Well since the last time I put finger to keyboard there has not been too much to get overly positive about has there. Just as we thought we might slowly but surely be getting over the humiliation of Old Trafford we came up short at Ewood Park to one of the worst teams in the EPL this season. Make no mistake about it, Blackburn will be around the relegation zone come May and we got the run around off them for 45 minutes.

The defence was certainly rocky to say the least and at the end of the 90 minutes you couldn’t really argue with the result. I personally feel the criticism being levelled right now at Mertasacker is a little unfair. The guy has just come over from Germany and needs time to adapt to the pace of the English game. Granted he is not the quickest but neither was Tony Adams and I don’t remember us complaining too many times about Mr Arsenal in the past. Give him a break and if he is still playing the same way in six months time then by all means nail him down as another defensive flop for Mr Wenger. Santos also looked well off the pace of the game at Ewood Park and can surely only get better with more games. I can still see him playing in more matches this season than Kieran Gibbs so I do hope he proves to be a whole load more reliable than what he managed to show in the Blackburn game.

A lot has been said on here in recent times about a certain lack of interest or care from the fans these days. Some people seem to feel slightly more distanced from proceedings on the field of play as the faith slowly but surely whittles away with every defensive howler. It is hard to try and justify why someone would then want to get up at 6am and trek across most of the country to see us play in a midday kick-off away to Blackburn Rovers. Thousands do still make this sort of commitment to the cause though. So either we have thousands of morons currently supporting the Arsenal who simply have nothing better to do with their time and money or the spirit of the hardcore fanbase has not been diminished too much despite recent performances.

On a more positive note the Carling Cup has started up again and we are in the hat for the next round after beating the mighty Shrews at the E******* on Tuesday night. A nice intro to the Arsenal faithful for our latest speed merchant in Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. One thing that instantly struck me about the young star was his eagerness to shoot on site. His goal kind of summed that up and it was nice to see a player in red and white feel the need to pull the trigger from 25 yards out rather than pass, pass and pass some more. I just hope that this ‘skill’ does not get trained out of him at London Colney in the upcoming months.

A lot was also made about the attendance figure for the Shrewsbury game. Well if you ask me drawing in a midweek crowd of over 40,000 to watch the reserve/youth team play at home to a struggling Division Two side is no mean feat. Even if the prices are reduced to £10 and £20 who really wants to pay to watch that? By the time you factor in travel costs and food etc it is still a £40 night for most people who would attend so it is not exactly a freebie is it? I am sure if we play a more alluring side at home in the next round the ground will be fuller so no need to worry. Let us not forget that we are in the middle of a never ending recession as things stand. Supporting the Arsenal we should already be fully aware of the fact that money does not grow on trees.

Onwards and upwards and next in line for us is Bolton at the E******* on Saturday afternoon. One of only a handful of home games that will kick off at 3pm on a Saturday for some time to come. It is bad enough having to get up mentally for home games such as Stoke City but to have to do it at 130pm on a Sunday takes the biscuit. Why are such matches televised anyway? Who other than Tony Pulis is licking his lips at the prospect of watching us take on Stoke rather than tucking into a lovingly prepared roasted lamb with all the trimmings?

The issue regarding a new defensive coach was put to our supremo AW after the Shrewsbury game and anyone who thinks that this is a possibility should take a look at the facial expressions that AW pulled to the reporter who asked him the question. It ain’t gonna happen anytime soon believe me. It does make you laugh when a guy with around 30 years coaching experience seriously seems to think that the defensive displays of recent times at Arsenal do not need serious attention on the training ground. Is he blind? Can he not see that certain issues come up during matches time and time again? I am baffled. With the comments coming from Ivan Gazidis this week regarding the possible sacking of AW it does beg the serious question of how bad do things have to get before the board start to seriously question whether someone else could be doing a better job for the club? Do we need to be in the bottom three at Christmas? Do we need to actually suffer relegation before the question can be asked? Is having ambitions of avoiding such scenarios simply dismissed by our club as ‘short-termism’ these days?

In a couple of short weeks we will renew our ‘friendship’ with the boys from the other end of the Seven Sisters Road and for me it is the first time in my living memory where we will be genuine underdogs to win the game. Having seen glimpses of Spurs against Wolves and Liverpool in recent weeks I can’t see us coming away from WHL with anything this time round. It does have to be said that the departures of Cesc and Samir have left us as a squad at best on level terms with the Lilywhites. Players like Van de Vaart and dare I say it Adebayor are in my eyes more effective players than the ones that we currently possess. Sad state of affairs? Well yes actually.

I remember getting shoved around the playground the morning after a 2-1 loss at the Lane when I was a kid. Paul Walsh scored a couple of goals if memory serves me right. I felt awful at the prospect at going back into school the next day with my class being mainly built up of spuds fans (one of many negative side effects of being brought up in Enfield). After that game I cannot remember too many other occasions as a youngster where I had to endure that kind of treatment. I didn’t move area until I was 27 years old but we simply did not lose to Spurs, end of.

I now have moved area and have a seven month old son. Will he want to be brought up as a Gooner if we continue down a path where we get beat 8-2 on a Sunday afternoon and he has to accept getting the p*ss taking out of him the next day at school? Who as a child would want to support such a team? We can all turn round as adults and say you have to take the rough with the smooth as a football fan but children want to support winners, they identify with winners. On a bigger scale does this simple fact not dictate that we will as a club have fewer fans currently growing up as the next generation of football supporters? Should we not therefore speculate to accumulate a little more right now to increase our fanbase for the future?

Or is this just very much a ‘short-termism’ point of view?