Yesterday marked the closing of the transfer window, something we Gooners have come to fear/put all our hopes into. In past years, we've made some rather stunning purchases, but alas, the most obvious one of the entire summer never came to fruition. Call it what you may, from Wenger's intransigence to perceived failure of the higher-ups to nab his transfer targets, the purchase of a quality goalkeeper which the majority of fans thought was an obvious necessity never materialised in quite underwhelming fashion.

In his press conference after the Braga game Arsene was asked if he expected Wilshere to play a central role so early in the season. In his usual forthright manner Arsene shared his wisdom,

Honestly, no. But football teaches you one thing be open-minded and never have a definite opinion.

Calamity keeper remains the best of an achingly bad lot It seems that Monsieur Wenger has made his bed... and now must lie in it. After a month in which Arsenal fans, football fans and Almunia's family assumed a goalkeeper would be bought, Arsene Wenger did not make a deadline day purchase. It is fair to say [.

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The week has gone and the transfer window is shut and Arsenal have not signed a new goal keeper.

Mark Schwarzer was touted to come in and even handed in a transfer request but the deal did not conclude for what ever reason. I am now not interested in why the deal did not happen but want to look forward.

Sunderland 1 Arsenal 1
In the same way that there were positives and negatives to be taken from Arsenal's performance, there are times when a draw feels like a point gained and there are times when it feels like two points dropped.
What's been odd about the draws against Liverpool and again against Sunderland, was that they were somewhere in the middle.

It won't be an exaggeration to say that this result was the shock of the season so far, at least in the Premier League. That is if you consider the reputation of the teams and their respective home and away form. But if you see the performance on the pitch on the day it is very difficult to say this was a shock.

Wenger sees the afternoon crumble against West Brom

The plan was clear. To maximize points in the easier stretch of games before the big showdown with Chelsea. The West Brom match was a clear opportunity to win three points. An golden opportunity for the Gunners to vault to the top of the table following Chelsea's loss against Man City.

Having had a chance to reflect upon yesterday's poor result, I think there are a few things that need addressing if we are to sort ourselves out and make a proper challenge for the title.Goalkeeping: There is no doubt this has been woefully managed. Almunia makes an easy scapegoat for yesterday's defeat but this is not only shortsighted but also foolish.

Almunia, Turnbull, Fabianksi... you are all forgiven Remember the Moroccan keeper that celebrated sending a penalty without knowing that it had gone in? Well he is at it again. In a league game for FC Rabat this weekend Khalid Askri attempted to control a backpass, but only conceded in being tackled and letting in another [.

After the loss against West Brom, I just wrote my thoughts and took a break from the internet for a couple of days. I had no doubt the vultures would be out and there would be all sorts of opinions about our Keeper and our title chances. I don't pretend for a minute that we've done ourselves any favours with the kind of performances we had in the last two Premiership games.

Yesterday marked the closing of the transfer window, something we Gooners have come to fear/put all our hopes into. In past years, we've made some rather stunning purchases, but alas, the most obvious one of the entire summer never came to fruition. Call it what you may, from Wenger's intransigence to perceived failure of the higher-ups to nab his transfer targets, the purchase of a quality goalkeeper which the majority of fans thought was an obvious necessity never materialised in quite underwhelming fashion.

It was no huge surprise that the transfer window slammed shut without us securing a new goalkeeper.

I actually do believe Wenger when he says the transfer market has been tough. Just look at the lack of business in general from other clubs. It has been non-existent (Man City being the exception).

Arsenal supporters could blame Shay Given for their club's inability to sign a much-needed goalkeeper in the summer transfer window, but I really feel the blame needs to be aimed squarely at the shoulders of Arsenal Football Club. They needed to have a Plan B in place. They did not.

Okay everyone has made their feelings well known over the last few days, but we now have to face the fact that Almunia is going to be the first-choice keeper at Arsenal this season. I have just received this article from one of our original Guest Posters, and he is sick and tired of all [...]

Okay everyone has made their feelings well known over the last few days, but we now have to face the fact that Almunia is going to be the first-choice keeper at Arsenal this season. I have just received this article from one of our original Guest Posters, and he is sick and tired of all [...]

I'm baaaaaaack. . . . Try to contain your excitement.

First of, big, big thanks to Sairax for filling in for the last week. A heroic performance in a slow news week, and it is much appreciated by me and I know by you as well.

Okay, I'll just give my quick-hit thoughts on the events of the last week or so:

No Schwarzer.

Arsene Wenger tried very hard to buy Mark Schwarzer during the transfer window, and the current two first-team goalkeepers had to spend the summer with the uncertainty of whether they would still be playing for Arsenal in the new season. Any deal for a new keeper fell through, but Wenger doesn't feel in the slightest bit [.

Arsenal 4 1 Bolton

We are winning matches this season that we have previously struggled with arent we?!

Cahill deserved to be sent off. He went in from behind with both feet off the ground. Silly really, considering the position that he gave the free-kick away.

We should have had the game wrapped up by half time.

I had a nice surprise this evening to come home to this Guest Post from a brand new poster (NO it's not Adam Kemp!). It remains to be seen what the readers make of her post, but for me I thought it very uplifting and definitely worth a read. So I present to you Emma [...]

It is not teams but squads that win the EPL or the CL. If the CL final was tomorrow and everyone was fit and available, what team should we pick based on what we know about the players at this stage? For the first time in several seasons, we have well balanced squad comprising a solid defence, an embarrassment of riches in midfield and a true cutting edge up front, so competition for places will be hard fought.

I should begin by saying that I was forced to watch the match late last evening rather than live and fell asleep not long after it was over. Having awoken this morning still feeling ill when thinking about the match, I begin my reflections on our trip to Sunderland.

First, I have to say that a subpar performance was always likely to be in the offing following our midweek Champions League match.

Right so, Carling Cup action tonight against that lot and it could turn out to be quite a tasty game. My initial fears that we'd play a very young team and they'd play everyone bar Steve Archibald seem a little misplaced.

The wheeler-dealer reckons they have to prioritise and says they'll rest some players (not 100% I believe him, but there you go), and the word is that there'll be a fair smattering of experience in our squad.

I am not keen on writing a full review of the Spuds game. All of the other Arsenal blogs will be giving their slant on last nights victory and it will become a little too much in my opinion. This is why I usually leave a couple of days to reflect in between the match itself and my reviews written on here.

Good morning, plenty to get through today so let's start with team news ahead of tomorrow's game against West Brom.

Thomas Vermaelen and Cesc remain out with achilles and hamstring problems respectively while Kieran Gibbs starts his 'short term' absence because of his bashed up metatarsal. There are fitness tests ahead for Rosicky and Eboue while Song and Squillaci come back in.

How can everything go this wrong in the space of a few days?

A few days ago we were celebrating making mashed potato out of the swamp donkeys in a cup competition on their own patch. Tonight we sit with our head in our hands, knowing that with Chelsea losing we had the perfect opportunity to catch up to them.

Arsenal 2-3 W.B.A.

I have for a long time inexplicably looked out for West Brom's results, a footballing peculiarity I can trace back to collecting Panini stickers in 1980, when theirs was the first team I had all the stickers for. At that time, with players like Robson and Regis, they were one of the better sides in the old First Division.

There were many bad performances to complain about yesterday in Arsenal's defeat to West Brom, but when Arsenal went two down thanks to a schoolboy error from Manuel Almunia, there was immediately a mountain to climb. And then the third goal looked like the Keystone Kops running about in the six-yard area, with everyone trying to [.

I thought it was about time I awoke from my blog slumber and made an effort to put my hands on a keyboard, to be honest I felt like doing it last Wednesday after we beat the Marsh Landers, but although it was nice to beat the Spuds, the stopping of the gobbing off and text messages was more akin to scraping something unpleasant off the bottom of my shoe, they are just an unnecessary irritation.

Almunia, Turnbull, Fabianksi... you are all forgiven Remember the Moroccan keeper that celebrated sending a penalty without knowing that it had gone in? Well he is at it again. In a league game for FC Rabat this weekend Khalid Askri attempted to control a backpass, but only conceded in being tackled and letting in another [.

Well here is an interesting story to come out of this weekends embarrassment by West Brom at home. The official Arsenal website holds a weekly poll on the supporters Player-of-the-Week, and obviously this week's winner just had to be Samir Nasri after his one-man attempt to save the points, but no-one would have guessed that [.

Just a quick update...

I got a quick e-mail from a source this morning explaining that Lucasz Fabianski will be playing in the Champions League game tomorrow evening.

Almunia is apparently injured from when he conceded the penalty on Saturday afternoon in the defeat to West Brom and won't be fit to play.

Arsenal lengthy injury list just got another name added to it, and the good news is that it is Manuel Almunia that has another one of his mystery "elbow" problems. "We have Manual Almunia out," said Wenger. "He has a problem with his elbow. He caught it when he made the penalty on Saturday." It is more likely [.

Guess who's going to be wearing the starting keeper shirt in Serbia tomorrow night?

That's right. It's Flappyhandski. Almunia supposedly has an "arm injury," and given the team's history of bizarre handling of Almunia's various mysterious ailments which tend to conveniently come immediately after Almunia cocks something up, count me skeptical.

Well done young Mr Szczesny, you may have just fast-tracked you're way into the Arsenal first team with that little outburst last week.

I am firmly in the camp that rates our 20 year-old Polish keeper as a future legend at the club.

Having seen him play live for Brentford, I have witnessed just what an awesome keeper he already is and what an incredible talent he is blessed with.

Back in action after Saturday's embarrassing performance against West Brom, and we'll be looking to put that fiasco behind us, get 3 points, and build some confidence and momentum ahead of Sunday's crucial league fixture against Chelsea.

Partizan has taken a big step up this season to make it to the Champions League, after several consecutive seasons of plummeting out of the UEFA Cup/Europa League in the group stages.

Arsenal 2 West Brom 3
What's to say about a result where you're comfortably outplayed by a team which will probably flirt with relegation? Particularly, because as I heard somebody say outside the stadium, if we had scored in stoppage time to get a draw it would have been an absolute travesty.

In a game of penalties (scored and missed), Arsenal came away with the three points from Belgrade last night, and Arsene Wenger believes that the much-maligned Lukasz Fabianski had a "faultless game". All (well, nearly all) the Arsenal fans have been clamouring for Arsene Wenger to drop Manuel Almunia after the defeat to West Brom, but [.