To all the fans of Standard Liege, I want to extend my apologies for the the Premier League match is more important than the meaningless final game away to Olympiakos. If it meant that the Greek side wins and go through to the next round, then there is nothing you can do about it. This is just the advantage and privilege of qualifying to the next stage of the Champions League with a game to spare, that we get to parade and field the reserves and future stars of the club.

A Russian and a fallen

It took a long time coming. Arsenal's last league victory at Anfield was 6 years ago. Last season when we scored 4 goals at Anfield in the league, you would think that we would've won the game. But we didn't. After the first half of yesterday's match, winning the game was far from my mind.

This week was full of massive games, every major league had at least two gigantic clashes, providing for spectacular footy for all us fans to watch.
Barcelona-Real Madrid EL CLASICO


An extremely important game for both teams, Real Madrid wanted to solidify their lead over Barcelona, while the Blaugrana wanted to catch up to Los Blancos.

Time to shine. Better late than never

Today is a very different and special day. While we don't normally fret ourselves over the visit of the likes of Stoke but today isin't any normal day. Today is the day we came off 2 consecutive league defeats and also the end of our 100% winning record at Ashburton Grove.

Contracts

You can't see the wood for the trees when it comes to Arsenal players being offered new contracts, can you? First, misser of two good chances on Tuesday, Charles Vela, earned himself a new deal. And now, talk is of man-of-balsa Thomas Rosickly getting new terms.

Might seem a bit weird to some people.

Liverpool suffered their second home embarrassment in five days as Arsenal grabbed the points in a game which was supposed to be a new beginning for the Anfield men.
Manager Rafael Benitez had insisted the season started again after the midweek Champions League defeat to Fiorentina.
But he did not get his wish even though Liverpool led at the break through Dirk Kuyt and should have had a penalty when William Gallas felled Steven Gerrard.

I don't know what Wenger said at half time but it must have been some team talk because we were woeful up until then. Although, perhaps to be a bit fairer, that should exclude the first ten minutes when we looked the more composed side, going through the gears with ease but the through ball to Torres giving him a one on one with Almunia and the Gerrard penalty shout against Gallas seemed to give Liverpool belief and strengthen their resolve to win this extremely important clash for both sides.

Liverpool 1 (Kuyt 41) Arsenal 2 (Johnson og 50, Arshavin 58)
(Premiership)

What a difference 45 minutes can make. At half time, our title challenge was in danger of being well and truly over. It wasn't so much that we were behind, a result that would have left us still points behind Chelsea, a not insurmountable gap when you take our game in hand into account, but that we had been so poor that to be anywhere near Chelsea and United at the end of the season was almost a laughable notion.

Still feeling it? I know you are. You're not quite sure what the underlying feeling is, but you know you like what it is. It's called confidence. It may not last, such sweet things are often fleeting, but I'm enjoying feeling confident that if we could pull that around at Anfield, if the boss is able to raise his voice and declare all before him unfit to wear the Arsenal shirt, then maybe, just maybe, this team might just be starting to get it.

Burnley 1-1 Arsenal

Was this really a bad result?

Given Burnley's home record it's not. Burnley, for all their sieve-like qualities on the road, are a strong side at at Turf Moor. We all knew that and so it proved.

But compared to the results across the rest of the league last night, then it is a blow.

I was quite frustrated after the Burnley result as you must have noticed from my review. But I didn't say the title hopes were over and if you are a regular reader you will have noticed that I am extremely pro-Arsene and have always talked about keeping the faith.

Over the last couple of days I have read some articles and comments talking about how our hopes are over and many of our players are completely useless.

Today is Friday. If you are reading this just after I've posted it then it's AM and not even 48 hours since we played our away game at Burnley. In less than 48 hours we play Hull. This, you will say, is the normal schedule of things for this time of year, however, our situation is far from normal.

A week of two tough away games, and four points gained. On the face of it, an excellent haul, and unlikely to be bettered by anyone in these two fixtures all season. Yet there is a lingering sense of disappointment following the draw at Burnley, mainly because of a sense of what might have been.

After a great start, and an unusually early goal from Cesc, who fought valiantly until forced off with a hamstring injury which will keep him out of a Hull game he would have been desperate to play in after last year's spitting row, we could have put the game to bed with chances for Arshavin and Cesc going begging.

Before next weekend's important encounter against a fellow title challenger in Martin O'Neil's Aston Villa, there's a small matter of Hull's visit to Ashburton Grove today. How small it is will depend on how we felt individually on the accusations from the Hull camp against our captain, Cesc Fabregas.

Those dirty paupers from Oop Norf visit the emirates today with a lot of resentment still burning over from last season..I dont care what that lying piece of work Phil Brown says, they will be looking to put one over on us after what happened last season in the 'spitgate' debarcle..Tensions will be high and Hull will be up for this, after all they did beat us here last season it what proved to be an embarrassing result, seeing as though Hull are a poor side.

Despite the fact that we have match today there's very little Arenal news about. I suppose given that most of our news usually revolves around yet another player being injured I suppose we should be glad that things are a bit quiet.
In crazy land Man City seem to actually think they can persuade Wenger to become their manager.

If you ever wonder why Arsene Wenger persist with playing Abou Diaby, this match would be a wonderful example of why the boss has immaculate faith in his French ally. If Diaby consistently plays like he did in today's game, there will be no more doubters of his capabilities anymore. Played in his favoured midfield [.

A 3 nil win over Hull City took Arsenal back to the 3rd spot.The first goal came off a sublime free kick from Denilson.The second was a wonderful goal from Eduardo which came at the end of series of brilliant short passes that Arsenal are so good at and which generally break down just before scoring.