I would emphasise your point about being in touching distance at the turn of the year. You say 5 points, I think within 7/8 is still possible. You cannot win the league at this stage but you can knock yourself out of it. The league is normally won by the team that has a competent first half but can then go on that 10 game winning streak in the later stages.

Form is a funny thing particularly at this point of the season & the best teams can & will drop unexpected points. I don’t think we have respected the opponents well enough in the last 2 games & have drawn these games, that should have been won. What you notice with Man U in particular is the all out hard work from start to finish from all their players. I don’t think we had that against AZ or West Ham. The strange thing is that the 2 players who actually did put the work in, Eboue & Diaby have attracted the most venom, from those most brilliantly portrayed by Ian as “traitors one & all”.

I was at that 0-5 at Stoke, Gf60 & what you say is true, my younger self may well have led the moaning. My memory of that game was sitting close to Charlie George, who had his leg in plaster, us dominating most of the 1st half but letting in a soft goal to Ritchie. The second half everything they tried went in. One of the very few games that I have left before the end.

There really is no hope for those who look to football for just the glory, ie trophies. What I go for is to see the games like Blackburn & Wigan, the scintilating football. Those performances have been pretty regular in all the Wenger years but you may have got only 1 or 2 in many of the seasons past.

Savour the football & see where it takes you at the end. Expect more & all you will get is mainly disappointment.

Having said all that (sorry to ramble on) I am as pissed off as everyone else after a poor performance or result but I recognise that the only cure is to look forward to the next game.

Paul C. got it spot on about Glory. I’ve said it before that it’s not always about winning everything all the time. We are at where we are because of only one man.

Feel so sad for the man, he’s given so much (still is everyday) to the club and its fans but there will always be morons who demoralize everything we do. And it’s so funny how most of them think Song is still a no good player. I think they ought to switch sports, maybe baseball or something. He’s clearly the most improved and have become one of the leading defensive midfielder this season.

I would really give those moaners some respect if they have brains you know.

I think for true ’sports fans’ – those who have genuine love for ‘the game’ as opposed to just masturbating over the bragging rights each weekend/at the end of the season – ‘glory’, narrative and drama are what keeps us coming back.

‘The traitors’, as Mr Trevett so amusingly coins them, care about nothing but winning and show little or no interest in the how or the why. I don’t even class them as football fans – to them it is just a pissing contest.

They would rather we had signed Tores and Ronaldo and were £500 million in debt so long as we had won the CL every year for the last 5. If it meant consigning AW to the dustbin in the process they would not care.

Frankly I’d find all of that too soul destroying to enjoy.

Though that might have just been the knuckleduster he tried to smuggle into the Emirates for the Spuds fixture…

I think that for most Arsenal fans of a certain age, the endless pessimism that seems to surround our club now is often hard to believe. I can remember being at Highbury on cold winter’s nights with only 20,000 in the ground watching a team going nowhere. My father was at games in the 60’s (a truly lost decade) with under 10,000 in attendance. Arsenal today are a different beast altogether.

As many others, including Arsene, have said, we have no divine right to win trophies, or even to be in the top-4. Up until the mid-90’s Tottenham and perhaps even Everton were considered bigger clubs than Arsenal. Times change. Manchester Utd will one day have to make do without Alex Ferguson, and perhaps their next manager will also be constrained financially. Chelsea will have to replace half their team very soon. There is no guarantee that either club will continue to achieve success. The sheiks could walk away from Manchester City. There are no guarantees in life.

Arsene Wenger has put Arsenal at the top of the footballing world. We are now one of the elite clubs in Europe. It is hard to see that changing even if AW was fired tomorrow. There would be a long queue of managers lining up to take over from AW. At what other club in Europe could a manager find the same combination of fiscal security, abundant youth development, modern infrastructure, and a progressive and “hands-off” board? Barcelona and Real Madrid perhaps. Manchester Utd if they were to sort out their debt. But what other club can offer what Arsenal can? That is all due to AW.

Football is about entertainment and, as Danny Blanchflower put it, “GLORY”. Glory is not necessarilly about winning or trophies, but about those spine-tingling moments that stay in the memory forever. AW’s Arsenal teams have given us many of those moments. This season there have been many already. At what other club in England has there been such fantastic entertainment? Are West Ham fans complaining about the lack of entertainment that Arsenal provide?

I actually do not expect us to win a trophy this season. I believe this team is still “a work in progress”. But I do believe that no other team in England, perhaps Europe, will give its fans (and fans of every other club it plays) such outstanding entertainment as our team will. And ultimatelu, is it not entertainment that keeps us coming back for more?

Wilshere and Traore are both our injured tomorrow.

The suggestion that we should start to model our play on lesser teams, and be prepared to grind out wins, is particulary offensive. If I wanted to support a team like Manure or Citeh, then that is what I would do. When we win our next set of trophies this will be achieved by doing what we do best, not by copying mediocrity.

We let our guard down and were punished for it. Get over the disappointment, learn from it, and move on. And above all, show the kind of commitment as a supporter that you expect from your team. That way, when we win the League you can claim a small part in achieving this. Here endeth the lesson. See you at the Liverpoo game. Stu.

About WHU’s match. I have never felt more assured about our predestined glory this season, even if we have lost that match. I couldn’t find fault with anyone, seriously.. All played damn well, but there is a danger of ‘boredom’ playing useless stupid teams. And against WHU it happened.