Another average performance at a rain-sodden E******s. We got the win and managed to keep Stoke at bay. The spot kick from Cesc was pure pony. I knew just by looking at his body language that he was going to miss. Why didn’t he let Rosicky - who takes pens for his country – take it. When Sorensen saved it, I thought it would be another one of those days.

My man of the match was Arshavin. He was a real threat until 5 mins before the end when he ran out of steam, as was young Ramsey. But yet again we’re picking up injuries to key players. It looks like we won’t see Rosicky until the New Year and I hope Gallas' one isn’t too serious as I’m not convinced by Senderos and Silvestre.

What I do wonder is how many people do we have to lose until Jack Wilshire has a run in the team? Wenger said at the start of the season that he was looking for Wilshire to feature a lot more in the league. Well, as people in the squad seem to be dropping like flies it’s beyond me why he hasn’t played more, even before his injury, than just Carling Cup games. He made Craig Bellamy run away from him for God’s sake, so what does that tell you about Wilshire's mentality. He’s got that little bit of a nasty streak in him that we seem to lack and he’s not even out of his teens yet.

Going back to the Chavski game, if you noticed the way that they defended against us, they threw their bodies at every possible shot we tried to have and they defended as a unit. They basically did to us what we used to do to them, United and Liverpool in the days of the ‘Invincibles’ and Wenger’s first double-winning side in 98. Why hasn’t that mentality carried on? What does Pat Rice do on the training pitch? He played with some hard players and strict managers in his time. Surely he could drum some of that into the current squad.

But when you look at it, we’ve no hard men in the team - which needs to be changed come January. Certainly since Keown, Petit, Vieira and Campbell left, we have had a soft centre and they, along with Adams haven’t been replaced properly. All of us know that but does Wenger? Kolo Toure went stale which is why Wenger sold him. When we had those guys in our team, we won things almost every year. If we didn’t win the league we won the FA Cup. The sense of togetherness got us through tough away games like your Boltons, West Hams and the like. It was typified in the brawl at Old Trafford in 2003/04 - which United started and we finished. Now, I’m not condoning violence on the pitch but it showed us that the players gave a damn.

What really worries me is that Wenger says he wants players who are free to play in Europe and who are cheap. Well I’m sorry Arsene, you won’t find them in January. We’ve been linked with Horse-face Van Nistelrooy in the last week or so. Yes he had a bit of previous with us but Sol Campbell saw the light and left the Spuds and secretly Van Nistelrooy must be wanting to get one over Fergie. Okay, his little bit of pace has gone but he’s had a great record wherever he’s been. You can leave him in the box as we’ve got the pace in the team to get the ball up to him, so he wouldn’t need to do much running. If he scored the goals that won us a cup then I’d be the first one to forgive and forget.

Also there’s the PV4 saga. I think Wenger should sign him on loan till the end of the season and then take it from there. As I’ve always said, just the presence of the man in the locker room would pay dividends. He wouldn’t have to start every game, but we certainly use him in the big games. I would hate to see him join the Chavs or the Spuds. We simply can’t do without Alex Song for the four or more league games that he will already miss, so Arsene, stop being Scrooge and take a gamble like you did on Arshavin. It’s not your own money, its our hard-earned cash that goes towards the playing staff and I think it’s fair to say that we want to start seeing results, otherwise it could be another five years with no trophy and 20,000 attendances at home. And even the most hardcore fan like myself wouldn’t want that.