"It's a 11 month holiday" was Trapattoni's damning verdict after Anthony Stokes pulled out of Ireland's squad for the Carling Nations Cup. Gio couldn't understand Stokes' reason for not playing and for him 'fatigue' didn't count as a valid reason.

Much the same way, England and more specifically Stuart Pearce couldn't understand that Wilshere playing his first full season as a top flight footballer in the Premiership could also be tired.

Like you I can't wait for the season to begin. Is it because I miss not watching Arsenal every weekend? No, not so much that but because at least we won't have to read/discuss transfer speculation as much.
So we don't have a new goalkeeper. Almunia or Fabianski will start at Anfield. Oh but they're shit.

Having watched 45 minutes of every game except the Cameroon Japan game, here are a few thoughts on the matches played so far..It is brief and each can be expanded upon as a separate post but here goes.. Tippy tappy passing hits a brickwall. In fear of utter humiliation, both North Korea and Switzerland used pragmatic tactics that Mourinho would have been proud off.

When the World Cup is taking place, Theo and Nasri could do a lot worse than meeting up and having a chat. Two exceptional talents in World football but both now are resigned to watching the biggest competition in football. Both Capello and Domenech have not said why they didn't excluded Theo and Nasri respectively but hey can we try.

Even before they were promoted Holloway mentioned how Premier League football would be beneficial not only for the football club, but for the town itself. Having holidayed there twice, I've witnessed myself how some parts of the town needed a facelift. For us fans, there is now the unique opportunity of come across the unique sights, smells, sounds of Blackpool and watch a football match in what will be the smallest ground to cater for Premiership football.

I'll give you a clue. In the last 6 months he has signed two players with Champions League experience on free transfers.

Forget all that bullshit about Harry Redknapp loving bargain signings, Arsene has done it yet again. He could have signed Chamakh before that but coulda woulda shoulda. If you could, for example have an xbox for free, you'd wait 6 months as well wouldn't you?

You know what I don't get sometimes? How newspapers are confident enough to throw a figure to a wind up story. Arsene has £40 million to spend. He will buy buy buy. Here is the list *100 players linked to Arsenal, Arsenal Youth, Arsenal kids but none to Arsenal Ladies*.

I mean Arsenal could have offered Gallas just 80k but they could have also offered him 80k and a bag of Werthers Originals per week couldn't they?

Bet you were thinking, Why couldn't we do this last month? You know thrashing a team that is by accounts much weaker than us. At least then we wouldn't have worried just a little bit that Spurs could have overtaken us had we actually lost to Fulham.

That is something we would never have imagined just before we played Barcelona.

I started this blog as someone who thought he knew a lot better than the existing playing and non playing Arsenal staff. My first post was pessimistic, skeptical negative to say the least. As I began to look around for other blogs (something I really should have done before as I didn't know of the blogging scene), I read some of the most positive stuff written about our club that can leave us feeling frustrated.

You'll get the answer but let me get this bit out of the way first.

Well done Tottenham. I know. It hurts to say it but it was due. For over 9 years we never tasted a day like this in the league. No other team enjoyed such fortune over their most bitter rivals. We lost statistically yesterday but then again we've lost a game or two psychologically before that.

No. No. No. Not this Uncle Sam. But Uncle Sam, the uncle of Blackburn Rovers. The one who never gets much affection from Arsenal fans. But after this weekend he might just get a little. About 0.000001 % of it.

Forget that Spurs lost to Portsmouth. Had the regular happened at Wembley i.e. Spurs won what would be the result that made our sunday?

Two nil up and they cocked it up. Not very good this Barcelona side are they? Well apart from having 12 shots at our goal in the first 29 minutes, dominating possession for the whole game and chasing every one of our players down for the first 70 minutes.

Still, the word "character" was thrown around after Theo, the lone Englishman as the commentators like to point out came on to rejuvenate what seemed to be a wholly lost cause for us.

Now and then the good ol' trusty internet fails you. You go back to old habits switch on the telly for updates, anxiously hoping that Arsenal are 25-0 up. Nothing less will make you content let alone happy. We were a minute or so away from getting a fantastic win.

Only Aston Villa and Bolton have won at Birmingham this season and that was ages ago.

The banners were out; the pre match shirts had the messages. Do it for Aaron. Get well Ramsey. Sentiments every Gooner shares. Supporters, Management, Players, everyone connected with Arsenal Football Club made their point before the match against Burnley.

Win the League for Ramsey. Win the Champions League for Kieran Gibbs anyone?

Was I watching the same game as you yesterday? Of course I was. Yesterday Theo showed not only his "footballing brain" that (esteemed Waddle believe he had a "lack of") but used his non-footballing brain to pretty much turn what could have been a frustrating "we battered them 1-1″ score into an easy 3-1 win.