Ed’s note - The recent defeats have sent Mickey Cannon into therapy for a few weeks, but rather than let his column for the print version of The Gooner scheduled for the possible Man City FA Cup quarter final this weekend go to waste, we thought we would put it online as it will all no doubt change by the time next issue does come out v West Ham in a month’s time!

Our League Cup final at Cardiff was the club’s (and mine) tenth appearance there and as much as I love the fact that the stadium is surrounded by bars and restaurants etc, I am glad that I will never be going back again.

I'm sure that in 17 years time I'll be able to laugh about it, but if like me you went by train, I'm sure the trip overshadowed most of the game. The plan was simple, leave home at 7am, Paddington at 8am, train at 8.30am and in the Gatekeeper pub at 11am. What could go wrong? Well having no trains on my line was a bad start and none on the neighbouring line either but I still made it to Paddington for 8am, only to discover that thousands of other fans all had unreserved seating too and quite clearly there wasn't going to be room for everyone on their scheduled train. The next train after the 8.30am train? 9.30, yes, a one hour wait; do the train companies not realize that people actually want to turn up early to enjoy the day? After standing in a queue for two hours they allowed us on the 10.07 train, with thousands still behind us in the queue. We expected to get into Cardiff at 12.30 but instead suffered delay after delay and we didn't receive one single announcement for the entire journey. We pulled into Cardiff five hours later at about 3.10pm and were met by loads of fans waiting for mates to arrive to give them their tickets, many of whom were still at Newport at this time. I was "lucky" enough to get in at 3.15 but still missed the goal, many got in after half time and one fan behind me got in at 4.30!

Needless to say it was almost as bad on the way home, taking just four and a half hours and I am told that there were still queues outside Cardiff station four hours after the game? I can appreciate that a points failure is not their fault but I thought they handled the whole thing really badly and added insult to injury when they gave our carriage a packet of Sunburst sweets and five drinks to pass around the carriage!

The trip was so bad that it almost made me wish that we hadn't beaten Spurs in the semi final and that they endured that trip instead. I did say almost though, nothing could ever be that bad!

As for the game, I think we should feel proud, as here was a team with an average outfield age of 21 taking on a team seven or eight years older who cost about £160 million. How much did our team cost? £17 million? Take out young Theo and our team was put together for almost next to nothing. All this and we lost by just one goal. The team played well, just lacking that final killer instinct and should feel proud. Although the "brawl" went on a bit too long to feel proud about, it did show that we can stand up for ourselves and won't allow ourselves to be intimidated. There's nothing wrong with a bit of fighting spirit, let's face it, if West Ham had some of that, they wouldn't be set to face Yeovil and Scunthorpe next season!

Should we have made the FA Cup final and had to go to Cardiff again, I know we would all still traveled down there, but I look forward to the days that it is back at Wembley - oh the sheer joy of just having to catch a Jubilee line train. The final still may not be in north west London this season though, as there are still delays. I'm told that one of the bridges fro the station hasn't been built yet and that they had to return all of the urinals (and we are talking thousands here) as they had the company name on them and it was seen as advertising! Can you believe that? What a waste of time and money having to rip them all out and install new ones, all because it has a name on it, do they really see that as advertising? Would it make you go out and buy that product? People are p*ssing on the names, try selling that marketing opportunity to a company and see what reply you get!

My mate Ross decided to walk to Seven Sisters tube after the recent Spurs v Arsenal game and was distressed enough by the walk to check on Google earth just how far away it is. Do you know how many tube stations are nearer to Ashburton Grove than Seven Sisters is to White Hart Lane? Have a think about it and name them and I'll tell you later on.

It's a shame that the Youth Cup semi final is on the same night that the first team play, but there should still be a big crowd. I'm told that there were 12,000 fans there for the quarter final. That is an amazing statistic, especially for just a quarter final. Bolton and Blackburn struggle to get that for an FA Cup game!

Our performance up at Bolton was superb and the game really had everything, a very entertaining Valentines night! It was such a shame that four days later against Blackburn we put in one of the worst home performances you will hopefully ever see. It really was so dire that the club should have offered us refunds on the way out. Blackburn brought the smallest away support yet to the stadium and they seem very puzzled when the Arsenal fans sung "Where were you when you were sh*t?" What do you mean "were"?

The Wigan match before that had yet another comeback and I never expected to celebrate a second goal against Wigan so enthusiastically. I can't believe all the fuss about Thierry Henry taunting Chris Kirkland with the ball after the first goal, I would have done that myself. I can understand time wasting towards the end of the game when your team is hanging on but this guy was doing it from the first minute. You've got to love Lehmann for doing the same though as soon as he got his first opportunity after the winning goal. You just knew he would and it was hilarious to see him telling the ball boy to get out the way and leave the ball to him, before "accidentally" dropping it. What a nutter he is, it's going to be very quiet next season without him. I'm just glad he wasn't playing in the League Cup final, as God knows what he would have done to a Chelsea player.

And finally, the answer to the tube station question. There are ten tube stations nearer to Ashburton Grove than Seven Sisters is to White Hart Lane - Archway, Tufnell Park, Kentish Town. Highbury & Islington, Caledonian, Holloway Road, Arsenal, Finsbury Park and Manor House.