Are We Ready?

Welcome back,

The andrenaline is still flowing from yesterday's game. Even though we're all buzzing and have a new optimism stored amongst us the fact is we've achieved nothing yet. Yes we've overcome a major hurdle and it's probably the best performance the team has put in this season but it means nothing unless we can carry on winning. The Chelsea game was one which would tell us so much about this team's ambitions. We found out this team is capable of not only mounting a title challenge but going all the way and actually winning it. It's simple. If we can beat Chelsea we can beat anyone in this league. Hell with that performance the might Barcelona would struggle to turn us over. I honestly cannot stress how important yesterday's victory was. Some will tell you if we fail to beat Wigan tomorrow night then it counts for nothing. Not true. Although it would be a setback we still beat Chelsea. We still stopped the rot. We overcame our fear. Last night heart and desire overcame experience. It's not often you say that but this team has something speical as Arsene has been telling us for a long time now.

There are many challenges ahead, that's for sure. The next one is right in front of us. Can we go from such a hyped up game to a low key one and put in another perforamance? We'll have to wait and see. It's not going to be easy, I'll guarantee you that. Wigan's pitch is poor for the majority of the season mainly because they share it with a rugby team. Even more so, we've barely had time for a training session today before we headed for the long journey north. I'll preview the game in more detail tomorrow but the point I'm trying to get across is that it is vital the players now put in the same level of determination and work into every single  game. Be it against Chelsea or West Brom. To win this league you must give your all throughout the season. You might get away with the odd laxydazy showing but too many and your caught. That's the exact lesson Chelsea are being taught at this moment. Anyway I think you guys get the idea.

Theo Walcott certainly knows the importance of being consistant. He says:
"We have to go on a run of wins. If you want to be champions and win the League you need to go to places like Wigan and win.

"We need to do it in every game. It's difficult to do throughout the whole 90 minutes but on Monday there was so much energy the whole team had [against Chelsea]. Come Wednesday we need to do that again because it's going to be tough.

"We lost there last season so we don't want to do that again. We have to travel a long distance to get there as well."

He's spot on there. Being champions is all about consistancy. We've lacked that so far this season but because the others have dropped so many points, we can start here. For 2011 let's see a new Arsenal where the players wear their hearts on their sleeves. Do and we'll be rewarded. Don't and we'll achieve nothing. It's that simple.

Now this morning news broke that our young defender Havard Nordtveit was in Monchengladbach having a medical. We accepted a bid for him two weeks ago so his departure has been inevitable really but it's still sad to see him go considering he never really got the chance to show what he can do in the first team. The fee we receive for him will be pretty small because his contract was due to expire in the summer. We wish him all the best should he complete the move.

There was a minor outburst on Twitter today from Benik Afobe. He deleted the tweet and apologised. Basically he said he was angry at being left on the bench for Huddersfield. We had an agreement with them that they would play him sparingly to avoid burnout and clearly he felt upset by that. I know at his age all you want to do is play football but we know whats best for him and he should follow the advice given to him in order to make proper progress and hopefully one day he'll wear the Arsenal jersey on a regular basis.

That is about it for today folks. I'll be back tomorrow with a preview of the Wigan game. Till then.