Objective: Maintain Form

Good morning readers,

I'm still buzzing after yesterdays game, there is still some andrenaline in the tank but I don't want to get too carried away as I tend to do at times. Last season when we eat Villa 3-0 at the Emirates I honestly thought it was going to be our year. Then we had the setback of losing to United and Chelsea consecutively but after that we went on another good run and brought the margin back to four points I think and looked in poll position to overtake the front two. However, lady luck decided to curse us with injury problems (bitch I know) and that was our downfall. Injuries, injuries, injuries something spoken too often about Arsenal.

I don't want to go into detail about the reasons behind our unnatural amount of injuries with some people critisising the medical staff and all. In my opinion thats completley unfair as they have no idea about what goes on behind the scenes, it is complete rubbish based on no evidence whatsoever. The manager said earlier this week he believe it's down to a mixture of bad luck and poor tackles which is understanding but still, if the latter were a reason then why aren't the other 19 teams in the league suffering the same problems we are. I said I wouldn't go into too much detail so lets close the matter there.

Now as the heading of this blog says, we must now maintain a good run of form. So far we have had, lets say for example three good results on the trot and then messed it up by being humiliated at home by West Brom. That is entirely unacceptable if you want to challenge for the league. I cannot explain how damaging that result was. Three crucial points there for the taking and complacency cost us. In a way it was a good kick up the arse but one that shouldn't have been needed. Now we have to keep focused, give 100% every game and hope others drop points. On the plus side, we are picking up points in places we didn't last season, most notably the result yesterday and the point we took at the Stadium of Light and it is vital we continue to do so.

November is a massive month and will show our title creditentials aswell as our ability to come back from a midweek game in Europe and perform on the weekend again. The month starts off with a tricky trip to Ukraine to face Shakhtar Donetsk again. I know we strolled past them at the Emirates but I guarantee they will be far more difficult to defeat on their own soil. Wenger might well rest a few star players for that game and rightly so as we have massive games domestically and we only need a point to qualify after all. After that midweek game we host Newcastle whom we also play this Wednesday, more on that later. That is one of the games we will look at as a should win game but by no means an easy one. This is followed by two difficult tasks on the road, Wolves and Everton. We thumped both last season at their grounds but infairness we caught them on bads days. No doubt we will have to work our arses off as we did yesterday to come away with three points, more so for the game at Goodison. Then we're back at the Groove for you know what, the North London Derby. No need for extra motivating ahead of this game, one thing we must be aware of though is that Spurs are a completley different team now. They are now looked at as a member of the top four and have signed some quality players, most notably Van Der Vaart. A win against them would be sweet and a huge moral booster. We're on the road again after this as we head to Portugal to face Braga. Again, the game at home was easy but we will need to be on our toes for this one. I suspect Arsene will play a very youthful side. The final game of the month sees us head to Villa Park. You can guarantee we won't go here and pick up three points before being made to work. We have a decent record there in recent years, can't remember the last time they beat us on their turf and I hope I will be wondering for many years to come.

Now as yo can see from the above, November will be very difficult and like I said a test of our title creditentials. Most of you will look at this month nervously but I'm looking in it in a positive way. Obvioiusly thereare no easy games but at the same time all those games are winnable, am I right? We can beat all those teams if we perform to the best of our ability. Plus we will have several key players back for the majority of them. Arsene said Van Persie, Vermaelen and Ramsey will all return next month so we should be very optimistic.

I know I'm gone a bit ahead and we should really be concentrating on the present but it's good to look ahead and be positive. Now, we head to St. James Park Wednesday night for the Carling Cup. Wenger said yesterday in his post match interview he will field a "good" side and hinted a few of the players we saw yesterday will play again. That's "good" to hear if you ask me, it really sounds like he is determined to bring in trophies this year. Not that he wasn't before but now that he's not fielding teens you get the sense he's very eager to end this drought. I honestly think we have a huge chance of lifting the League Cup in March. (I think thats when the final is on?). Think about it...Spurs, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool have all been knocked out. The only team I look at cautiously is United and with Wenger promising to play a strong side there is no reason why we can't win it plus imagine the boost it would give us in other competitions.

Earlier I was flicking through the Sky Sports website looking at comments from Paul Merson before yesterdays games, it made me laugh. He said he expected Stoke to take surprise United and for City to beat us. Could he have been more wrong? To be honest you'd never think he used to be an Arsenal player the way he cririsises us time and time again, must be the cocaine eh? hehe

In other news Wenger once again praised Fabianski for his display yesterday and rightly so. The man has been on fantastic form. It's amazing how something like a penalty save can bring your self-beleif back. I'm delighted for him and would be happy to have him as number one. The official site gave him the man of the match award, Sky Sports opting for Cesc, I'm not too sure who I'd have picked. Cesc himself said he didn't deserve it for his penalty miss but I reckon that has no bearing on a players all round performance, Nasri was also fantastic, it's a difficult choice.

Anyway, I hope to be back in the next two days with a preview ahead of Wednesday night's game. Until then you can keep up to date with my latest thought via my Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Thanks for reading.