Firstly, a confession. I got my dates wrong. Normally a sentence designed to give any guy palpitations, particularly when preceded by the word “Sorry”, but, in this case, merely a cause for regret. I failed to coincide my main holiday with the international break so missed more games than I should.

This meant that I:

Traveled to Cornwall on the day of the Blackburn game, so had to rely on 5 Live and Match of the Day

Failed to find a pub showing the Dynamo Kiev game (apparently Tintagel is a hotbed of Mancdom) so was left with (anguished) texts from friends and family

Found (hooray) a pub manager in Padstow who managed to wrest the remote away from Ryder Cup junkies and show the Bolton game

Relied on live text from the BBC, courtesy of daughter’s iPhone, to keep up to date with the youthful rout of Sheffield United, and…

Got home in time to watch the Hull debacle on Setanta, thereby exposing myself for the second time to Macca’s ramblings and the anti Arsenal bias of Craig Burley – Hoots mon, this fancy dan stuff is fine but they cannae take a tackle and they are nae a proper fitba team. Bollocks! As for Lawro on MOTD. Pillock. If Davies’s tackle was fair then Lawro is not an unfunny Scouse tosser. As my mate Andy says… I hate Scousers.

I ended my last reflection with the hope that AW would not use the Newcastle performance as an excuse not to add to the squad. Well, despite an alleged 11th hour attempt to buy some midfielder – Alonso, Mbia who knows, who cares – we are left with the same lot on 2 September as we had on 31 August. Whoopee!!

I am sure the Sheffield United game was heartwarming, uplifting, and magnificent. The future is bright. The future is always F***ING bright. It’s the present that I am worried about.

When I looked at the fixture list before the season started I thought that if we were to be genuinely in with a chance of the title this year we had to go into the West Ham and Spurs games at the end of October with a nigh on 100% record. I know West Ham and Spurs are sh*t but they always go hell for leather against us and we have to lose to the Totts at some time in the league. Why did I think that? Well, basically we were playing a load of numpties until then, and look what happened. We lost to Fulham and then Hull. Hull was awful. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. They lost 5 0 at home to Wigan for Christ’s sake. Title form, I think not.

Let’s ignore Dynamo and Sheffield. We obviously were really good if not great in parts at Blackburn and Bolton and undoubtedly deserved to win. Apparently Blackburn could have been 8-5 to us and we were only a set piece away from conceding an equaliser (courtesy Bernard Azulay in the Observer) against Bolton until the 87th minute. There is still an air of fragility and vulnerability about the AW enterprise at the moment. And Hull certainly found our weak spots.

What happened to the number 14 shirt over the last month? Before the international break it was filled by a boy who could run quickly and in straight lines but had no idea about passing or team play. During and after said international break that boy became a goal taking and goal creating machine. I am only interested in the goal creation side – great pass to RVP against Blackburn, great run and pass to Ladybeyor for the Denilson clincher against Bolton and much in between.

At first I thought it was a clone – certainly wasn’t our Theo out there but who cared. Then came Hull. Malfunctioning technology? Perhaps it wasn’t a clone. Perhaps it was drugs – Capelloprin – and they were wearing off. Anyhow, the magic was over. We were back in August. Lots of running in straight lines until either a defender or white line appear, an unerring ability to choose the wrong option. I never thought I would say this but bring on the next international break. Perhaps we’ll get the clone back for a couple of games after that.

Pre-season, most perceptive commentators – well, me and my mates – thought we needed a defensive midfielder and a commanding centre half as us old boys call them. M’lud, the case for the prosecution.

Defensive midfielder. Geovanni’s goal. Ignoring AW’s commentators’ curse impact in saying we had not conceded a goal from open play, last year we would have seen Flamini hurtling or Gilberto shuffling to close him down. This year we get Walcott and Denilson looking on and effectively saying, ‘Go on my son give it a go’. Well he did, and don’t say we weren’t warned. He’d been given a couple of sighters in the first half.

Commanding centre half. Cousin’s goal. The third we have conceded from a corner this year. Coincidence? I think not. Toure and Gallas stand next to him. Corner taken. Cousin trots forward five yards. Toure and Gallas look at one another and think… Sh*t. Goal. I am sure I read somewhere Gallas saying that we had moved from zonal to man to man marking for corners to improve our defensive strength and make people accountable for mistakes. Hmm!

As an aside, Almunia. He’s average at best. He stops shots he should. Does nothing more than that and doesn’t he command the box well? I am getting nostalgic for the days of Spunky and Mad Jens.

Where does that leave us? Obviously hoping that Nasri comes back soon and that Diaby and Rosicky join the squad and stay fit. Excuse me while I roll around the floor laughing myself sick at the thought of Diaby and Rosicky staying fit.

We need to win on Tuesday vs Porto but beyond that I am beginning to think it is going to be a long hard season. I thought that we would be vying with Liverpool for 3rd and 4th spot. Now? We are in the mix with Villa and Man City for a UEFA spot.

Oh God!