Jens Lehmann made his Arsenal comeback today for the Arsenal reserves against Wigan. We lost the game 2-1 and apparently Jens was not at his best and made a few errors which isn’t at all surprising. He is 41 and hasn’t played regular football for sometime now. He will need more time. I expect Manuel Almunia to continue in between the sticks and I am backing him to come through with a good display against Blackburn. Almunia has

Good afternoon,

Only a couple of days to go before we can sweep the filth that is International football into the dustbin and continue with the clean and tidy life of the Arsenal.

Fabio Capello has done the truly decent thing of sending back all the Chelsea and Manchester United players back to their clubs as there is no point keeping them for a pointless friendly. But a 19 year old in his first full season, having played most of the games is being kept on, not only that but apparently he is supposedly the only player to start who started the game in Cardiff on the weekend. How very thoughtful Fabio.

I just have a terrible feeling about that. There almost seems like an inevitably about it all. I am not even going to say it but I certainly will not be surprised if Jack Wilshere is not in the line up on Saturday against Blackburn Rovers.

I am afraid we are going to have to get used to all this really. Now that Jack Wilshere is the best player to play for England…ever! It seems as if he will be used as much as they can. They will drain as much out of him until he breaks down then they can discard him, wheel him out and dump him back at the front gates of the Emirates.

If Arsenal football club had the same mentality as the National team then Bendtner would have scored 20 reserve goals this season in an attempt to win the reserve league title. That is what Stuart Pearce would do but at Arsenal our reserve team is for player development. It is to give young players who do not play for their clubs a chance to improve and hopefully get into the first team.

Instead of Wilshere being called up, or to put it better.. called down to the under 21s, why doesn’t Pearce use someone like Josh McEachran of Chelsea. He is supposed to be similar to Wilshere but hasn’t been able to make the jump into the Chelsea first team. Surely that would benefit Capello and England more than playing a first team player.

Anyway, this is the situation and we just have to live with it as we can do nothing about it. We have to hope that sense comes through but I shall certainly not be holding my breath.

Jens Lehmann made his Arsenal comeback today for the Arsenal reserves against Wigan. We lost the game 2-1 and apparently Jens was not at his best and made a few errors which isn’t at all surprising. He is 41 and hasn’t played regular football for sometime now. He will need more time. I expect Manuel Almunia to continue in between the sticks and I am backing him to come through with a good display against Blackburn. Almunia has often bounced back from disappointment with a good display only to let himself down a little down the road. Let us hope that road is after this season and not before.

Andrey Arshavin has been criticised for his form for his country and I can understand the concern. His form has fluctuated more than most this season. He is such a different player to the rest because it is extremely difficult to judge his performances. Can you say that a player has had a bad game when he has made two assists and scored another? yet in that same game he can fail to track runners, give the ball away countless times and generally look unfit. He looked somewhere near his best a few weeks ago but has since dropped down a level or two but as we saw against West Brom he is more than capable of something special when it matters most just as much as he is capable of going missing when needed.

I wonder what his thoughts are of being at the club for the long term? How much is he currently enjoying football in England?

He certainly does not look like that electric player who joined us a few January’s ago. I hope he can find his mojo and regain his best form for a long period of time.

Back tomorrow.