Five Years.

Thursday, 22 October
Today marks the 60th birthday of our manager which he will celebrate at the club's AGM. With the retirement age more than likely being raised by the UK government in the near future he probably won't be able to draw his old age pension until he is at least 70 which means that we can expect to have him in charge for another 10 years at least. I suppose there is a slight chance that he has a few shillings squirrelled away and he won't need to draw his state pension but I'm sure he wouldn't like to miss out on it after all the tax he has paid over the years.

He is bound to be very well received by the fans and shareholders alike at the AGM to mark the occasion and also because we have had a fairly good start to the season unlike the situation last May when some of the questions were a little hostile to say the least as we had again failed to win a trophy for the fourth season in a row. I would imagine than Stan Kroenke will be there too as he is our biggest shareholder and the rumours persist about purchases of more shares to bring him closer to the magical 29.9% mark at which he must bid for all other shares. There are 2 schools of thought on his intentions and we probably won't be any the wiser what his intentions are as he tends to play his cards very close to his chest.

On the footballing front we have had a very good start to the season and we have scored 40 goals and conceded 15 in our 14 games so far. At this rate we will score at least 150 goals in all competitions this season and if we could just cut down the rate that we concede goals at we would be on the pigs back. I know it will be 5 years since we have won a trophy by the end of the season but I am beginning to think that the wait may well be over this season as the signs are very promising. Of course if we failed to score for a couple of games in a row that average would drop very quickly along with our expectations but for the moment I am happy in the knowledge that we are genuine contenders and playing a very attack minded game that produces lots of goals.

The down side from Tuesday night's game was the late goal we let in and our lack of concentration in defending the free kick that led to it. Before that happened I was a little worried to see the facial expressions of Don Vito and Clichy as we came under a little pressure. Don Vito didn't want the ball played back to him and he looked decidedly unhappy when it was and Clichy almost looked like he was going to cry when his man finally ran at him with the ball. Both of them are obviously suffering with a lack of confidence at the moment and while I can understand Clichy feeling this way Don Vito should be relishing the prospect of getting the ball so that he can show the boss why he should be our first choice goalkeeper. At times we still seem to be missing a little bit of steel and teams sense that they can get at us by putting us under pressure. I'm sure it wouldn't affect The Verminator and hopefully he can help some of the others to develop his mental attitude to the opposition. I don't think it's a big problem as long as we are winning but if we were to lose a game or 2 it could become a problem. Don't get me wrong I have the upmost confidence in this Arsenal team but I just wish that they were a little harder at times and didn't show any weakness to the opposition whether they felt it or not. That's it for today and hopefully there will be a little more Arsenal news to report tomorrow.

Here's a little bit of what Sagna can do.

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And to finish today's title track from David Bowie. It will be five years since our last trophy in May but I don't think that trophy will be lonely for much longer.

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See You Tomorrow.