Sometimes the title of a film or a scoreline can be a bit of a misnomer. The movie Die Hard is one. I thought that this film was about Bruce Willis taking too much Viagra and dying of an erection.

It wasn't

Arsenal losing 3-0 to Chelsea is another. It paints a picture of a completely one sided game in which Arsenal created zero. No-one will remember the disallowed goal or penalty that should have been given to Arsenal in the second-half. Instead they will look at the 3-0 scoreline and say that Arsenal were Chelsea's bitch.

On Saturday, Arsenal ended a three game losing streak by beating Stoke City 2-0. It should have been more. A missed penalty, a goal line clearance, a crossbar and good goalkeeping meant that Stoke's racist fans went home not too embarrassed.

True not all of Stoke's fans are racist, just a minority. But a report by Arsenal Times makes interesting reading:

http://www.thefootballnetwork.net/main/s378/st152244.htm

Back in the early 1990's when I was deciding on what university to apply to, I visited Keele University, close to where to Stoke is. I took a tour of the university, met with professors and then took a visit to Stoke. I couldn't get away fast enough. The place was full of pasty white, malnourished, Reebok wearing Chavs with too much time on their hands. Downtown Stoke was full of 16 year old girls with dark eyes, pushing strollers and prams with cigarettes drooping from their mouths.

The place was a fucking shithole.

Arsenal are away for their next three games. The game in Greece is really a reserve game. Diaby, Walcott, Ramsey, Vela, Silvestre and Fabianski will start. The two games after Athens are in the north-west of England. Liverpool and Burnley. On paper these are games that we should win. Liverpool are off form but they showed against Manchester United that on their day they can beat anyone. Aqualani is likely to start for Liverpool who are fighting for fourth place.

Burnely are a Jekyll and Hyde team. Away from Turf Moor they are crap having gained only one point on their travels. But in front of their home fans they're a diffrent proposition with only one defeat and five wins including a victory over Manchester United.

If Arsenal can get six points from the cold north-west then they are back in the title race. Any defeats will see them scrapping with Manchester City, Spurs, Villa and Liverpool for fourth spot.

Yesterday, I watched Everton come back from the dead to draw with Spurs 2-2 in the last ten minutes. In the last minute Spurs missed a penalty. I don't normally watch other teams in the Premiership but this game proved to be a classic. Spurs must be gutted. They know they threw the win away, which makes me fucking happy.

Last word: Almunia was shocking on Saturday

Next game Olympiacos (9 pm Eastern time Fox Soccer Channel)

Keep it Arsenal

Post Match View - Stoke City F.C.

The match was billed as the 100th at the Emirates, the 250th for Cesc, and the 500th for Arsene Wenger as manager of Arsenal Football Club. It was played against a team that the match announcers often described as dangerously close to equalizing the whole time that they were down a goal. That speaks to our recently unimpressive record for putting matches away when given the chance to because Stoke did not really threaten our lead. It also gives lips service to the aggressive nature of the tactics that inferior teams tend to apply when facing us.

You heard words like "smashed into touch" when a Stoke defender dealt with an Arsenal attack. You heard "no none sense defending" when a Stoke player got away with a foul. You heard them say "good old-fashioned shoulder charge" when the gentle Robert Huth won the ball.

Stoke City are not Barcelona. They are a tough side nonetheless and our victory against them was "needed" as Arsene put it. Let's be clear, the three points were an absolute must. And then seeing Chelsea go down to Manchester City was the mark of a good day.

I spoke to one of my colleagues at eighteen86 for over two hours after the Chelsea defeat last weekend. We discussed the need for Arshavin to take over. His contribution today was clearly a level above what we'd seen in previous matches.

His movement, his touch, his runs are special class. Today, they helped make a difference. In the 37th minute, you could see him direct traffic as he stood on the ball, pointing young and improving Traore in the right direction. That's what I want to see.

His move past Diao into the Stoke penalty area, and then forcing Delap to take him down was more of what I want to see. I also liked the amount of pressure we put on Stoke to win back the ball when we lost it. The boys were focused today. We were all over Stoke for much of the game.

Of note:

Tuncay needs to brush up on the offsides rule. He did beat it once, with Gallas doing well to recover, but he did his team no favors today. I lost count how many times the flag went up.

By the 70th minute, we'd won our 8th corner. I'd like to see a better return from that many corners. Vermaelen went close but we have to do better with that much domination.

Aaron Ramsey took his goal very well with the outside of his right foot. He beat a very good Sorensen intelligently and skillfully.

Pulis substituting Delap on 81 was his way of throwing in the towel. Sad, really, that your main threat is a guy who THROWS the ball far. Equally sad however is how our clown goalkeeper dealt with some of those throws.

It seems that Eboue, Gallas, Rosicky, and Traore are injury concerns. Rosicky being the worst hit. Surprise! According to the manager, he will be out for weeks. I feel bad for poor Thomas. He can't seem to turn the corner injury-wise. The others should be ready for Liverpool.

This is an interesting season.

Arshavin Time

I have no problem when Andrey Arshavin opens his mouth. He seems to be one of the only Arsenal players who aren't specifically drilled by our PR team to say the "right" answers at all times. His views on women driving are controversial to say the least, but he's never afraid to say exactly what he's thinking.

To me, it shows that he cares. In the interview itself, he completely backs Wenger and he talks about pushing forward.

He said a few quotes about us lacking height, but he was really talking about missing the presence of players like Bendtner and Diaby.

What I found most interesting was this quote:

"I'm not Thierry Henry but I'm one of a few experienced players in this team. I can take my young players and make them follow me. But we have other leaders as well like Robin van Persie, William Gallas, and Cesc Fabregas."

Note the inclusion of Gallas in that mention of leaders. But anyway, with van Persie down, he is saying the words I want to hear.

It is indeed time for Arshavin to step up. He'll make no bones about the fact that he's been below his standards, especially compared to last year's blistering form. But he is a player of natural footballing genius, and it's time for him to step up to the plate.

I don't know if we need a direct formation change, but the keys need to be handed to Arshavin. Cesc will not mind. Cesc wants to win, and he cares more about the team than anything else.

The time is now for Arshavin to make a mark.

Colorado Rapids

The Colorado Rapids will play an Arsenal first eleven on March 1st. This could be the come back game for Robin van Persie.

The Rapids will spend a week training at London Colney in early March 2010.

Keep it Arsenal.

A Few Notes On City

- Manchester City decided to do an NBA style, lights out presentation with a Blue Moon over their fans. Incredibly silly stuff. Imagine being an Arsenal player and having to stand there to watch that.

- Adebayor made a big show of hugging all of our players, planting a kiss on Silvestre, and attempting to kiss Eboue. It was embarrassing to witness, but he did relatively little during the actual match. Perhaps it's better to just treat him with indifference than pure disgust.

- Fabianski played well. He was not responsible for any of the goals, and he had a few fine reaction saves.

- Song was culpable for both the first and third goals. Silvestre was to blame for the second. Silvestre is way past his best. I do not feel safe at all when he's in the game, and I've given him more of a chance than most other Arsenal fans. While it's nice that we can count on Song as a backup CB, I'd rather we played Bartley instead of him. Song picked up a yellow card which means he's suspended for the Stoke fixture. That's actually a convenient ban, considering we may not require his services to beat Stoke. Regardless, if we were going to blood the youngsters, I would have preferred to see Bartley.

- We were not protected by the ref. There were several clear fouls that were not called, and we were shown six yellow cards.

- The fact that we could not create a clear cut chance against a City side that lacked balance and was set up to attack was a bit worrying. Wilshere and Merida did not provide a whole lot. Rosicky faded. Ramsey was industrious but not effective. Vela didn't get much service.

- Arsene Wenger did not shake Mark Hughes' hand because he thinks that Hughes is a c*nt. We've lost games before by large margins, and Wenger still shook the hands of opposing managers. Hughes is quickly becoming a major annoyance that must be vanquished much like Sam Allardyce was.

- An away fixture was always going to be difficult for our blend of youth and reserve players. Look back on the past few years and you'll see it's the away fixture that does us in this tournament.

- People will write about this exit as if it's something important. Chelsea have also exited the tournament, but not much doom is forecast on them, and they played Drogba. The Stoke fixture is far, far more important than advancing to the semis of the Carling Cup. Winning a Carling Cup would be a noteworthy achievement, but it would not alleviate the stings of criticism that people give us. They'll just say, "well all they've won is a Carling Cup."

- Stoke is a must win fixture.

Fcuk Off Hughes

Three consecutive matches without scoring and injuries upon injuries have pushed the manager to a point of frustration. Mark Hughes claims that he looked to shake his opponent's hand but saw Arsene Wenger "running" down the tunnel after the defeat to Manchester City. Wenger's response was that he is free to choose who to shake hands with.

This is fuel for those already looking for reason to jump on our manager. In a perfect world, Arsene would conduct himself like an angel. We don't live in a perfect world. We live in a world where a Nobel Peace Prize winner declares that he is dedicated to continuing a war that many millions feel must be stopped. We live in an unjust world with far worse acts than Wenger not shaking hands with a c*nt who probably hates everything about him anyway.

It doesn't bother me what Arsene did after the match any more than it did when he stood up to that other c*nt Alan Pardew. I like that he doesn't have a drink after matches with the opposing manager because most of them can't stand him. Why should he pretend to enjoy their company? Wenger not shaking hands with Mark Hughes is the least of my worries.

Naturally, there'll be any number of views suggesting that we're done, that we never really had a chance to win anything this season, and that we are now out of the competition we had the best chance to win. With RvP likely to be out for the season, Theo looking nothing like a player ready to make a difference, and Eduardo off form, the return of Niklas Bendtner can't happen soon enough. But will he be enough?

The manager has stated that we will be active in the transfer market. If we find a player and a deal that suits us, we will buy. We need to buy. We must buy. There's a long road ahead of us but by no means are we over our heads.

There'll be loads of "experts" saying that they predicted we'd fall short yet again. There'll be loads of "fans" jumping off the band wagon. Good! I prefer it that way.

The season (re)starts Saturday against Stoke. I will drop-kick the first ball boy or girl who hands Rory Delap a towel.

The Journey

The loss to Chelsea was not personally devastating to me. No, it's not because I never believed that we could win the Premier League this season. And no, it's not because I don't care. I care quite a great deal. After the 3-1 defeat in the second leg of the semifinals of the Champions League last year, I wanted to stay away from football for a long time. I was obliged to watch our final matches, but that was compounded by the fact that we could not thwart United from celebrating their title when we played them at Old Trafford.

Last season featured multiple moments that made an Arsenal fan want to hurl. The Manchester City fixture where William Gallas was left behind after being stripped of his captaincy was one of those moments. At the time, I predicted that it would be the worst moment of the season. I was wrong, but I was also kind of right. Things steadied out from there on, even though it was littered with draws to teams we should have scalped. Regardless, our indifferent form gave us a clear target; we had to finish fourth.

When we conceded the two goals back to back to Chelsea, I knew there was little chance we'd come back into the game. When Arsene Wenger made an observation that Didier Drogba "doesn't do much," the English media had a field day with the comments. Pulling out all their repetitive barbs at Wenger's myopia, Wenger took most of the heat off the performance of our squad. They were still criticized for coming up short, but they didn't feel the full force. Wenger has always been a subtle professional this way (subtle, because nobody really points out that he's just deflecting attention away from his players). Despite that, Wenger's observation was actually astute for he wasn't actually calling Drogba anything short of a great player. He merely called him an efficient one, and that's something that can describe the Chelsea team as a whole.

You see, this Chelsea team fails to impress in the larger sense of the word. Sure, they may end up as Champions, but nothing they do is as inspirational as much as it is efficient. Carlo Ancelotti may be a more likable figure than Jose Mourinho, but all he's doing is duplicating Mourinho's original vision. He has a blunt, powerful, and experienced team that can carve out the results. In this case, Chelsea failed to impose themselves on us until a couple of defensive lapses in concentration helped lead to their first goal. After that, they parked the bus in a manner that Stoke does. I'm not criticizing that as a tactic. Your primary goal is to win the game, and with an Italian manager, that was always going to happen. After an initial spell of pressure, Chelsea comfortably secured the three points.

And so, the result led to many claiming that it's no good that Arsenal can beat up the smaller teams but fail to impress in the big occasions. That is the reason, they claim, we will not win the Premier League. That logic may seem sound, but it's not entirely true. In the Premier League, you play 32 fixtures against teams that are not in the "Big Four." You lose those six matches, but dominate the rest, you win the Premier League. Look at Manchester United last year, they didn't do much against the top teams, but they obliterated the rest. In past years, we've done well against the Big Four, but slipped up numerous times against the smaller clubs. If the reverse happens, that's perfectly fine for me. The Champions League is the competition where you need to play best against the best teams, and we're sitting comfortably in that competition at the moment. That is precisely the reason why it made me angrier when we dropped points against West Ham and Sunderland. After showing that cutting edge against weaker teams throughout this season, we forgot the lessons we'd learned in the past few years.

When our team suffers a dip in confidence, we struggle more than other big teams should. That is what concerns our fan base primarily. After losing two games in a row earlier this season, we responded by beating up on the smaller teams. That is what we had to do, and that is what we did until West Ham snatched a draw from defeat.

From what I see, our primary problem is the intensity with which we play defense. We have the personnel to do well in this department. I don't see a lack of power or height as our problem. For instance, during the first goal conceded to Chelsea, had Denilson just snapped a tackle into John Terry, we could have set up a counter attack. That didn't happen. Look at how Chelsea defended in the second half anytime we were in their half. There were bodies flying all over the place. That rarely happens with our team for whatever reason. We fix that, we stop leaking goals. We've conceded over 40% of shots on target, that's an astonishing number. It means that teams don't create very much, but they score regardless.

Moreover though, back to Chelsea for a moment. It's often said that only winners are remembered. In other sports, I'd wholeheartedly agree with this statement. In football, not so much. You try telling me that Johan Cruyff's Holland team will be remembered less than Otto Rehhagel's Greece team. That's not to take anything away from actual winners, but I'd suggest that at times winners may be relegated to being a footnote in a book, for that's all that happens to Champions that truly fail to stir emotions of excitement in spectators.

People may regard Wenger's youth experiment as a failure, and no doubt Wenger himself would classify it as a failure if we don't win any trophies. I'd be bitterly disappointed personally, but I already consider his experiment to be a success. There has been more ink written about Arsenal in the past few years than every other English club. We are a fascinating team, albeit imperfect, to follow and cover as a journalist. More books will be written about a "failed" experiment than Chelsea's two league triumphs in the same span of years. For what Wenger did is bordering on genius, he's proven that we can be competitive with this blueprint. It is the reason why Wenger has virtually obliterated the memories of George Graham, even though Graham himself won two league titles. I don't ask for trophies every year, that kind of thinking is in line with Manchester United and Yankee fans who want everything handed to them on a silver platter. No, what I ask for is to be thrilled and a reasonable chance that trophies may come along with that type of play. And from where I stand, we're still in the title race, we're into the knockout stages of the Champions League, and we're in the quarterfinals of the Carling Cup. That's not so bad, you know?

Because the truth is, when your team triumphs, you celebrate like crazy with your friends for one day. That glow lasts about a week, but it's on to the next campaign. It's the journey you remember more than anything else. The bad days when your team threw away points. The great days when you carve open a team in Europe. The times you think about a sublime thirty pass move that set up a goal. The times when an opponent dived to win a penalty against your team. All these things happen, and all of these are the reasons why you follow the sport.

Arsene Wenger and this Arsenal team has provided us many memories on this journey. And frankly, they're far more valuable to me than anything Chelsea may accomplish with their "powerful" players. I don't think you should ever forget this as an Arsenal fan.

Stepping back to present issues for a moment, I don't think Chelsea will walk away with the title. They lost to Wigan and Aston Villa on consecutive weeks. For all this talk about squad depth, their players are about as interchangeable as ours. When people complain about how Samir Nasri and Tomas Rosicky are identical players, I could say the same about Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard. The point is, that's simplistic analysis to say the least, and it says nothing. I've seen occasions when Chelsea have been frustrated by teams who can more adequately cope with their power. They have a healthy margin and are on a good run, but injuries happen to everybody. Don't think this race is over quite yet. Nothing is ever over in football.

As for Manchester City today, we're technically the underdogs as they will field a full side team against our mixture of reserves and youth players. The main impediment is that we're playing away, and don't ever underestimate how valuable that is when playing a cup tournament. It will take a big effort to overcome City, but that's ideally what we should be aiming for. Because a defeat for City gives them more motivation to play hard against Chelsea. Perhaps they play Chelsea to a draw, and we defeat Stoke, and hey, it's a nine point margin with a game in hand. This team has shown that it can bounce back from setbacks, and that's what we have to prove that Chelsea was, a setback on a long journey.