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The Arsene Wenger that is in control of the team sheet and the pitch is still good enough. He is still the man that engineered possibly the greatest tactical success European football has ever seen in a team going unbeaten for 49 games. I want to take the burden of being in charge and in sole responsibility for the players we sign off of him a little bit. I think that unless there is change that gives us a system where there is a man who knows ABOUT FOOTBALL AND THEREFORE THE MARKET OF PLAYERS, who in turn would be a man who has evolved to the changing world of the transfer market, then there can be a future for him at this club. I don't think that more than 3 managers in the world could have beaten Arsene's record at Arsenal in the system that he has had to facilitate since 2005. One of those is Sir Alex, I'd potentially put Jose there but purely through his skills as a tactician, i don't actually think there could ever be an environment where we could have him as our manager, and in fact the last is Moyes. Lately we have heard the

The team that opened up Sunderland at will was close to the same team that hardly had a shot on goal against Sunderland, Stoke City, Norwich and Shalke. Our offensive game has greatly improved since then and it is in performance and not personnel. The players have needed to gel together, to click into the Arsenal way of playing and this for me has been our strength since Arsene Wenger took hold of the Arsenal reigns. It is why so many players have been able to flourish at this club. Yet I believe our strength can also prove to be our biggest weakness. Our style of play needs all the boxes ticked for us to win matches, even against teams far poorer than us.

I didn’t have that much of a problem with Arsene rotating the squad for this game. I would have liked Ramsey to have to have started ahead of Diaby because i don’t rate him one bit. I was surprised Podolski was left out considering he didn’t play against sunderland but apart from that i

Whatever hurdles we may face today, we are favourites for a place in this years quarter finals, there is no complacency in that statement merely an observation based on the positions the two teams find themselves in at present. But as we have been already reminded this season, a gap in leagues does not guarantee victory, ask Bradford City. I must say though, I am very relived

Manchester United have experienced defenders in their team, not only Rio Ferdinand but Patrice Evra and even people like Michael Carrick ahead of them. Their young players are now experienced players who have played many games, winning many trophies. Jonny Evans, Rafael etc may not be

I wrote an article yesterday on the race for fourth place and I had a look at the remaining fixtures of this season using last season's results based on said fixtures. It turned out that Tottenham finished way ahead of us based on those games. Needless to say, it means very little today and I wrote it more out of curiosity than anything else.

Now on paper we could be forgiven for doing the butterfly dance in front of the mirror in hot pants but looking back through the window of time will quickly tell us to sit down and take a couple of Prozac to conquer our anxiety. We left those fixtures with only 1 point from those games.

Andre Santos like Andrey Arshavin didn't seem blessed with natural physique which could explain the need for a run of matches before his best was shown. Another issue Santos had was his partnership with the player ahead of him. Last season he had Gervinho who tended to stick wide and go past players on the outside, this allowed Santos to drift inside which he tended to enjoy doing. I jokingly called him the false 3 which now seems like a reasonable assessment, because Andre Santos is no traditional left back. This season

I really like the three passers in the middle with Cazorla out on the left but what we miss is the efficiency of Lukas Podolski. You cannot ignore his wonderful goals and assists stats stuck on the bench. I thought we played very narrowly today and could have used our full backs better in attacking positions. It meant that we were a little one dimensional when it came to breaking down Sunderland. A few crosses from Jenkinson and Monreal could have given us other options but it didn't matter in the end because Santi Cazorla

Jack Wilshere played 90 minutes for England in midweek and the hype (deservedly so) has gone through the roof in the last few days so I wouldn't at all be surprised if Arsene was to plonk him on the bench for this one to take him out of the spot light and more importantly keep him as far away from zones and the colour red. We have the same midfield trio available that started the season so