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Morning all, hope you had a good weekend. There was a nice Arsenal flavour to it as well with a 4-0 win over Barnet in that new kit which really does look the business. Thanks to Tom for his top notch blogging. Not only did he get an Arsenal win, for a change, he also got to tell Barcelona to fuck off in proper style.

Morning all, today could be a very interesting day as we refocus our attention on the Premier League. It's Wolves at home later on and it follows an early kick off between Man Utd and Chelsea at Old Trafford.

Arsene says he won't be resting players today but did say he would 'rotate' his squad.

Questions were asked earlier in the season about the Spaniard and one or two errors didn't exactly provide the cornerstone of a defence for his suitability as the No.

by CARL ELDRIDGE What is it with Arsenal and our keepers? If Arsene Wenger has one weakness (and he probably doesn't other than choice of shirt-tie combo) it must be choosing the incumbent for the No.1 slot. He was blessed to inherit David Seaman and even then he gave Alex Manninger a chance ahead of the pony-tailed one.

Right then, here go back into the thick of it. We've got football tomorrow and this is good. A home game against Birmingham is a relatively nice way to get things going again after the Interlull and there's some early team news.

Eduardo misses out on the chance for revenge against Birmingham as he remains out with his thigh injury.

A couple of things today:

First, the rumors around a possible Sebastien Squillaci transfer are reaching a bit of a crescendo, and it is being widely reported that Squillaci is in London for his physical. He has reportedly agreed personal terms (on a 3-year deal, supposedly), and Arsenal and Sevilla have reportedly agreed to a fee of £5.

I haven't had a chance to do a proper blog yet today due to various reasons , but hopefully I'll get to it later.

In the meantime, here's a round up:

Man Shitty have announced the signing of Patrick Vieira

Fulham v Portsmouth is off

Burnley v Stoke is off

Liverpool want to move their league game against the Spuds due to the weather conditions.

I'll stop with the potato themed titles now, it amuses me you know. I'll assume you gathered that and move on...

In whose hands is the future of Arsenal? Â This is the question we have all been asking. Â Almunia was the number one, but a mystery "chest" infection which has taken a long time to clear up ahs given the third choice keeper Mannone a chance, Fabianski is back from injury and should feature tonight against Liverpool.

As Wenger ponders on the upcoming Carling Cup fourth round game against Liverpool, he now has a decision to be made regarding the goalkeeping situation. Vito Mannone has done well since he had to step in for then injured Manuel Almunia and the boss had no reason to drop him although the Spaniard custodian has returned, fully recovered from his chest infection.

1. A 2 Goal cushion is totally enough to kill off the game. We simply must stop letting teams think they have a chance even when they're two down.

2. We need to buy a goal keeper. Almunia is inadequate, Mannone is too young, Fabianski is scary and Sczesczny cannot get a jersey because the Nike cannot spell his name.

Less than a month ago, we approached a Premiership game away at Fulham with the goalkeeping position in disarray. Almunia had been struck down for over a week with a chest infection, and with Fabianski also out with a long term injury, young Mannone had been thrown into a Champions League game in Liege.

So almost without us (or me, anyway) even realizing it, we appear to possibly have a goalkeeping controversy on our hands.

After Manuel Almunia went down a few games into the season with a "chest infection", and last season's number two, Lukasz Fabianski, was also out with a long term injury, we had to hand the gloves over to young Italian Vito Mannone.

Lineups are in, and I was right about everyone except for keeper:

Arsenal: Starters: Mannone, Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy, Eboue, Fabregas, Song, Diaby, Arshavin, van Persie. Subs: Almunia, Silvestre, Gibbs, Ramsey, Wilshere, Vela, Merida.

AZ: Starters: Romero, Moreno, Moisander, Poulsen, Jaliens, Schaars, Mendes da Silva, Martens, Holman, Dembele, El Hamdaoui.

What have we done to deserve so many injuries? Is there a curse at The Emirates? Since moving to the Emirates we have lost too many players for too long, Henry and van Persie ins season one, Rosicky and Eduardo in our second year and last year's injury list would have been too many to fit into either ER or Casualty.

Two wins from two games so far in the Champions League. Given our excellent form, the third one looks likely tomorrow against Alkmaar. They might be the Champions of Holland but they just lost at the weekend and are 6th in the table. The Dutch League isn't as strong as it was a decade ago.Â

Now most of you know that Walcott won't be playing tomorrow.

Another multi-goal margin of victory. Another "more than two goals" tally. Another soft goal conceded. Arsenal have seemingly picked up where they left off before the international break. Birmingham's visit to North London proved to be an entertaining match that is open to interpretation.

A lot has been said about today's meeting with Birmingham being the first since that fateful day Eduardo had his leg shattered by Martin Taylor. Some say we owe them a hammering, which is true from the point of view that we threw away three points after playing against ten men for 87 minutes, but less so for the 'tackle' itself.

You can watch Arsenal v Birmingham Live online by signing up with us here on Live Sport Network, the leading source for watching live football online.

Arsenal host Birmingham City at the Emirates in the Premier League on Saturday 17 October 2009. Arsenal are chasing their fourth consecutive win in the league while Birmingham, newly taken over by Carson Yeung, are struggling and will in all likelihood struggle till January, when Yeung has promised the team sacks of cash.

Not as easy a game as many would have you believe.

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The two protagonists of the last meeting between these clubs Arsenal's Eduardo and Birmingham defender Martin Taylor both miss out through injury.

First of all apologies for the lack of posts in the last two days. It is not because I've been stuck on topics to write about. There are two reasons. A post this week will explain one reason why I didn't write anything since the end of September.

I did try posting something yesterday, it was going to be mainly images.

Well, well, well, yesterday was fun, and then it wasn't and then it was. At half-time we were all sitting wondering how we weren't at least six goals clear, Van Persie and Diaby had given us a two-goal lead within the space of two minutes and a rout looked on. Rosicky missed three glorious opportunities but spurned them all, probably because I had money on him to score.

Well here we all are again, a little dustier and a trifle older, but here we all are nevertheless.

I did try to get excited about the internationals. But I couldn't. I missed the Ukraine game entirely, and though I did watch the Belarus game, it was so inconsequential that I lost interest faster than I do when I periodically attempt doing some DIY.

After what probably was the first impressive performance from Manchester United this season against Blackburn, the clubs fringe and young players will get a chance to propel themselves into the limelight when they visit Upton Park tonight to play West Ham in the Carling Cup quarter-final.

As normal for the Carling Cup it will be all change for United, Tomasz Kuszczak or Ben Amos will start in goal.

Welcome back to TGIF, a feature that was the brain wave of Perry_Groves' Lovechild, where I try to bring together the themes of the week into hopefully a summary of the Arsenal World so far. This week there are many things to talk about, but the news of Professional footballers being given jail sentences again reminds us all that our players are just human after all, apart from Joey Barton who is clearly an extra terrestial who has hijacked a human body.