Go back in time 18 months ago and Patrick Vieira our captain fantastic and heartbeat of the 49ers had been told that the club had accepted a bid from the Italian's Juventus and they were neutral on whether he stayed or not.

So off he went and then Arsene put plan B into place as well as all his proverbial eggs in one basket with the proposed 'done deal' of Julio Baptista from Sevilla filling our skippers boots and the new dawn was on the horizon… DOH!

Another year’s residency to qualify for a Spanish passport and a bid from Real Madrid saw our brave new world disappearing faster than a Mafia boss with some stolen Russian oil monies to launder.

Now fast forward to January 2007 and after having an injury ravaged start and only beginning two games the Beast is amongst us. But it seems that we don't rate him, he's not good enough, not Arsenal standard etc. etc.

So the midfielder/forward who scored 38 goals in 63 starts for Sevilla and nine goals in 45 appearances (many from the bench) for Real Madrid is apparently a pig in a poke and will not cut the mustard - a bit like Adebayor then? Or like Henry/Pires/Bergkamp/Grimandi (joke) when they took a long time to bed in. We should stop the knee jerk reaction that makes him the scapegoat for any collective crap performances.

If he was good enough 18 months ago that Sir Wenger was going to build the team round him I'm absolutely convinced that if he can adjust to the Arse way and get a good run of matches he will go on to have a massive career for us... but only if we get behind the player like we did with the other struggling players.

Just remember how dire Pires was for six months and what a legend he went on to become. Don't judge our number nine on his only 90 minutes completed against Sheffield United because he played for most of the match out of position down the left. To my mind he never tried to hide and at least he got stronger as the game went on. So come on fellow Gooners, let’s be fair and reserve judgement for when he has had a fair crack of the whip and let’s try not to be beastly to the Beast (sorry).