Stoke 3-1 Arsenal

"We have four very important games now in a short space of time, that is what we are focusing on.

- Arsene Wenger, like me, has other priorities than the FA Cup

I didn't sleep well last night and spent a few hours lying in bed, playing Snake on my phone and listening to my iPod. The thought came to me that, since I couldn't sleep anyway, I might as well get up and watch Arsenal play Stoke. But then I thought, fuck it, it's only the FA Cup.

Seems like I wasn't the only one who thought that. Wenger put out an inexperienced team, and we played like an inexperienced team would play. 3-1 to Stoke on the night, and I must say that it's a bit of a shock first thing in the morning. It's like pouring sour milk over your cereal, or waking up in a puddle of your own drool.

As Wenger explained:

"The game was more physical than technical, and physically they were stronger than us in a very simple game. We were exposed to a fight and some of our players were a bit young and could not cope with it. I do not regret the side I put out, I did not have much choice. We had 10 injuries and a very difficult programme coming up.... I can only stand by the team I selected in the circumstances, we lost but there was not much room for manoeuvre in terms of players available."

I hope it doesn't mean anything. People have said that we're a confidence team, and we play best when we have wind in our sails. This is a bit of a puncture in that sail, but hopefully we'll get by. We're a bit more mature than two years ago, when throwing a Man Utd FA Cup tie really knocked the stuffing out of us. We've got a few hardened pros who can prop up the spirits. I think that's the difference between this side and the 2007 side. That one was fuelled by adrenaline and enthusiasm, and it was held together by Flamini's little pumping legs. This one is fuelled by an all-out commitment to attack because we've a crap goalkeeper, and it's stabilised by experienced players like Gallas, Vermaelen, Arshavin and Rosicky. There's a subtle difference between the two.

I really fucking hope that's true because as Wenger mentioned, we have a really fucking difficult programme coming up, and we really need to be on top of our game. Oh, and I really, really hope we get a new goalkeeper soon - someone starting with "A" and ending in "kinfeev" would be nice.

Do we care about the FA Cup?

Stoke City tomorrow night(?), and I'm wondering if the FA Cup is a worthwhile competition. I realise English people regard it with a certain affection, but why? It's an unseeded, one-legged cup competition that offer little little prize-money and a UEFA Cup place for the winner. For a club of Arsenal's stature, it's not much more important than the League Cup.

So why not throw the match?

It'll be nice to see the kids up against Stoke. The Guardian preview has Coquelin at right-back with Eastmond as DM. I'm thinking it'll be advantageous to have Eastmond as right-back (he's played there before), but mainly out of curiosity to see how Coquelin will do in the midfield. Heard great things about him.

We don't need to win the FA Cup this year. Especially not with the run of league games we've got coming up. I'd rather lose this and pick up points in subsequent games, rather than have a bunch of exhausted players fronting up against Chelsea and Man Utd in a month's time.

After all, it's just the FA Cup

In other news, 87.3% of Guardian readers think that Gary Neville is a "boot-licking moron". I'm not sure about the other 12.3%, but they're probably thinking something lot worse. Whatever the case, it's bad form to bag an ex-teammate, especially one who's playing for your cross-city rival and who plays better when "fired up". Carlos Tevez was right, and Alex Ferguson and Gary Neville were wrong.

Why, Wenger?

"It would be unfair to put too much responsibility for this defeat on Fabianski. I just want to see him recover because I firmly believe he will be one of the best goalkeepers in the world."

- Arsene Wenger, passing the buck

The thing is that we don't blame Fabianksi for the goals. Yes, he was beaten at the near post for the first. And yes, he shouldn't have rushed out for the second. But he's our second-string keeper and he's inexperienced. You expect horribly gauche mistakes from inexperienced players. As Wenger once said, you pay for their education in points. We don't blame Fabianski for the loss.

We blame Wenger.

Arsenal vs Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final is a big, big game. It's our best hope for a trophy this year. We've got a team that is enjoying a late-season resurgence. We're facing a team that's leaking goals. If we attack them, there's a fair chance they'll fall over. In fact, with our patched-up defence, attack is our only chance of winning.

And what do we do?

We play a 4-5-1, stock our midfield with tall players who aren't in-form. We rest our in-form players. We leave our best player on the bench. We take an early lead, and then wait for them to equalise and take the lead. In short, we bottle it.

It gets me angry. It makes me sad. It leaves me with a mild headache and in a profound state of melancholy. Playing Chelsea is difficult enough without playing a half-strength side. When we play Chelsea, we need to play our strongest side and hope for the best. If we don't do that, and we throw a match like we did the other night, what's it all for? Why are we following a club which doesn't take a match seriously, which treats its supporters with contempt, which looks Triumph and Disaster in the eye and treats them both impostors as the same? After all, it's not a fucking Rudyard Kipling poem, Wenger - it's football.

What makes it even more galling is that Everton beat Man Utd last night on penalties. If we'd gone into the Chelsea game with our best side, and if we'd won, we would've been odds-on to win the FA Cup. I don't rate the FA Cup personally, but it's still a trophy.

And for a side as callow as ours, the experience of winning a trophy is priceless.

Where was Arshavin?

"The season will only be good if we win something. Otherwise, it will be a failure."

- Didier Drogba, spelling out the truth for both Chelsea and Arsenal

We're not going to win the treble. Drogba put paid to that in the 84th minute when he scored Chelsea's second goal, and sent us out of the FA Cup. You can argue that Fabianski made a hideous mistake rushing out to meet Drogba, and it cost us the game. But truthfully, the match was over a long time before then. It was over the minute the team sheet was released, and Arshavin was on the bench. 

Why Arshavin was left on the bench is a bit of a mystery. We need the Owl to play every game he can. He's probably our best player. He's certainly been the most influential player in in the games he's played. And yet, he was rested for the game. 

I only saw the last twenty minutes of the match. We were getting killed all over the park by that stage, but it was still 1-1. And yet, we had Arshavin,  Nasri and Song on the bench while we had Denilson and Diaby on the field. It beggars belief that in the one competition we had a chance of winning, we'd go in with a weakened side. 

After we lost, I spent most of night wondering why Wenger would do that. Came up with a few ideas:

1. He wanted to rest Arshavin: 

Arshavin hasn't had a pre-season and has played almost every game for almost three months now. He's been playing one or two matches a week. He's not conditioned to this much football. He could be a bit tired. He could have a soft tissue injury. He might need a rest for Tuesday. 

2. Wenger wanted to hide Arshavin from Hiddink:

Arshavin might have some secret weakness that Wenger doesn't want the world to know. And if Arshavin has a weakness, Guud Hiddink will know about it. Hiddink wouldn't want the world to know about it either, but if it was a choice between Chelsea winning and losing, he'd take advantage of it. And Wenger would want to protect that weakness, because Arshavin's mystique is the best thing we've got at the moment. 

3. Wenger overlooked Arshavin, literally:

Arshavin is very short. And Wenger is very tall. Maybe Wenger had all the players in the dressing room, looked around but forgot to look down. He couldn't find Arshavin, panicked, saw Diaby (who is also very tall) and picked him instead. It's happened before - Diaby and Song do play a lot more matches than Nasri, Vela and Walcott. 

Whatever the case, we're in a bit of a bind now. The FA Cup was our best chance of winning something this year. And now, we're out of it. And it's okay, really. We've got two games a week for three weeks, against some of the best sides in the world. We're not going to win every match. But still, it's frustrating that we didn't bring out our best side to a game we really should be winning. 

As Drogba put it, a successful season is determined by the trophies you win. 

Wenger's Mind Bullets

What powers you ask? I dunno, how about the power of flight?
That do anything for ya? That's levitation holmes.
How about the power to kill a yak, from 200 yards away...
With mind bullets! That's telekinesis, Kyle.
How about the power... to move you?

- Wonderboy, Tenacious D

I was checking the Arsenal site for match details, and I came across a few tidbits from Wenger. Our manager's been busy ahead of the FA Cup match tonight. He's been trying to psyche-out Chelsea. I haven't seen such venom from Wenger since the peak of the Ferguson-Wenger rivalry.

Firstly, he implies Guus Hiddink is doddering old man (who's only four years older than him):

“I rate him highly. When you come to his age and have survived in top level competition then you have quality."

Then he disses Hiddink, Scolari, Grant and Mourinho.... actually the Abramovich era:

“Chelsea is is a little bit of an exception, but only recently. Mourinho stayed two or three years and Ranieri stayed five years. And Ranieri has been the foundation of today's team. It is Ranieri who built this team, not anybody else."

Then he targets Drogba, first by reminding him that he was mediocre for most of his career, and that Arsenal and all the big French clubs rejected him when he was a young player:

“When he was in Le Mans we watched him carefully... All the French clubs watched him but nobody took him. It is a mistake but when you are in football everyone can understand it.... We didn't miss him because we didn't want [him]. We had Thierry Henry at the time.”

And then this little gem:

“He is a fighter and I believe that we want to make sure that we combat him... But we have to consider that Adebayor can do the same to them, that Bendtner can do the same too. Also Drogba will play against Silvestre and Kolo Toure, who are strong defenders. So I do not worry about Drogba tomorrow. Not at all.”

He even tries to play mind games with the Wembley groundsmen:

"When I heard they had problems with the pitch that was a big disappointment because you always felt you wanted to play at Wembley as there was something special on the pitch there... I expect a good pitch but the noises I get are not as convincing as the former pitch. But the former pitch was really something special.”

And what did Le Boss have to say about our side?

“But we relish that type of pressure. We want the pressure [of success] and are happy to have it. I don’t expect any weakness from Chelsea, I just expect full strength from our squad."

After all these mental assaults, I expect Chelsea to crawl onto a picture-perfect Wembley pitch with their confidence shattered and their manager hobbling on a zipper frame. I expect our boys to fly in with determination and confidence. Such is the deadly accuracy of Arsene Wenger's mind bullets.

He has the power... to move us.

Ex-Arsenal Wins The FA Cup

"This is the best moment of my life. I started the game and I won the Cup for Portsmouth. I have felt nothing like this."

Nwankwo Kanu, commenting on the best he's ever had.

Go with me on this one - I need the cheering up, and it's the most we can celebrate for the foreseeable future.

Congratulations to Kanu, Campbell, Lauren (where did he go?) and Diarra for winning the FA Cup. I think it's brilliant that such an Arsenal-dominated side is able to enjoy success. From what I remember, it wasn't a great game, and Cardiff were surprisingly good, but still, it's good that a side outside the Top 4 won it. I think we'd all agree that the worst thing about the Champions League is that power is concentrated in too few clubs.

And it was refreshing to see two clubs that really, really wanted to win it.

If I was being pessimistic, I'd be questioning Wenger's player management. We'd all agree that Lauren, Campbell and Diarra could still have played a part at Arsenal. However, I should make an effort to be positive. So well done.

There is one thing I'd like to expound upon. I notice that at the start of every game, the players come out holding hands with a kid. That's twenty-two kids per game. That happens every game of the season, which is 8360 kids per Premier League season (not counting domestic cups and European competitions). There are four leagues in the England, so that's roughly 33440 kids per FA season.

That's a hell of a lot of kids. Where do they get them from?