On Tuesday 21 October Arsenal Reserves played West Ham Reserves.   The Arsenal team included Bischoff and Merida, two midfielders looking to break into the first team.  Coquelin was there as well.

They couldn’t call on Jack Wilshere because he was playing for England in a tournament, with the … Under 16s.

On the same evening Arsenal played away in Turkey, and not only had their normal midfield of Nasri, Walcott, Denilson and Fabregas, they also had Diaby on the pitch.  Later on just for fun they brought on Ramsey.  Song also moved into midfield later on.

The desperation felt earlier with our midfield has gone.  (I don’t ask you to say, “yes you were right” and I know you can still make all sorts of arguments about the quality of the midfield at the moment, but allow me my evening of fun).

I know I am in a minority, but I have always felt Wenger was getting this right - and the midfield we have is very good.  And because it is a young midfield it will get better.

Certainly Ramsey looks a sensational buy - especially if you include that goal for Wales against England.  Not to mention tonight’s.   Song - derided beyond belief for his game against Fulham last season - is growing in confidence.  He’s not right yet, but he’s getting there.

And Denilson - as I said before, just because we had Flamini we didn’t need Flamini II.  Denilson is playing every game, just as Gilberto did, quietly, calmly, getting it right most of the time, influencing the game in a way that was often hard to see.  (Remember how he was disliked in the early days - and it wasn’t until his year out injured that we realised how brilliant the Invisible Wall actually was.

Of course we could have gone out and bought a whole load of players last summer.  We had the money (incidentally we have even more money now the apartments are being sold - and none of that money has been accounted for in the figures.)  But for me, personally, I would sooner see Song, Denilson, Wilshere, Ramsey, Theo, Cesc all coming through from their young days, and really turning it on.  Of course Nasri is brilliant, just as Pires was before him, but seeing the kids make it has a little bit extra in it.

Last time I changed channels to watch the Reserves game they were losing.  I am sorry about that - but I really did enjoy tonight.

Can we play them every week?

Below is an email that has come into the blog.  Although it appears in the replies column as normal, I thought it needed a wider coverage because to me it does reflect where we seem to have got to on the Arsenal / Everton game.

Tony

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I have to say - though I enjoy this blog very much and agree that we have to accept that it is unshamedly biased there also has to be room for holding your hands up when something is clearly just wrong.

Having seen the you tube footage for the first time let me say this: The stupid cowardly f*ckers who threw coins and whatever else should be identified, where possible, and banned fom attending all future Arsenal games.  There is no excuse for this behaviour and for one I am ashamed to have such cowardly fans at our club.

I do think that, on the whole, this behaviour is not representative of Arsenal fans.

The lead to tackle something like this must come from the people who run the game and the media.  But as usual they do sweet FA.

That said it is no good Arsenal fans complaining about Spurs chanting if they take no responsibility for their own fans behaviour.

I watched MOTD and, disgracefully, there was no mention of any flare ups at all.  I read a little the next day in the paper but there was no mention of the crowd trouble.  Why?!

If Arsenal choose not to act (which, lets face it, would almost certainly be the position of any club given the choice) and the media ignore that it even happened that should NOT stop the FA looking at the youtube evidence and forcing the issue to be investigated and acted upon.

I think we can all agree that the people who run our game need to be brought to count for allowing stuff like this to happen unpunished - whether it is The FA, FIFA or UEFA they are, uniformly, a pathetic disgrace.

A sack of bloated, profiteering bastards with a lengthy tenure of unremitting tolerance with regards racism, homophobia and minor crowd violence.  If any of them ever found a moral compass they wouldn’t know what to do with it - except perhaps sell it to the highest bidder!

Johnny

I met this really kinky girl last night.

“Humiliate me,” she said.

So I bought her a Tottenham shirt.

or…

Juande Ramos, shortly after another training session, comments to the head groundsman at White Hart Lane how impressive the pitch is looking. “It ought to,” replies the groundsman. “We put 70 million quid’s worth of manure on it every week.”

There’s tons more like that available if you want.  Just click here

Lucy Faulkner, the head of equality and diversity at the FA has confirmed that it is possible for the FA to deduct points from Tottenham for their racist and homophobic treatment of Sol Campbell at the Portsmouth Tottenham game.

However there is absolutely no sign of action - not even after the FA held a conference on the problem.  There were lots of statements about stopping to the problem, but absolutely zero action about the worst outbreak that there has been recently.

Meanwhile, a number of Everton fans have written in complaining about the articles on the Everton game - which is unusual, but I’ve no problem putting their comments up.  Except one, which in my own personal opinion was irrelevant to any sort of discussion.

Reading the various blogs etc yesterday the overwhelming majority were against all violence and assault, and that’s certainly where I stand - which of course is irrelevant in the broader scheme of things but I just thought I’d say it (given the quickness with which one can get blamed for anything).

In terms of the bias of the report of the match - of course it was biased -  that is what this blog is all about.  There are hundreds - perhaps thousands of blogs by Arsenal supporters which complain endlessly about the team - this blog is positive and sees the good in the team and criticises the rest.   That’s simply what it is.  Complaining about my bias in favour of Wenger’s teams is like complaining that the Socialist Worker doesn’t give a good press to the Conservative Party.