed with Stéphane Sessègnon but also the strength of the central defenders and the speed of the whole team on the break. In fact I have to say that in the past sides have done to us what West Brom did to United with solid obstinate defending and fast opportunist counter attacking football and even though we look a lot less vulnerable to such tactics these days I am fairly certain that they’ll adopt a similar approach this afternoon.

How am I doing? Seems OK so far but I know people under the influence often exaggerate their own coherence so I’m aware that when I read this back later it may be so much gobbledegook. I might have written out my shopping list for all I know. It’ll certainly make the trip to Lidl interesting as I try to fit a match preview into my trolley. At least I haven’t mentioned Winston Churchill this time. That seemed to kick off all sorts of problems in my previous write up. I do want to focus on an aspect of our game as well as the usual stuff about German supermarkets and dead statesmen that you expect to find in an Arsenal blog. I’ve been impressed with almost every aspect of our play lately. I am in the minority perhaps in thinking that the second half against Rafa’s merry men was in some ways more significant than the first. How can I say such crazy stuff? Well it’s partly down to the cough medicine I used to wash down Dad’s out of date pills but also there are arguable footballistic reasons behind the assertion.

In the first half we blew away a team who were I believe unbeaten in all competitions prior to stepping onto our hallowed turf. Blew them away. It was a mouth watering tsunami of football from a group of players at the top of their game and I doubt anyone could have lived with us in that mood. In the second half some folk were disappointed that we didn’t continue apace and put them to the sword. A five or six goal humiliation is of course always fun for us to witness, especially if we’re dishing it out rather than bending over and receiving the punishment. There was understandable discontent that we appeared to lack the killer edge of the first half but I feel very differently about what happened and the possible reasons for it. In the past we have been in similar situations and not known whether to shit or get off the pot. If we went gung-ho at teams we ran the very real risk of shipping annoying goals as against Tottenham Hotsuprs a few years back when we ended up drawing a game we could have won and yet at the same time we never looked comfortable trying to see out the match once we’d taken the lead. This is why I have enjoyed our recent performances, especially the second half on Tuesday.

There are two things happening. On the one hand we are playing with much more maturity and confidence than in the past. Sometimes the ‘Per….. Kos….. Bac… Per.. Kos.. Per KosPerKos – Aaaargh! – Szczęsny hoof it away’ routine still happens and that fills none of us with pacific tranquillity, but more often than not we defend a lead in tigerish depth and, when we win it back, play the ball around with enormous composure. This was much in evidence against Napoli and is the stuff winning sides are made of. The second thing is that a squad battered and bereft by a spate of untimely injuries to top class players and with a new face occupying a vital position have had to play a lot of games in very quick succession. High pressure games with all sorts riding on them. They’ve done this in the certain knowledge that most of them will be wheeled out again in a couple of days as the reserves just aren’t there at the moment to allow tired legs to be rotated. So they’ve preserved themselves. They’ve been good enough to get their noses in front and go into cruise control and see out the match with the bare minimum of fuss. No mean feat and requiring no little skill and self belief. On occasions, such as the last time we travelled to the Midlands to face today’s opponents, the match has descended into more of a dog fight but the players have shown themselves more than capable of rolling up metaphorical sleeves when the situation demanded it and getting stuck in. Skill. Composure. Maturity. Determination. Flexibility. Qualities any sporting team need and I believe we have in abundance.

There is a sense of us approaching the turning of a page as far as the season goes. I’ve heard plenty saying ‘let’s get to the international break and see where we are’, or ‘we could be top of the league and top of our group at the international break’. As Churchill said, ‘this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning’. Phase one over, still in all cup competitions and top of both league groups would be a decidedly acceptable place to be. More importantly the break actually comes at a pretty good time for once as we await the return of our injured players. I believe that win lose or draw today and we have still had a fine beginning. We have of course been here before and seen the wheels fall off. We’ve seen United struggle in the first few weeks and walk away with the league. However we’ve also seen Arsène build sides that start breaking club records during the course of a season and go on to achieve true greatness. Which will this season be? Of course I don’t know any more than you do, I have a gut feeling, but I am as superstitious as the next fan where the beautiful game is concerned and so will not speak of such things in a public forum.
Let me conclude by saying that this elephant is becoming a little uncomfortable and I may need to buy a new cheek in Argos today as I appear to have bitten through the old one. Or perhaps it’s just my wife’s jumper, I wish it would climb down from there. It’s high time for another tablet; your round I believe?

I’m out of step again. If supporting Arsenal was a dance I’d be treading on every toe in the room. It’s OK don’t feel sorry for me, I’m quite used to it. When we were playing in hugely entertaining games but coming out with honours shared in multi scoring draws or losing by the odd goal or as a result of hugely prejudicial refereeing decisions I often found myself in a minority of one. I stood like the little boy still waving his flag after the procession had passed saying to nobody “Wasn’t that a gay parade, colourful and exciting?” as everyone else in the street marched grumbling back into their houses angry, cheated, feeling the costumes were less flamboyant than in previous years, the music a little discordant, the majorettes skirts less high than they liked and the baton twirls not as extravagant as they might have been.

My final contribution, I genuinely believed it to be forever, to the world of Arsenal blogging was to ask, almost a year ago now and following a three three draw with Fulham, whether there was any other single person out there who could agree that the match had been entertaining and good to watch. Nobody could. I said that in that event I would keep my counsel. That I did until George and Adi inflated the enormous bouncy castle that is Positively Arsenal and enquired as to whether or not I might like to jump on and try a few somersaults. The rest is, to polish a very tired and already shining cliché, history. Or at least so I had assumed. Increasingly though I’m finding myself once more moving into a position of isolation. Remarks passed are missing my bulls eye by a fraction and the popular note is not, to my ear at least, always quite true.

Before you begin to berate me for a curmudgeonly, or as my Caledonian comrades would have it, a carnaptious outlook during this time of celebration and general rejoicing among the Arsenal cognoscenti, stay your sword hand, I beg, keep your powder dry, and hear me out. I am not miserable, nor am I deliberately dour simply in a spirit of perverse contradiction. I have been accused of such contrary instincts often enough in the past and so I must presume that there could be some truth in the accusation, one is put in mind of the old clench about a stopped clock being correct at least twice a day. However on this occasion I am certain I can defend my position against such a prosecution case.

In the first instance I believe I may meet with a favourable reception. I am hugely antagonised by the refusal of the media, exemplified by the apparatchiks at ЅҠЧ ЅРѺЯТЅ on Tuesday evening, to give simple unvarnished credit where it is manifestly due. Arsenal did not in fact play the most outstanding, beautiful efficient and yet inventive football imaginable. Instead Napoli were a disappointment. Napoli were poor. Napoli were sure to come out and show more in the second half. The script cannot be changed, Arsène cannot be given credit for what he has been building at the Emirates all these years because then the real power in football would have to admit they’d been wrong and force a different editorial line from the wooden lips of their ventriloqual dolls. I’m sure we were all as annoyed by the commentators search for excuses to prop up their tired arguments. Thank goodness for the French TV coverage I eventually secured. Where I differ from the rest of you perhaps is my reaction to the media circus where there is evidence or at least the suggestion of a change of heart. People are rejoicing that the papers are beginning to recognise that we are resurgent, that we have awoken and the bad or lean times are behind us. I hear folk talking with glee how this negative blog or that radio show are saying that from the depths of despair when we lost to Villa and inspired by our new Deutsche Wunderkind Arsenal are suddenly a different team. And this is one of things that really pisses me off.

The media are not saying “We got it wrong, we’re sorry for all the scurrilous nonsense we’ve talked about the great Monsieur Wenger and his long term plan” of course they aren’t and they never will. What they are actually saying is Arsenal were shit until Arsène finally caved in and spent some fackin’ money – just like they’d always told him to. I can’t celebrate that. I can’t celebrate when they propagate the nonsense that Mesut Özil inspired us to victory over Napoli as I heard this morning or that he was ‘at the heart of everything good about Arsenal” as I read. Apart from the fact that by any sensible measure no one stood out in what was the consummate team performance (except possibly Aaron Ramsey who was the best man on the pitch in the first half and by quite a long way) the comments are at best lazy –

Arsenal spend a lot of money on a player ergo he must be the best player at the club

or self serving –

we always said Arsenal would never do anything until they spent some fackin’ money so now we will ignore the facts and thus prove ourselves correct.

So don’t expect me to cheer when these lying scumbags appear to be blowing smoke up our kilts. They will turn on us at the first bad result and won’t ever give credit for the fact that this team was already in the midst of an incredible run, which has continued and to which Özil is merely one contributing factor. The real story is the platform Arsène has assembled upon which the likes of Mesut can strut their stuff.

Another area where I find myself out of step with many of my friends is this mood of vindication, this feeling that the results have proved us to be right and yar boo sucks to anyone who doubted our positive support in the past. I’m reading Roy Jenkins huge and hugely enjoyable biography of Churchill at the moment and it has given me pause on this subject on more than one occasion. The old warhorse was very fond of saying “In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity” and a little bit of that magnanimity wouldn’t go amiss right now. Apart from anything else I don’t think it is the results or current form that proves us to have been right for standing defiant by the manager in recent times. Churchill was furious at Chamberlain’s betrayal of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and ’39 and made many dire predictions about the calamitous outcome of a continued policy of appeasement. My argument is he wasn’t proven right by the carnage that ensued in the following years, he was right to be appalled at the perfidious treachery shown by the Western allies to the Czech people regardless of the outcome. Even if Hitler had stopped there and Europe had enjoyed decades of peaceful prosperity it wouldn’t alter the fact that allowing the fascist annexation of another country would have been wrong. Full stop. Wrong because it was wrong by any moral measurement not wrong because of the way things turned out. In our perhaps less cataclysmic area of concern, we would have been right to support our manager and players irrespective of the results they went on to achieve. We are supporters and we could clearly see what Arsène was trying to achieve and how he was going about it. It was right and proper to support him in that quest. If we’d lost a few more games this season than we have that position would still have remained the correct one. We supported him simply because it was the right thing to do and this good run of results is not relevant. ‘I told you so’ has no place for me.

I know what you’re thinking – lighten up Stew and let us have our moment for goodness sake. Fine go ahead I don’t blame you and I too am revelling in the football and the results. I’m happy for players like Aaron and Tomas after their personal tribulations and I’m delighted for Arsène to be where he deserves to be, I am a little bit in love with Per Mertesacker and if it means the team is winning I’m content to be proven right. I just don’t buy the media line and don’t think it healthy for anyone else so to do, oh and I prefer magnanimity to gloating any day of the week. The former is sun kissed and virtuous residing upon lofty moral high ground, the latter lives in a squalid detritus choked gutter of self regard. Having said all that I’m not immune to the instinct to poke out my tongue at my detractors. To that end I have one delicious quotation to share with you from Jenkins’ weighty tome. Churchill was adept at putting people in their place with a pithy or elegantly turned phrase, in fact this remains one of the things for which he is most famous. However he was, unsurprisingly perhaps, occasionally on the receiving end of some pretty stiff stuff. When I consider some of the awful accusations levelled at us Positivistas, that we were living in the past, that events had left us behind and we were clinging to the promise of false hope based on Arsène’s achievements from a sadly bygone age, the words of the Marquess of Linlithgow from a written exchange with WSC in 1932 spring instantly to mind. “Forgive me then if I say that it is not, it seems to me, so much I who am mouthing the bland platitudes of an age that has passed away … but rather you who are hanging hairy from a branch while you splutter the atavistic shibboleths destined by some to retreat into the forgotten past”.

Now that is a put down.

Just one word.

Where to start?

I assume you have all seen the game, so no point me going through it blow-by- blow.

It was quite simply a thing of beauty.

Wengerball at its finest.  This was not merely sterile possession, oh no.  It was quite simply football at its very best.  Napoli were going to be the big test, ‘they’ said.  Well from the first two minutes right up to the whistle at the end of the first-half, Napoli did not get a foot on the ball.

Remember, this was a side wracked with injury, cobbled together from a paper-thin squad supposedly lacking depth, and a manager, we have been told, who doesn’t do tactics.

It was just devastating stuff from the home team, total domination and a joy to behold.

The poor Sky Sports pundits were left without a twig to beat Arsenal with; critics of the club were left scrambling for crumbs of negative comfort in a cupboard that is patently bare; once again, the sound of scripts being torn up were all but audible.

The second half was Wengerball (Part 2) and you could sense the whole of Europe taking heed of the warning now emanating from North London.

We just slipped back into third gear and controlled the game in a way that really makes you think that this team is the real deal.  We waited and waited for a counter-attack that simply never came.  Napoli knew we would ruthlessly pick them off if they risked anything and sensibly opted for a respectable defeat, three points lost.  The other option did not bear thinking about and had season-ruining potential written all over it.

I really can’t think of one of our lads who were not magnificent.

Ok, I don’t have enough superlatives to do the performance justice, so let’s enjoy talking about it in the comments section.

Have I said I love this team?

Oh, ok.

“We are top of the league, say, we are top of the league!” 

(What can possibly go wrong?)

We stand top of the League, two points clear with six games gone.

That’s six games people not thirty-six.

It is fantastic that we are where we are but I urge caution.  I hope we win the league, I do, of course I do.

I want us to win it, but I don’t expect us to win it.

Can we win it?  I think so.

However, if we start to believe we should win it at this early stage, then if we don’t, that will be seen as a failure.  For me though, if we don’t quite win it yet end up a lot closer, then that should be seen as an achievement, not a failure.  Things can go wrong. In fact things WILL go wrong.  Just like they always have for every team, anywhere, ever.

In two years time we should see the nucleolus of this team hitting their peak.

Imagine if  Jack, Wojciech, Carl and AOC improve in the way Aaron and Gibbs have (although I feel there is much more to come from them and Theo too) .  Ozil,  Santi, Per and Laurent will still be at the height of their powers.  Add to all that a sprinkling of stars bought in and then I will be expecting us to win things.  Only a few short weeks ago we could have backed Arsenal to win the league at odds of 20 to 1.  So if we were to eventually manage to come out on top, then – given those odds – that would be an incredible achievement.

We do incredible achievement though, don’t we?

17 years of Champions League qualification; one unbeaten season; the move to the finest stadium in the country – all incredible.

So let’s be excited.  Let’s be hopeful

But let’s not be calling it a failure if we have to wait a little longer.

The same stupid people who see the last 8 years as a failure will roll out the same tired arguments as to why we have shown a lack of ambition.  From what I can see, the crux of this argument seems to be that we should have spent more, sooner.

Clearly the plan Arsene and the Board have been following is not the same as that which these Einsteins would have dreamed up.  Of course that plan would have been formed with little or no knowledge of the club or its goals or the financial realities.

A plan that would have been crudely fueled by dangerous levels of optimism.  Still, I am sure they would have been right.

Eh?  Really?

What are the chances?

So let us not make the same mistake.

This post is dedicated to Thomas’s everywhere.  No, really, it is.

These comments before the weekend from Arsene Wenger,  via the Daily Mail, should be of interest to anyone seeking to understand the events of the last few years at Arsenal:

“‘We are, resource-wise, more competitive,’ he said, and clearly he feels the money needed to fund the move to the Emirates has, until now, clipped his wings.
‘Until 2005, we could compete every year to win the league,’ he added.

‘After we moved into the new stadium, it’s not a coincidence even if some seasons we were close to winning the title, we couldn’t.

‘But, believe me, I have worked harder in the last four or five years, against scepticism, against players moving out.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2435971/Arsene-Wenger-wants-recreate-Arsenal-glory-days.html#ixzz2g9pWMBAF

It’s that final sentence – the one about working harder over the last five years, and why – that I find remarkably telling.

He is, in effect, saying that his job was more challenging in the last few years than during any other part of his 17 year tenure – and he cites player departures and scepticism as the two key reasons.  Whilst the older playing  talent took flight, the Doubting Thomas’s began to hi-jack the headlines.

If you yourself are an Arsenal fan, but one riddled with doubt and cynicism, anger and criticism, just take a moment to think about that.

Ask yourself what role YOU played in making the Arsenal Manager’s job that much harder.

Then ask yourself, regardless of victory, draw or defeat, what role, as a fan and a supporter, you might play in the future.

If you are a Doubting Thomas or have loved ones or know of anyone who is doubtful about Arsenal’s future prospects, it’s not too late to do something about it.  Simply log onto http://www.postivelyarsenal.com for at least 20 minutes every day and rediscover your faith in the club.  Help is at hand; just twenty minutes every day. 

Go on, take that first positive step.  Today and every day.

Two good footballing teams

Here is my usual in-depth analysis of the game.

Two good footballing teams played a good game of football.  The team with the best players won.

It really was as simple as that.

It almost looks like the lads are so full of self-belief that they can easily contain teams, safe in the knowledge that a shift through the gears can be found at any time.  Eight Premier League away wins on the bounce.  Twelve consecutive away wins.

I mean come on!

We have to be impressed by that? Don’t we?  We have won five consecutive Premier League games. The only loss was to a referee.  Santi, Podolski ,Tomas and Theo will be back soon.

Imagine that?

If we can get to the international break with another two wins then I think we can really start to get excited.

Oh and I don’t know if anyone noticed, but the team our reserves beat in the C.O.C. this week went to the home of the Champions, and beat them yesterday.

Anyway, that’s it from me.  You all will have seen it, lets chat about it and enjoy it in the comments section.

I don’t usually watch Arsène’s duels with the press. Not that I don’t like hearing his dulcet tones and seeing that flash of a smile as he claps a stopper over some impudent line of questioning. Of course I derive a certain satisfaction from seeing him spear the occasional journalist, who doesn’t? Generally though I simply can’t bear to watch him wheeled out to face these reptiles every week. Those self styled voices of the people who in fact do not speak for you and I any more than Tim Payton speaks for the majority or even a tiny minority of Arsenal fans. I cannot stomach seeing such a cerebral, dignified man wasting his time deflecting leading questions and smiling in the teeth of such monumental disrespect as that with which the British media treat him. It puts one in  mind of a room full of deaf men throwing faeces at Johan Sebastian Bach. Brilliance gnawed at by vermin.

Yesterday I made an exception and I found a way around the problem. The trick is to mute the sound as Arsène gazes off to the left or right with that faint hint of amused tolerance playing around the corners of his lips and increase the volume as he gives the little shrug which usually precedes a response to some inane question or other. He was so relaxed and eloquent yesterday. Modest to a fault as he hinted that signing a new contract wouldn’t take much persuasion and at the same time suggesting that his further employment wasn’t a top priority right now. This is the single most important man at the club bar none and yet we never see a scintilla of arrogance, not a shred of hubris. He frightened us a little with talk of Theo being as much as five weeks away and by revealing that Aaron and the Flaminator needed fitness tests, but it wasn’t what he said so much as his air that grabbed my attention. He has such vast and supreme experience in the world of football that he knows all too well how swiftly events can turn around and just how shifting and insubstantial a run of good results can sometimes prove to be. Yet he looked like a man on top of the world right now. Like a Mafia boss who has just received word that the heads of the other four families have been wiped out, and until their lieutenants can reorganise he is the supreme authority in the city. Of course first can swiftly become fifth, we know that and he knows it better than anyone but he is a man who was born to be top. Made to lead. Destined for greatness. All I’m saying is the frown was gone the smile was back and it was like basking in unseasonably warm Autumn sunshine. I nearly took my shirt off.

Arsène mentioned his opposite number in this afternoon’s clash. He liked Laudrup as a player and singled out his Scandinavian and Dutch football education as important. The man has essentially learned to play the game as it should be played. I’ve only seen his Swansea side once this season and I have to say I remain an admirer of the way they try to go about their business. They are as shy of hoofing the thing out of defence as are we and that is to their credit. Unfortunately the game I watched was on this year’s Jonjo Shelvey Day and was such a crazy affair that I couldn’t form any coherent sense of their strengths and weaknesses. I do remember thinking that Michu seemed a shoe in for this season’s Dimitar Berbatov award. He strolled languidly about the place as if on a sightseeing tour of South Wales whilst somehow contriving to maintain an air of suppressed menace suggesting he could at any given moment produce a devastating blow seemingly from nothing. Overall though on the rare moments when one could focus on anything but Jonjo’s Flying Circus the match showed us that the Swans can be intricate, inventive and incisive up front but will give the opposition a lot of space to work with at the back. Naturally if I can see that, then their coaching staff can too and there’s no guarantee that they will make similar mistakes against us.

Unlike last week when we had to break down Mark Hughes and his merry men, the games against Swansea are among those to which I most look forward. You can take it as read that I’m happy to see us play regardless of the opposition but it is so much more enjoyable when the match is between two teams dedicated to passing football. I know I’m out of step with the prevailing blogging mantra of The Only Thing That Matters Is The Three Points but seriously, come on, if that were true then no one would watch the game at all. We’d all just tune into Sports Report and listen intently as James Alexander Gordon does his thing. I want to enjoy the football. I want a spectacle. Win lose or draw I want an hour and a half of entertainment. You could of course argue that we got that in our midweek fixture. Nail biting end to end, sliding tackling, blood and thunder entertainment, and you’d be quite correct. But the great man has spoiled us with season after season of Wengerball and now we’ve become habituated to champagne let’s be honest, Vimto doesn’t quite deliver any more.

So to this afternoon, or if you prefer this evening. The only question I have is whether or not Arsène will start with Serge in lieu of Theo. He hinted that he might not, three games in a week being quite an ask for one so young. If the boy has recovered from his exertions against West Brom, I suspect he will start. If the kid is to be our temporary replacement on the right wing then the more he plays and the better those around him get to know and grow confident in him, the happier things must be for the team. Having said that I bet I’m not alone on relishing another glimpse of Chuba Akpom running at an opposition defence. His cameo on Wednesday was blistering; brimming with confidence speed and strength and the boy is surely not far away from the first team. Don’t panic though I’m no armchair strategist, God knows we don’t need any more of those. In any event Arsène is entirely capable of surprising us all and playing both Arteta and the Flaminizer together, pushing Jack left and The Wonder That Is Aaron Ramsay out to the right with Mesut Özil behind Goal A Game in a sort of 4 2 1 3, or 4 2 2 1 1. Honestly? I don’t have a clue but that’s fine because no one does with the possible exception of Steve Bould and even then only if Arsène has thought to tell him. As I’ve said many times, if you want predictions visit a fortune teller.

All I do know is that we are in an extremely ebullient mood on our travels these days. We may not have turned the Emirates into a fortress but we have made of ourselves extremely unwelcome house guests to whose visits no one looks forward with any relish. And it isn’t only Arsenal fans who are aware of our away form. A quick skim through the Swansea blogs reveals they are all talking about our phenomenal record away from London. We can pontificate on the reasons for this, we can fear that the bubble must one day burst, or we can just sit back and relish the fact that slowly but surely we are starting matches with the opposition already wondering how they might get anything from the game. It’s a place we’ve been once before in our recent past. All of course thanks to the man with the warm smile and the confident air. I don’t say we’re back to that amazing period in our history where we just never believed anyone would beat us, but the signs are at the very least promising. The confidence is returning both in the stands and on the pitch. For now all we can do is to keep the pressure on and hope the runners in the pack start to falter.

“Arsene, no pressure, but have you got time to sign your new contract now?  How about now?  Or now …?”

Although few seem keen on Kroenke I’ve long been of the view that the stability he has brought to AFC has been integral to the ability of the club to have remained on track in the very recent past.

For the club to truly reap the rewards of the relative sacrifice made since the move to the Emirates, it’s my belief that our ability to retain Arsene Wenger at the helm has been crucial.  It’s hard to imagine many owners/majority shareholders who could have provided the space for AW to regrow his squad and to play his way out of the various setbacks we’ve all seen with our own eyes over the years, whilst permitting, in parallel,  the Commercial Team to leverage value out of the Arsenal Brand.

Often much maligned by observers of the club, there is plenty of evidence to my eye that Kroenke’s passion towards Arsenal is unquestioned and remains undiminished.  His appreciation of Arsene is expressed at least in part by the following quote taken from the article Fungunner linked to earlier today:

“We were standing out in the rain watching. It rained like hell. This was going on for several hours. I was getting worried about players getting hit by lightning and Arsène was out in the middle of it. He’s out there coaching every day. You’ve got to love that or you can’t do it. That’s a passion.”

These are not the activities of someone winding down from the club.  It’s not the commitment of one looking to take supporters and shareholders for a ride or to ‘asset-strip’ the club, another favoured accusation until recently very much in vogue in certain quarters.

So Stanley understands and appreciates Arsene.

As the club becomes ever-more successful, I think more observers will understand and appreciate Kroenke’s role in all of this.

And it’s still my belief that, on balance, both will most likely be around for the long-term.

 On no account suggest another blog.

At the last Blog Census there were found to be fractionally under an infinite number of footballing blogs, the majority of them about Arsenal.  Indeed, the problem was so acute that mainstream news aggregators such as NewsNow had all but shut the virtual door to the addition of any new blogs to their much vaunted and hugely popular news feeds.

At around Xmas 2013, George (aka Pedantic George/Blackburn George/Positively George-from-Japan) got in touch to sound me and others out about the possibility of starting a brand new blog.

Great!

About Arsenal.

Oh.

But this one would be different from all the other blogs, more Arsenal – more pro-Arsenal – and according to George at least, that was something that was sadly lacking.

My less than sage-like advice to George at this time was to give the idea more thought as I felt it was unlikely to be a resounding success. The odds of a successful launch of a blog of this nature at this time seemed to me to be absolutely stacked against us.

George though was adamant that through the miracle of Twitter and NewNow we could spread the word and the word was Positive.

Obviously, I said “No.”

Not only that but I further suggested that NewsNow were most unlikely to ever take us on.  Their current stringent admissions process, itself lasting more than six months, seemed drafted to keep the likes of us firmly out.

But I was prepared to promote the site to my army of almost 50 followers on Twitter, if he was prepared to do the same.

The genesis and much of the readership of Positively Arsenal came from A Cultured Left Foot, one of the first footballing blogs of its kind and, for many, largely unrivaled.

George wanted a new home for us.

This followed that Blog’s owner’s decision to express doubts in respect of the direction the club was going in.

The now famous ‘End Of Era’ post opened up ACLF to a more critical slant of the club – one that would have seemed utterly unimaginable even 18 months earlier.  Although deep down I didn’t personally actually believe it was the end of an era, another disappointing autumn, which had followed the loss of Van Persie to Man U, meant that it really did feel like there could be some kind of sea-change taking place in the club’s fortunes.

I could understand the sentiment but I just felt it was a tad premature.

I certainly felt it was worth arguing the toss and believed there were still just enough of us pro-Wengerites around to make the case.  So this was my response to George’s initial idea – that we should stay with ACLF and fight for what we believed in and yes, argue our case, even if we did take a hammering.

A few days later George was banned from commenting on ACLF and could no longer stay and fight for what we believed.  George’s ban  followed yet another fracas in the comments section which, by now, Yogi was weary of policing any further.  So now with George gone and literally a handful of us left to fight our embattled corner, it was hard to argue against setting up a new site.  It simply felt there really wasn’t that much left to lose – many of my personal favourite commentators had all but disappeared and Yogi had clearly lost his patience with some of those still prepared to put their neck above the parapet.

I’d always admired ACLF for the quality of Yogi’s writing, his insight and knowledge of the club and it’s wider environs.  He also had the occasional guest posters and the best of these, for me, was the alarmingly youthful and generally just brilliant Birdkamp.  I chipped in with a couple of posts of my own and these were kindly received.   But the ‘mood’ of the blog became progressively darker and gloomier and morale seemed to track the club’s wavering fortunes.  There were very, very few commentators I actively disliked (and that’s remained the case to this day) but I found myself in disagreement with the majority of those whose patience with the club was all but exhausted.

With something of a heavy heart I agreed to take a backseat, low-key role (sweeping the floors and cleaning windows, mostly) with Positively Arsenal and promptly found myself writing the opening post.   I think by late January (the blog launched on 28^th January), the ‘founders’ of PA were themselves somewhat exhausted by the negativity threatening to envelope the club – not just on ACLF but on Twitter as well as the wider blogosphere, the media and pretty much anywhere where more than one was gathered to comment on our beloved and by this stage somewhat beleagured club.

It was on this basis that George insisted that all commentators to the blog would be effectively by invitation only.  I insisted that the first letter of each word in the title of each day’s blog should be capitalized.

With these two fundamentals firmly set in stone and with Steww, Frank and Adi alongside, we set off on Our Great Blogging Adventure.  I didn’t expect all that much, to be honest; I thought the writing would be fine but I felt the furrow we were attempting to plough was such an isolated one that we were as likely to be marginalized and ignored as we were anything else.

How would anyone find us?  And would they care if they did?

But a very wonderful thing happened.

Many of our old friends and former ‘allies’ from ACLF – some of whom had gone missing in action over many months and even years – pitched up having somehow found us.  And, amazingly, from the earliest days, the site’s viewing stats (as provided by WordPress) were always substantial with ‘hits’ being recorded in volume from literally all around the globe.

It was all hugely encouraging.

For sure, many of those readers recorded by WordPress would not have been in agreement with much of the sentiments of what we felt the blog stood for but the sustained interest in the blog over days, weeks and now months – almost 9 months of them – suggests to both me and George that the site is chiming with a good number of our visitors.

It’s funny now to look back and think that our biggest fear was that we wouldn’t be able to replicate the comments section we once frequented on ACLF.  Indeed, the biggest problem for most blogs is the absence of comment and there are some first class bloggers out there for whom solving this is still no nearer to happening than when they first started out.

Positively Arsenal is not without its critics of course and chief amongst the criticisms is the idea that we see ourselves as somehow superior to most other fans, that our determination to see the positives in the club we love somehow, in our own eyes at least, elevates us above all others.

Well, for this writer, PA is not about being a ‘better’ fan but it IS about being a different kind of fan.  The Arsenal ‘family’ is a big one and it’s a diverse one.  There is room for many different ‘styles’ of supporting.  There are plenty of blogs out there to cater for all the other different ways of showing support.

This is ours.

And for me personally, it’s a hugely enjoyable way to experience the game, in the company of like-minded souls knowing that good or bad or indifferent, our players’ performances will be supported and encouraged – and above all else, understood, as best we can.  I rest easy knowing that my faith in the club and its employees at all levels from Doris the Tea Lady all the way down to the directors and manager will be largely shared by my fellow readers and contributors.

And even when part of my beliefs are not universally shared (ie, I get things wrong), the howler is unlikely to be met with cynical aggression but more likely  discussed and reasoned based on the facts available to us rather than a process of random, unsupported speculation.

If that makes us the ‘sunshine bus’ then that’s fine with me though I understand it doesn’t suit everyone.

But it suits me and a good number of those contributing to the site.

On Wednesday, to my surprise, PA was, against all the odds, added to the feeds of NewsNow.

This despite their virtual ban on adding new Arsenal blogs to their roster.  It prompted this article to be put together as George and I wondered the best way to mark this welcome development.

This brief retrospective seemed the right thing to do.

It just leaves me to end on an acknowledgement of every single poster and commentator we’ve had the privilege to have ‘join’ us.

PA is very much a collective effort and the diversity of its contributors – main posters and commentators alike – is one of its key strengths. In the course of this blog’s brief life, we have made many new friends both near and far, from India to Alabama and beyond and our lives and perspectives have certainly been enriched by this.

As we finally reach the autumn, Arsenal Football Club appears to have left much of the negativity behind.  Whilst there will doubtless be ups and downs still to come, the good times do finally appear to be back with us.

It is a source of undented and undiminishing pride that PA was set up during what may end up being seen as the club’s darkest hour.

That we went through this awful phase together won’t be readily forgotten.

Long may Positively Arsenal – and all of us – continue.