I was at Fratton Park on Sunday to witness the disappointing 0-0 draw, made worse by the fact that an already relegated Charlton actually did enough to present us with the opportunity to take thirrd spot. As it turned out Arsenal drew another blank which meant we asked a little too much of Charlton and a last minute penalty for Liverpool meant Charlton couldn't get the victory we needed of them. I felt so frustrated to have witnessed another performance which typified our season, but more so at the fact that a club like ours needs to rely on a club like Charlton to do us a favour at Anfield. Needless to say it wasn't the end of season finale I had hoped for.

However every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining and for me it came in the form of text message from a Spuds "friend". He had text me to say he was one of three happy Spuds fans in a pub. I asked if there was such a thing as a happy Spuds fan (as to me it simply makes me think of pain) and his response was "Yes coz we just finished 5th in the league!"

The conversation continued as text messages were exchanged back and forth as much to my shock he actually tried to argue his club had a better history and a better season than us. His reasons for this were that they had set a new European record for consecutive wins and that they had finished fifth for the second season running (which according to him meant they were in a winnable cup unlike "useless Arsenal who are boring and will never win the European Cup"). Needless to say I pointed out many facts about why we are so superior and put him back in his place.

Now normally it infuriates me when people compare us to them as quite simply there is no comparison. Furthermore it normally infuriates me when people set our expectations levels against theirs as we should be aiming so much higher. However as my mood was low due to witnessing another blank for Arsenal I couldn't help but take a little comfort from it on this occasion. I thought to myself about how sad and pathetic life must be to be happy and over the moon at the fact your club has finished 5th and qualified for the UEFA Cup. I also thought how bad life must be when the only record your club holds for you to be proud of is most successive European wins in a competition which can quite simply be described as the Carling Cup of Europe (they only played one good team and that resulted in their exit).

Quite simply by Arsenal's high standards this has been a poor year - fourth in the league and no silverware in the cabinet. But let's not forget that this is very much a young team in transition, a team that has played with injuries and below par - yet it is still good enough to beat most of the Premier League which includes our so called rivals from down the road. Come next season should we be witnessing a poor performance let’s try and cheer the lads on and remember things could be a whole lot worse - we could have been waiting 46 years for a title, eight years for a trophy (16 years if you take away their Worthless Cup victory of 1999) and awaiting a victory over our rivals’ manager for only the second time in his ten year reign. And then we might just realise that things aren't that bad after all.