Apart from a short, sharp scream of pain when we conceded the penalty, Tuesday night felt far less painless than being dumped out of the cups or buggered up at Brum. I dunno, we played so well for so long that the team left you feeling proud, sad and exasperated. It's not like we hadn't seen it coming and at least we didn’t have to go out to Scumski in the semi - which, no doubt, we would have. Anyway to sooth the pain I wrote the following. (PS When do we send Wenger the collective shopping list?)

Let that be the last time we play so well and fall so short. Never has there been such a moment of sweetness obliterated in a blur of pain and confusion! Little Theo's run is forever burned into the back mine and the collective Gooner memory. It was like the bright flash left on the retina, a kind of ghostly streak. A Roy of the Rovers run, a picture book finish and goodnight Anfield. That's how I want to remember Tuesday night. As the last hint of promise of great things to come from the team. Not the fact that we ballsed it up - as we have all season.

Ok, maybe our season was shattered amidst all the bits of bone at Birmingham and the long streak of mean luck that began there. Maybe, but we failed to close that game out in the dying minutes, we failed to close out Chelsea, we resorted to last season's sloppiness of gifting goals at home to obdurate teams and we didn't do the business - any of the business - when it was ours to grasp.

This whole season has been a high wire balancing act since the first game and we knew it. Come on, how long did you ever truly believe we could take the title - a week? Three weeks?

In the hours after Blackburn at home we dreamed the dream and then it was Once Upon a Time in the Midlands and collectively, in our gut, that was it. Man Utd will take the double and deservedly. Skill, power, depth and defending that will outclass the poverty of imagination that feeble-minded Chelsea and lucky Liverpool rely on. Whilst the media pick over the bones of our latest self inflicted wound no one seems to fulminate that Chelsea are now a vastly expensive, terminally dull, long ball team that deserve nothing. But sod Chelsea.

Let's see Theo gambol on the wing for the rest of the season and then pray that Le Boss will finally bolt on the expensive, high quality left winger, striker & centre back. Senderos, bless him, did better than any of us expected after his awful start of the season up until Anfield and then resorted to form. Buy, buy, buy. Jimmy Bullard for the squad, Crouch? Philippe Mexes - fit, dogs of war who can power us through the final stretch and then gilt edged match winners. (Farewell Gilberto, Lehmann, Eboue), We can't wait for Eduardo, Rosicky and Van Persie to be fit. None of us can wait. Not the team, not the fans.

The time is now, the core of the team, the game, the brilliance is there- now shore up the foundations, polish the flanks and start rolling over teams like its 2002 or 03/04 all over again (we drew 12 back then). There's no point sulking about Birmingham (4 pts), MBoro (5 pts), Wigan (2 pts) or the inability to turn over a misshapen Liverpool. We screwed up and only we can fix it. Let's go to Old Trafford, put on a show and lick our wounds till next season. And may Theo run and run and run.