Why do we have such unreasonably high expectations of a 20 year old Theo? The same goes for the 21 (just 22) year old Denilson.

How about other player’s careers aged 21?  Thierry Henry at the age of 21 had scored 20 goals in 105 games for Monaco and had just been brought into the French National Squad. Robert Pires at 21 was still at Metz and struggling. Freddie was at Halmstad, Martin Keown was about to be sold to Villa and was on loan at Brighton. The great Zinedine Zidane was still at Bourdeaux and yet to break into the French team. For all of them their Glory Days were in the future, at 21 they were starting out on their careers.

Of course, Fabregas at 21 was already our best player, same goes for Liam Brady, the very great John Radford (still Arsenal’s youngest hatrick scorer) and PV4.

What separates them? Well, in my opinion it is largely different rates of development, both physical and mental. Alex Song at 20 was so poor that Arsene Wenger was forced to talk to the press and support him, saying that we couldn’t see how brilliant Song was in training and that he had a huge future. I for one, laughed. Yet at the age of 22, Song is able to go for a 50/50 ball with two Sunderland thugs and come away with the ball, and you know what, I wasn’t surprised. What does that tell me? It tells me to be patient with our players.

The same can be said of Diaby. Wenger has been raving about him for 2 seasons, now we are beginning to see what AW sees. Diaby needed time to mature, he still does because he certainly isn’t the finished article. Even Van Persie, who is a huge talent, is only coming good now he is over 25. Prior to that he only fired sporadically. Fabregas, on the other hand was ready for the first team at 18, he matured at an alarming rate, though he still lacked the physicality he has found this season. Sadly for our other young players Cesc has become the benchmark, whereas he is truly an exceptional talent.

Distance runners do not mature until their 30’s, they need that long to develop their stamina and strength, so why should we expect Walcott to be consistent for 90 (70) minutes at 20? He has shown how physically fragile his young body is, and judging from his adrenaline-fed crosses, he is lacking mental maturity as well. He cannot calmly assess a situation, perhaps he never will, but Capello and Wenger both rate him. And maybe, like many a player, he will show how good he can be in his mid-20’s (though Theo, if you are reading this, a few stand out performances before season’s end would be fine). Of course, Theo has flattered to deceive, BBC Young Personality at 17, England’s youngest hatrick hero, the youngest scorer in the u-21’s; We expect great things from him, and that is the reason the fans are getting frustrated. One aspect often raised is that Walcott has been with us for a number of years, and has played in (not started) over 70 games for us,as such it is reasonable to expect a return from him (once again the same can be said for Denilson who has also played 70+ games). But look at them, compare them to a real man (Kevin Davies/Drogba), they are boys! When I was 21, I had had a lot of experience in certain areas (!) but I certainly wasn’t mature, were you?

Defenders also take longer to mature. Their best years are after 27 (which bodes well for TV). Gallas is a better player now than at 25. We are on Clichy’s back at present (no pun intended), yet he is still only 24, young for a full back, especially one with so much experience. Again, Clichy matured so fast that we forget how young he is, he will without doubt return to the form he had 2 season’s ago – form is transient, quality isn’t.

Ramsey, Vela, Wilshire etc etc such high expectations laid upon such young shoulders. Sending Wilshire to Bolton where his reputation doesn’t put such stresses upon him is best for Little Jack, and in the long run for Arsenal. He has made prodigious leaps forward but this season has not continued his remarkable development. It could well be because his body and mind need to settle before he continues his march to greatness. Wenger clearly appreciates this and has protected him from the spotlight as much as possible, in a way that he couldn’t with Walcott.

For an example of differing rates of development just look at your school class – for those that can remember that far back – was everyone the same in terms of physical development (stop laughing at the back), or maturity (I said stop laughing !)?

Early physical maturity is the exception, though there are some fine exceptions, Samantha Fox was only 17 when she first appeared in the Sun, and as we all know, Sammy was a renowned Gooner….

The Carling Cup divides gooners. Should we play the kids or should we go for it and try to win some silverware? Not having won anything for 5 years it’s an emotive question.

Arsène likes to use it as a stepping stone for the youngsters he believes will be our stars of the future.

Yesterday afternoon on this blog we touched on the financial restraints we feel Arsene is operating under and the fact that he may need to sell players to balance the books. If that is true then the Carling Cup is a good way to get some of the young players good exposure – put them in the shop window if you like.

Lets examine what happened to the team that played in the Carling Cup final in 2007, and compare them to the full strength Chelsea side they met on the day.

The Chelsea subs were Hilario, A Cole, Mikel, Robben and Kalou

The Arsenal subs were Poom, Djourou, Eboue, Hleb and Adebayor

The whole of that Arsenal squad were first team players who had featured  in teams in the Premiership, Champions League, FA cup and Carling cup games. The  players missing were Henry, van Persie, Freddie, Rosicky, Gilberto, Gallas, Flamini and Clichy.

The players who have since left Arsenal are:-

Justin Hoyte moved to Middlesborough in August 2008 for£3m;

Kolo Toure moved to Man City in August 2009 for£14m;

Aliadiere moved to Middlesborough in June 2007 for £2m;

Mart Poom moved to Watford in May 2007 for an undisclosed fee;

Hleb moved to Barcelona in July 2008 for £15m;

Adebayor moved to Man City in August 2009 for £25m.

Senderos is currently on loan to Everton and Baptista was on loan to us. The players that have been sold have either wanted away or were surplus to requirements so the Carling Cup doesn’t seem to be a chance for ‘Player For Sale’ signs to be hung around necks but I’m sure the experience helps.

So in 2007 Arsène  took the Carling cup seriously. Yes or No?

When you look at the squad that Chelsea put out it would seem that they were taking it more seriously than us.  I went to that cup final to support the team although I didn’t expect us to get the result as many first team players were missing and some of the Arsenal team were young and inexperienced.

If Arsène is  accused of throwing away the cups and destroying the confidences of the young players by using them in this way, why do we still have eight of the players ( if you include Eboue and Djourou)  from that team playing now. Apart from Senderos who was already having Drogba nightmares – did any of these players suffer from playing in a cup final and not winning?

I don’t believe that the Carling Cup is a valuable piece of silverware. Certainly with our squad depth it would be madness to play a full strength team at any point.  I think the competition is a great platform for some of the inexperienced players to have the chance of mixing it with the big boys and I think  Arsène promises them they will be used in this way. If  we were to win it, I would be thrilled of course but I wouldn’t want to jepodise any of the other chances of silverware by using players unnecessarily.

The Carling Cup final is this coming Sunday and we aren’t in it – how do you feel about that?

Having watched around a half century of Arsenal games live, both at Highbury and Ashburton Grove, one of the first things I’d noticed – after the bowling green-like surface at both “Homes of football”- was how much opposition teams would need to toil away at their foul count to get a yellow card compared to us.

My first game was one of the Champions Leagues games played at the old Wembley (against Fiorentina) and even then I used to marvel at the fact that a robust challenge on us would generally get waved on by the man in black yet if an Arsenal player tried that same type of vigorous interception there would be a sharp intake of breath while the crowd waited to see whether there would be “an ecstasy of fumbling” at the referee’s top left pocket to flourish a yellow card.

As I trudged home after that first live match experience, where I had the delights of seeing Bergy, Henry, Kanu, Adams and other Arsenal legends play, I put down that perception to my partisan nature and I assumed the sense of injustice felt then was due to that natural fans bias.

Fast-forward ten years and has age mellowed my perception of this egregious treatment of our team and do I believe match officials deal with our games in an impartial manner?

No and no. So that’s a double no.

By way of an attempt to look rationally at this I thought “New year, fresh chance for officialdom to convince me of their objectivity” so I counted up – with my advanced level excel skills coming to the fore – fouls and yellows awarded in our games so far this calendar year.

We’ve had 4 home and 5 away games and the stats are as follows:

In total we’ve had 102 fouls awarded against us with 13 yellows while our opponents have had 125 fouls and 11 yellows. That means 7.85 fouls per yellow for us and 11.36 fouls per yellow for our opponents, that means the opposition have to foul us nearly four (3.52 to be precise) more times to get a yellow.

This is prima facie evidence of what I’ve always suspected, that we are either penalised more or we don’t know how to “skilfully” foul or foul at a low enough but persistent level to not warrant a caution, Darren Fletcher style, yes YOU Fletcher you scruffy, dishevelled excuse for a footballer.

However if you look at how the home and away statistics disaggregate another picture unfolds. At home we have conceded the same number of fouls as opponents, 54, yet we have been shown 6 yellows to the opponents 5. So that show’s we don’t have referees influenced by the crowd at Ashburton Grove as it’s a near identical fouls per yellow (us 9 exactly and opponents 10.80) but its away from home the referees show all the bias to the “Top 4” that smaller clubs with chips on their shoulders bleat about.

Our 48 fouls away from home have resulted in 7 yellows (6.86 fouls per yellow) while the opposition playing in front of their home crowd have earned only 6 yellows from 71 fouls (11.83 fouls per yellow) – that’s approaching TWICE the level of fouling required by us to warrant a yellow, and that’s just the opposition fouls that are called by the referee (we can all remember plenty of instances where dangerous fouling against us has gone without caution.)

I’m well aware that some may say statistics can be produced to support any argument however something as straight forward as fouls per yellow is not a convoluted or especially esoteric measure of the equality of cautions earned compared to foul play.

The home-away disparity is partly due to the hostile atmosphere at away grounds influencing referees – they may say it has no effect but 44,000 ‘dippers crying out for a penalty when Stevie Me launches into his trademark double axel with a half twist near our penalty area nearly always results in a spot kick. A similar situation exists at Old Toilet where the Shrek (and Greasiano and “Donkey” van Nistelrooy before him) has been conning us out of results (none more so notably to end our unbeaten run) on a regular basis – that our manager is no longer surprised by this is testament to how long this situation has prevailed; these are just “Old Trafford-ish” instances. The power of the prawn sandwich brigade has had referees from Riley to Webb showing all kinds of ludicrous inconsistencies favouring the toilet scrubbing in-breds who play in that Salford retail park.

In conclusion I would say we have to wise up and learn how to foul more “efficiently” and we have to make Ashburton Grove a more forbidding environment for the opposition so that we can make our home advantage count for more in influencing the referees.

Perhaps we have started to develop a bit more of a nasty streak in recent times which is all the better for letting the opposition to not start taking liberties with us.

There is also hope for the our home atmosphere being more intimidating on the evidence of the Bolton game where I joined in the jeers of Jaaskelainen (while they were 2-nil up) for time wasting and booing the Bolton players for their traditional thuggish approach.

Chary.

On the face of it a victory and 3 points gained on manu courtesy of a 3:1 defeat by Everton was just what the doctor ordered – so why was the atmosphere at the game subdued and the walk home to the station characterised by head shaking and hushed tones? The answer is simple; playing like that, we’re not going to win anything.

The team selection was positive, with Almunia back in goal and Ramsey featuring in midfield in place of Denilson. The inclusion of Eboué was greeted with enthusiasm by fans who a year ago would have groaned in disbelief – and he didn’t disappoint.

The pattern of the game was familiar. Sunderland had set their team up with negative intent. Same old boring tactic, pack the defence and try to get lucky on the break – and it almost worked when Kenwyne Jones got through one on one with Almunia and should have equalised but pulled his shot wide. Craig Gordon was timewasting when taking his goal kicks from the start but unsurprisingly managed to execute them much more quickly once they went a goal down. Darren Bent was wasted playing out wide and hardly featured in the game.

We had plenty of possession and created a few chances, but lacked the cutting edge up front. We really need a striker who can spearhead the attack, Chamakh will be most welcome. Players were receiving the ball out wide but crosses seldom found an Arsenal shirt often because there wasn’t one in the danger area.

The exception was Emmanuel Eboué who gave one of his best performances albeit peppered with the occasional sortie into am dram. He was quick, direct and threatening whenever he received the ball. The way he battled to squeeze the pass through to Bendtner for the first goal was typical of his performance throughout the match. The Dane should be very grateful for such an easy tap-in as his first touch had deserted him a few minutes earlier when in front of a virtually open goal and lost vital seconds only succeeding in finding a defender instead of the beckoning net.

The pattern of the second half was much the same as the first up until the all too familiar last 15 minutes when Sunderland actually showed some endeavour and gave us a few  tense moments. At this point, I, like a lot of fans around me thought that 1:1 was the most likely outcome. Thankfully we could relax when late on Cesc ran towards the box and invited a rash challenge by Campbell. It looked like a soft penalty and may have even been outside the box, but we are overdue a touch of generosity from a referee!!! The resultant penalty was dispatched low into the bottom right corner by our captain. Three points secured.

I do not propose to give player ratings but would make the following observations:

Almunia – did OK but does not inspire confidence and once again was indecisive and hesitant when coming for the ball on occasion.

Clichy – had a much better game, kept it simple and concentrated on defending.

Sylvestre – coped for the most part with a poor Sunderland side, but give me Sol any day.

Nasri – he is a very clever and skillful player and provided a lot of the quality on show.

Eboué – my MotM, without his contribution I doubt we would have won.

Cesc – he worries me. He played well but seems to have lost some heart. He needs quality players around him otherwise his talent is wasted and may be lost back to his home country.

Bendtner – he worked hard but often drifted wide and left the middle unattended. He still lacks confidence in front of goal.

Arsène – good team selection, but it was ridiculous to bring on Denilson with a couple of minutes to go. He wasn’t up with the pace of the game and just added an extra nervy 30 seconds to the injury time.

Apologies for this hastily thrown together report, it was going to be written by another author but sadly events have made that impossible. There’s plenty to disagree with – it’s only my opinion. I’m delighted we won, but realistic that we need to improve on this performance if we want to be in contention for the title at the end of the season.

We need a confidence booster and who better to play today than a poor Sunderland side who come into the game missing a number of first teamers ? The Black Cats arrive at the Emirates looking for a double over us this season and not having been beaten by Arsenal for 3 games. Reasons for optimism? Well, Sunderland are in the midst of a dreadful run, not having won in their last 12 games, they have taken 3 points from a possible 36 on the road and have a Gooner as their top scorer.  Darren Bent and his family are massive Arsenal fans, and I am sure Darren will not want to disappoint his Mum by scoring against her beloved Arsenal!

Steve Bruce: Another in the long list of ex-Manc managers. All trained by SAF, all promote efficient as opposed to imaginative football, and all are fighters. Bruce is a man one would want in the trenches, a natural leader of men. Were it not for Martin O’Neill I would expect him to be SAF’s successor.  He seems to be a decent chap and despite an incredibly successful career at MU never won an England cap.  Expect to see him as manager of Newcastle within 2 seasons !!  Bruce is not known for playing expansive football so it is highly likely that Sunderland will “park the bus” at the Emirates.

Of course Roy Keane was manager  prior to Bruce, and it is a testament to his management skills that he signed Anthony Stokes from us for  €2m. Thank you Roy, you paid for a 8 months of Theo’s wages.

I am looking forward to watching Lorik Cana. He has said recently that he would have been a Gunner, having been invited to trials when he was 16; Visa problems prevented his arrival. There was much talk on the Blogs of  Arsenal signing him last season, but the fact that he signed for Sunderland must indicate that it wasn’t just Arsenal who doubted his ability to cut it at a top club. That said, he has looked a beast in the middle of Sunderland’s midfield and will give Fab a good challenge (hopefully nothing too violent). It is reported that Lee Cattermole has been Sunderland’s best player this season, but he is suspended for the game. I am sure our delicate players will miss him!

We go into the game missing Diaby, Gallas and Arshavin. Song returns in place of Diaby, and I expect to see Walcott replace Nasri or Rosicky.

My team:

A Goalkeeper

Eboue          Sol         TV       Clichy

Song      Cesc       Nasri       Rosicky

Walcott       Bendtner

Alternatively it could be:

A Goalkeeper

Sagna       Song     TV      Clichy

Denilson    Cesc      Rosicky

Theo      Nik     Vela

Much will depend upon whether Wenger wants to play an attacking team and 4-3-3. Playing Song at CB against a team that will almost certainly play on the counter-attack could be a good ploy; Sol’s lack of pace plus two games in 4 days could count against him.

Last season I had the privilege to attend the Emirates in the company of Peaches to watch a seemingly interminable 0-0 draw. My only memory of the game is that it was very cold!! Sunderland games are like that – forgettable, though I do recall a stunning RvP free kick a couple of years back

The Black Cats have a decent defence but if we really are to challenge this season, we have to beat teams like Sunderland at home and win handsomely. There will be no excuse for losing any points.

Sunderland became a City as recently as 1992 as part of the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of The Queen’s accession to the throne.

And as everyone knows. Our Queen is a renowned Gooner ……

My good friends will tell you that I’m not very good at comedy, being a girl I almost never remember even the funniest of jokes but I did think we needed a bit of cheering up today.

It occurred to me that Arsene always has a sound-bite and like every good politician he can roll them out for similar situations hoping that no-one will notice ‘hes used that one before’. I did some searching and after an hour and a half of reading through hundreds of quotes a pattern emerged, and the realisation that many of his gems that had been used over the years can still be applied now – why was I surprised?…………

“I really can’t remember having as many injuries as this but it is not a crisis. We have enough good players in the team to win the game.”

“We should not have lost. Our side played with a team spirit showing some great quality, but we were punished for a lack of experience and maturity.”

“I think we have the best defense in the league and you don’t do that with a bad goalkeeper.”

Plus who can this be referring to…………….again?

“It does not stop him from moving or playing. He can play with an anesthetic in his hand but we will monitor him in training tomorrow morning.”

Arsene relishes his battles with the other top teams in the Premiership and there were lots of quotes about Fergie and Mourinho and Arsene’s desire for Arsenal to be successful in winning the title.

The opposition love the fact that he is always ready to declare how positive he is and my spud friends delight in telling me at every opportunity that we aren’t going to win anything.  But there is a way that Arsene worries the others with his sincere belief, his cold grey eyes staring into the camera declaring that even with half a team we have the character and the spirit to win the battles.

“I have got more important things to worry about. We do not even talk about the title. The most important thing I am concerned about is winning our next game.”

“At the moment it does not look likely that we can catch Chelsea. Lets get our injured players back first, but right now Chelsea are not even a worry for me,”

There are times when even he lets his guard slip, shows some humility as he recognises that no team can win everything all of the time. This from the man that predicted his team could go unbeaten for a whole season and then they did.

“It is a miracle we are still in the competition but we are up for this game and I think we will go through.”

“What’s good about football is that it’s not predictable, … I feel we have the needed cohesion, the belief and the quality to beat them.”

“What’s important for me is that Arsenal are the best team in the country. At the moment we are not. That is the real worry for me.”

“There’s something happening in this team and it’s growing in confidence. It’s young and showed resilience, attitude and not just quality, but character.”

As you could possibly predict there were so many accolades to Henry, Vieira and Bergkamp that I just couldn’t choose which to include but there were also some quotes about players that we can all have a guess who they refer to……….

“You can compare him a little bit to Vieira, who has a similar stature. He is a little bit of a different player but Patrick is a good role model for him. To model himself on Patrick would be a good idea because he has that kind of stature and strength.”

“Unfortunately for us, he has made a good decision. But he has played 14 years for Arsenal, so he could not turn down the opportunity to have two more years playing than he could have had here.”

“Don’t forget, he started out as a centre-forward when he was young and sometimes he reminds people of that.”

“Wayne Rooney has achieved a lot, and I want to be cautious with comparisons. But he has the same ingredients at the same age to be a big prospect for England.”

This has to be my favourite – its such an understatement

“It is a big blow to lose the two players, because our squad is a little short.”

And this was the most topical quote of them all

“We need to be more consistent in the championship, … Hopefully, you will see that against Sunderland on Saturday. We have a good opportunity at home.”

A good opportunity Arsene to keep up the pace on the leaders and ensure we don’t get sucked into the chasing pack.

I shall be there – maybe Sol will play ……………