It was a long, long, long week for Arsenal fans. With no mid-week match as a distraction there was nothing left to do but ponder, speculate, and rehash the events of last weekend, the result and individual performances against Man United.

It did not make for a pleasant week. So much hope had been built up heading in to that match that by the end of the 90 minutes anyone who dared even consider that next up was a trip to Stamford Bridge was reaching for the whiskey/vodka/tranquilisers.

Common consensus heading in to what many were seeing as a ‘must not lose’ match is Arsenal were to retain any hopes of reclaiming the title, was that Almunia must be dropped. But he wasn’t. As John Cross of the Mirror said, what’s the point of having a squad if you aren’t prepared the give the number 2 a chance when the number one is playing like a number 2. In the toilet sense. Wenger made noises about how Fabianski had a torrid time at the hands of Chelsea last season and that’s why he couldn’t start against Chelsea and that’s just frightening. On the one hand we have a keeper which Wenger said was suffering because he was putting too much pressure on himself (in other words he can’t handle pressure) and on the other you have a back-up keeper who is so fragile he can’t get over a bad performance from 10 months ago. Does this mean that when Almunia finally goes Fabianksi won’t ever be able to play against Chelsea? And excuse me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure it was Almunia in goal when we were stuffed by Chelsea at home this season.

Then there was the whole issue of who would play up front. Bendtner was deemed not fit to start which mean the midget-men would have to lead the line. Perhaps Arshavin would just run between Terry’s legs, though what he might pick up on the way through would surely weigh heavily on his mind.

Not that any of that mattered.

It isn’t fucking half hard being an Arsenal fan these days, they break my heart so much. Once again, against Chelsea, we were the far superior team yet somehow managed to concede two chances and two goals.

Make no mistake, Chelsea did not outplay Arsenal in any shape form or description. Arsenal just made it easy for them with two stupid mistakes. Nobody on the post for the first, gung-ho, haven’t a clue hit on the counter for the second. Game over as we couldn’t get through their defence.

A decent striker, or at least a fit one, and this match was ours. But we don’t have one of those, and we lost. Liverpool up next.

I know this team is only one keeper and one striker away from being practically untouchable. It can’t be emphasised enough the effect a shit keeper has on the rest of the defence.

Ack, I don’t have the heart for this today, I can’t even rant because we played very well, two mistakes aside. Hell, even Richard Keys, Andy Gray, Jamie Redknapp and Graham Souness agreed.

We should have won, we didn’t. I’m fed up saying that.

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This week from the tipster I’m looking at the weekend’s fixtures and finding some value.

There are some tough games this weekend, with lots of derbies.

This weeks accumulator is:…

Man Utd to beat Portsmouth
Nottm Forest to beat Sheff Wed
Sheff Utd to beat Derby
Bournemouth to beat Cheltenham
Chesterfield to beat Lincoln
Rochdale to beat Crewe

Available at 13/1

As our bonus this week…

A player to sent off in the Merseyside Derby at 3.00 on Betfair.

Don’t forget to check out my new website www.iamthetipster.com

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I’d love to say I was doing Uni work, but well…

Anyway, with John Terry seemingly desperate to not win a World Cup by shagging international teammate’s girlfriends, I’ve had a think about what else the England squad could do to ruin our best ever chance for World Cup glory, add your own…

1. Appoint Wayne Rooney as team dietician. Kebabs, pies and Carling may be Mr Rooney’s spinach, but not for everyone.

2. Allow the WAGs to be as important as the players. Again

3. Take either of the Neville brothers.

4. Paul Gascgoine as recreational events coordinator. I know I play brilliantly after a night of cocaine, prostitues and hard liqour.

5. Rio Ferdinand dog-fighting, anyone? Not Rio fighting a dog, just organising the fights.

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How to win a pack is after the jump…

Last time round we asked you

I’ve played in the Champions League

I am NOT capped by my country

I’ve had 2 spells at my current club

I began my career at Newcastle United.

I had a Spell at Sunderland last season

Who am i?

The answer was of course, Michael Chopra.

To win this time all that is required is for you to write in approximately 40-50 words why In The Stands is awesome. There is no particular reason for this except the fact that we like to feed our ego.

So don’t hesitate and as long as you are one of the best five, we will send you a pack completely free!

Send your answer, name and address to competition@inthestands.co.uk

You have to live in the UK to enter and be registed to In The Stands

The closing date is February 28 2010.

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This week from the tipster I’m looking at the weekday fixtures and finding some value.

Tonight’s game, Hull vs Chelsea looks very one-sided.

Chelsea face cash strapped Hull at the KC Stadium. Chelsea are favourites for this game and justifiably so. Didier Drogba is set to return and Kalou is available. I’m predicting a very one sided match, so Chelsea to win 3-0 is 8.4 on Betfair.

Lampard, who has been on top form recently, can be backed to score at 2.52 on Betfair.
A decent bet might be first goal to be scored within 31 minutes and 40 minutes. This is available at 11/2 on Bet 365.
Another game of note tonight is Preston vs. Barnsley.
Darren Ferguson’s men can continue their fine run of form since his appointment by beating Barnsley at home tonight. With loanee Danny Welbeck scoring on debut, they have better quality players than a well organised Barnsley side, and can triumph. Back Preston at 5/6 with Bet365.
2-1 seems a likely score, and 7/1 represents value. Also with bet365.

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Which is better, Nani’s incredible run or Guti’s backheel assist… (A Football Report)

Is Robbie Keane a liar, or just confused?… (Caught Offside)

Who did Barcelona have bids turned down for?… (Soccer Rumors)

LadyArse airs her greivances about Arsenal’s lack of action in the window… (LadyArse)

Check out our sister site for all your sports tipping needs… (I Am The Tipster)

Become a fan of ours on facebook… (Facebook)

Wigan sign Moses, but will he save them?… (Never Captain Nicky Butt)

Its like Digg, but for football stories… (3Nil)

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The shirts that Tevez, Ireland and De Jong were sporting on Sunday.

Join the Team Bridge Facebook Fan Page by clicking here.

We’ve joined not so much to support Wayne Bridge, but declare our anti-John Terry stance. The man is a disgrace and doesn’t deserve to be England Captain. We all know he only has it because he is sponsored by Umbro.

Why you ask? The Mirror has 10 reasons why…

1) If you see the car rocking, don’t come knocking

In November 2005 Terry was accused of cheating on then-fiancee Toni Poole in a public car park.

Jenny Barker, 17, said the star sent her sexy texts after she asked for his autograph and later canoodled with her in his Bentley.

She said: “He smiled and put on sexy Luther Vandross music from a selection on a huge screen in the car. One thing led to another but we did not have sex. I didn’t want to give in to him like I can imagine every other girl does.”

Terry was claimed to have cheated on Poole with nine different women – including one fling with former porn star Karina Clarke.

He said before they married in 2007:  ”I really regret what I’ve done to Toni. I’m not going to cheat on her ever again.”

2) The nagging doubts

In 2004 Terry and best friend Wayne Bridge, together with Scott Parker, were reported to be gambling £40,000 a week between them on horse races.

Close pals Terry and Bridge were alleged to have blown £13,000 in just three hours in a Surrey bookies. They later travelled to Las Vegas for Terry’s stag night – which was held after his wedding to Poole.

3) The disabled parking bay

In March 2008 there was more car trouble for Terry as England’s captain spurned a 50p-an-hour public car park yards away in favour of dumping his black Bentley in a spot for disabled drivers outside Pizza Express in Esher, Surrey.

The subsequent £60 fine was peanuts to a player reckoned then to be on £135,000 a week and who had therefore earned £1,600 in the time it took him to polish off his dough balls and American Hot.

4) The supermarket sweep

In March 2008 Terry’s mother and mother-in-law were officially cautioned by police after being accused of shoplifting £800 worth of goods from Tesco.

The supermarket giants then launched a civil action against the pair.

The affair was a huge embarrassment for Terry as Tesco are official England sponsors.

5) The £10,000 guided tour

Last December Terry was accused of taking £10,000 from undercover reporters in return for a private tour of Chelsea’s training ground.

Terry told the pair he would give his share of the fee to charity but cautioned them: “If the club finds out, it’s a little bit. . .”

6) The nightclub incident

In August 2002 Terry wept with relief after being cleared of attacking a nightclub doorman with a bottle.

He and then-team-mate Jody Morris walked free from court after a jury found them not guilty of causing a fight at London celebrity haunt the Wellington Club.

The court heard rouble had flared when Morris was accused of spitting a drink on the floor and shouting obscenities at a member of staff.

The jury cleared Terry of affray, having an offensive weapon, wounding with intent and unlawful wounding.

7) The 9/11 party

With their flight to an away match at Levski Sofia grounded in the aftermath of the Terror attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, Chelsea players found themselves at a loose end. Some went home to watch CNN, but Terry, Eidur Gudjohnsen, Frank Lampard and Morris had other ideas.

After visiting a couple of pubs – where a “hammered” Gudjohnsen stripped off and threw peanuts at punters while Lampard and Morris urinated in a rubbish bin outside – the group went on to a local bowling alley where they hurled themselves down the lanes and saw former colleague Frank Sinclair, who by now had joined the party, almost decapitated by the pin-changing mechanism.

Finally they ended up in the bar of the Posthouse Hotel at Heathrow, where stranded travellers, many of them Americans, had gathered to watch events unfold on TV. Instead they were treated to the players throwing food around while pictures were shown of sobbing firemen searching through the rubble for the dead, before one player exposed himself to the appalled throng.

Chelsea FC subsequently fined the trio for their behaviour.

The ‘dealing’ dad

Last November Terry’s dad Ted was caught on camera appearing to sell cocaine in an Essex bar.

Terry Snr was seen arranging to pass three grams of drugs to an undercover reporter in return for £120 and telling him: “This is just between me and you. Don’t tell him that I’m John Terry’s dad.”

9) The wee bit of bother

In February 2002 Terry was fit to burst after visiting the Time and Envy nightclubs in Romford, Essex.

He told friends he needed the toilet but that an injured toe was bothering him – so whipped out his manhood, urinated into a beer glass and dropped it on the floor.

Security staff saw the incident on CCTV and escorted the player off the premises.

10) Ashley’s big night out

Trouble occasionally follows Terry’s associates around too. Terry was on a night out with Chelsea team-mate Ashley Cole at West London’s Collection nightclub when the left-back had an altercation with a press photographer.

Cole subsequently spent three hours in a custody suite was issued with an £80 fixed penalty notice for being drunk and disorderly and allowed to go home.

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Arsenal headed in to what some supporters are calling the ‘Death Run’ with a not-quite-deadly display away at Villa Park. Villa, Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool. What fun. For those who have masochistic tendencies.

The only talking point to come out of the Villa match was Martin O’Neill’s ridiculous reaction to something Wenger didn’t even say. The fact that he was still yammering on about it three days later shows that MON might be feeling the pressure a little bit as every Arsenal fan thought sure that once he had read what Wenger had actually said he would realise he’d made a tit of himself. Not so. Whether he chose not to read the full statement, or read it and thought his stance placed him in closer proximity to Alex Ferguson, who knows, but what is certain is that the story will now go down in history as one in which Wenger called Villa a long ball team when he actually said:

“It was a very difficult game, because they stopped us from playing when we had the ball and when they had the ball, because they played a very long-ball game and closed us down.

“We didn’t always find our passing game and we know when we come here what you get and we were not disappointed.

“They play a very efficient English game with long balls and are very physical and they did do that very well and they are a good side on the counter-attack.

“I hope they have a good run now against all the other teams because they are quality, are well organised, have a strong spirit, and are very strong physically.

“The midfield four of Milner, Young, Downing and Petrov don’t stop running and all these players can score goals so I think they have a good chance.

“Although Villa were physical, it was not a dirty game. It was a committed game. It was a fair game but not dirty at all. For me, it was physical in a positive way.

They were committed, go for the balls and it is part of football.”

What an insult huh? Once again, a media-fuelled frenzy overshadowed any discussion of football when it came to Arsenal. It’s almost as if the press don’t want to talk about how well Arsenal are doing, how this match took them to 10 unbeaten, as it might highlight the fact that every single one of them gave Arsenal no chance of getting in to the top four. In challenging for the title, Arsenal are just making chumps out of the whole lot of them and they don’t like it.

But Arsenal fans didn’t have time to spend worrying about what crazy-man MON and the media had to say, we had Man United next up, and that, many thought, would go some way to defining Arsenal’s season.

Nobody gave us a chance. All the pundits picked either a Man U win or a draw, completely oblivious to the fact that Arsenal played United off the pitch at Old Trafford and only lost because Diaby scored and OG and Wayne Rooney dived to win yet another penalty against Arsenal. They seemed oblivious to the fact that Arsenal were stronger now, had at least half-a-squad available compared to the three players we went to Manchester with, and had already chased down an 11-point gap to place us within touching distance of Chelsea.

And so it turned out the pundits were right. United did manage to win, but they didn’t so much win it as, once again, we handed it to them on a plate. We had more chances, but so woeful was our finishing that we couldn’t take advantage of them. In goal Arsenal currently have the worst goalkeeper in the Premier League. He is so fucking clueless I wonder if he is, in fact, actually a goalkeeper. I often wonder if he even knows what a football is, such is his ability to not be anywhere near it at any point during the match.

Arsenal were the architects of their own downfall once again.

So no doubt everyone will write Arsenal off, and so be it if that’s what you have to do. I didn’t write them off after Chelsea and I’m not going to do so after United. If I tell you that Man U managed to win the league despite picking up only one point out of the last 18 available (prior to today) against so-called top four teams what would you say? It isn’t the matches against the other top-4 teams which wins you this league, it never has been. They are just an added bonus.

Next up and it’s Stamford Bridge. Nobody gives us a hope in hell of getting anything out of that game, but if Everton can go there and get a draw why shouldn’t we be able to? You go an write them off if you want, you go and say ‘we’re shit’ ‘we’ve blown it’ or whatever else you want to say.

I know what I saw, and this Arsenal team WILL be there or thereabouts come May.

Laugh all you like. I believe. As a supporter, how could I do otherwise?

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It’s always the Rooney’s and Terry’s of this world making the headlines (although not always for the right reasons) so it’s about time some of the lesser players got some kudos. So here it goes.

10. Danny Murphy – A key, key man for Fulham. His experience, his ability to pick a pass and his set pieces are integral to how Fulham play. He will be very hard to replace if and when he retires.

9. Leon Osman – Did you know that Osman has scored 4 goals in all competitions for Everton this season? He also scored 7 in total last year. Okay, this may not sound like much, but considering Everton aren’t known for their scoring ability, the goals that do come are usually precious. There is no denying that Osman is a key member of the Everton squad.

8. Scott Parker – Another top classic central midfielder, since he has been injured West Ham have really struggled. With him on the pitch the Hammers look stronger and consequently spirits are lifted. He is the man to keep them up.

7. Branislav Ivanovic – Solid, good old fashioned right-back. If needs be he can play centre or even left. Who needs Bosingwa?

6. Ryan Shawcross – Continues to show he is a quality centre back and full back, showing why the likes of Man Yoo are interested in him. It’s also worth considering that Ryan is only 23 so it will be years before he hits his peak.

5. David Dunn – If his career was not plagued with injuries Dunn’s may very well have been in a different position than he is right now. The midfielder showed his quality earlier this season with a  world class finish. (its in the video somewhere)

4. Paul Scharner – One of the Premierships great handymen. In his time at Wigan he has played right back, centre back, defensive midfielder, attacking midfielder and even striker. Always willing to help out his team and willing to chip in with a goal now and then.

3. Leighton Baines – I reckon Baines is the second best English Left back and perhaps one of the top 5 in the country. At Everton he has show week in week out that he one of the best left footed crossers in the game. He’s a decent defender as well.

2. Rodger Johnson – Birmingham have been fantastic this season, and i’m sure a few more of their players could have made this list. But, Birmingham have proved to be a phenomenal defensive unit, with him and Danns building themselves a solid partnership. Who knows an England call-up might be on the cards.

1. Carlos Cuellar – Bought from Ranger’s two years ago for £7 million, the name Carlos Cuellar is a name that never really gets a mention. He is perhaps overshadowed by the likes of Dunne and Milner who have performed heroically for Villa this season. So Cuellar here is your deserved mention.

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