"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is,
perhaps, the end of the beginning."


Time's like this when the Arsenal mailing list on the net really comes into it's own. I came home last night wishing I had a punch bag to vent my frustrations on and exhaust
myself to the point where sleep came without lying there dissecting in my head all the "if onlys".

Now I'm in a state where I get distracted every now and again, only for the
depression to creep back up on me every time I realize I've just let out a
huge sigh

However in an attempt to put matters in perspective for some, you have to
appreciate that there are always people who are worse off.

1. The poor sap at Real, who is apparently responsible for the loan contract
for Morientes to Monaco, where Real not only continue to pay 60 per cent of
his wages, but where they made the mistake of neglecting to include a clause
preventing him from playing against them (so in effect Real paid for their
own player to help knock them out of the Champs League - I wonder how secure
this fella is feeling this morning? :-) !!)

2. My missus' 15 year old nephew who is likely to have seen his last Arsenal
game live for some time. Shane came over from Dublin last week, to come with
me to Villa Park on Saturday. Rona phoned me on the way home from Birmingham
to say that she had suggested to Shane's Ma that they might change his
flight home from Monday to Wednesday and she would let Shane go to last
night's game in her place. My instinctive response was to express my fear
that if this result also didn't go our way, Shane wouldn't be invited back
in a hurry

I've just dropped him at Heathrow and not being exactly at my most
communicative, I am afraid that I didn't do anything to prevent him going
home believing he's a curse! (I guess we'll have to try and break the 'bok'
by bringing him back for a cup game against Leamington Spa!)

We'd arranged to go for dinner after the game and I was convinced none of
the management/players would be in a mood to show their faces, so I am just
relieved and grateful to Pires (I assume he's far too much of a gentleman to
let down family and friends) for turning up and at least sorting Shane with
the only result of his trip, signing his programme (luckily by some
coincidence Pires was the subject of the poster in the middle pages)

I guess Shane was so blown away that we were halfway home before he realized
he didn't have the programme on his person, so I sent him running back and
luckily it was still on the floor where he'd dropped it

As always Le Bob got a (perhaps more heartier than usual) round of applause
on arrival and the French journo we were with commented on how different it
would be on the continent (I guess in Italy he and his food would probably
get spat at - and that would be by his own fans, let alone the oppos, which
is no doubt one of the reasons the French prefer it here?)

3. The sports Ed of the Irish Examiner, a mad Gooner who came over for his
first match at THOF this season (he was fortunate to have been in Milan).
Not that I imagine for one minute that the press office at THOF would have
accommodated him, but since he was here with his missus, he didn't bother
applying for accreditation. He was going to dash back to my gaff after the
game to type and file his copy for the morning editions. but he wanted to
come around beforehand to set up his laptop and make sure everything was
working for fear of discovering a problem when it was too late to resolve. I
met the two of them outside the Bank of Friendship and brought him home,
plugged up his laptop so he could send a test file (they'd just announced
the two teams on Sky)

As anyone who has tried to use their Orange mobiles around THOF recently,
will have discovered, two of the Orange masts have gone down around here and
haven't been functioning for more than a month. As a result it is absolute
murder trying to use and receive calls on the mobile.

Shane and I had been sat down in the restaurant for about 30 mins and had
ordered our grub when I received a frantic call from my missus. She'd been
trying to ring me for more than 30 minutes. Deirdre and Tony (my sports ed)
had come back to our gaff, opened his laptop and found that the machine was
completely frozen. He'd been on the phone to his techy geezer at the Irish
Examiner and Ro had even phoned Shane's dad who was at work at Dell
computers in Ireland to see if they could assist in sorting it out, but
apparently not, the HD was corrupted (who'd want a Microsoft operated PC
when you can have an Apple - but that's another evangelical story
altogether!!).

Our food was just about to turn up (in fact we'd already been served once,
but the waitress grabbed our plates just as I had my fork in my hand and was
about to dig in and gave them to someone else, saying there'd been a
mistake!) and I really didn't want to go home because it would have been
ruined by the time I returned. So I had to explain to someone who is even
less computer literate than myself, over the phone, in a busy restaurant,
how to plug up my machine (as I'd plugged out the broadband to plug his
laptop in) and open an Appleworks document and having got him started (thank
g-d), suggested that one of them call me when he was near finished so I
could nip back and send it.

Can you imagine, poor old (young actually) Tony was exhausted after
schlepping all the way over from Cork, completely traumatized by the result
(as we all were, but he takes it worse than most, I guess knowing how much
stick he's gonna take from all the Moaners back in Cork) and had arrived
back to find that the laptop he'd brought with him especially to make life
easier (as he'd struggled using my Mac a couple of years back when he'd last
sent copy from my gaff) had gone kaput.

Having already missed the first edition of the following morning's paper, he
had to try and clear his head and write a completely unbiased account, on an
unfamiliar machine! It was 11.30 by the time I arrived home from the
restaurant and he was just finishing. I felt sorry for Colm, the poor sub ed
who was still in the office waiting for the match report. I guess his boss'
outing to THOF wouldn't look particularly good on the expense sheet, if
they'd ended up using a report from the wires!

4. Finally me! I am not asking for any sympathy but it would be great if it
makes you feel any better. I am sure I am not the only person who'd long
since booked their flights to Madrid and who were thinking that last night
was absolutely the worst case scenario because now I don't even have the
opportunity of recouping some of the 60 quid x 3 by flogging the tickets to
Chelsea fans (anyone fancy a trip to Madrid 19 -22 April, let me know as I
believe I can do a name change for 15 or 25 quid?)

I booked the flights literally minutes after the QF draw, having almost
booked the three of us to Milan by mistake because I'd got so excited at the
ridiculously cheap price. When I went back and found Madrid for £60, I
probably would not have bothered (if left to me I would have procrastinated
until they were much more expensive and definitely not worth the gamble) if
it wasn't for the encouragement of the third person in the party who said to
go ahead, even though they weren't the 30 quid I'd quoted originally.

It occurred to me that for the cost of the admin charge for the changes,
since BMI also flew to Nice, there was a pretty good chance either we or
someone else would find some way of using them

When Madrid won the first leg 4-2, I thought that I was fairly safe assuming
that even if the worst came to the worst, I could flog them to Chelsea fans.
Mind you, I am sure me and a couple of hundred thousand Real fans didn't
entertain the thought that Monaco would make such an amazing comeback

However that is the lesser of the two possible financial losses resulting
from our cup exits. I had a contract lying around the house for a couple of
weeks waiting for me to sign and send back, for the publication of my second
book, another collection of my diary pieces. I think subconsciously I didn't
want to return it for fear that if I hadn't tempted fate's fickle finger
already, it would certainly be pointing at me if I put pen to paper and
cashed in on the Arsenal's expected success prematurely.

But I did have to arrange for the designer of the cover to come up with
something for the publishers to put in their catalogue, along with a 300
word blurb about the forthcoming book (which was very hard to write, about a
story where you don't yet know the ending). Honestly folks, what I came up
with was very ambiguous, doing my best to virtually allow for all possible
eventualities and I promise I didn't once dare to mention the dreaded "T"
word.

After Saturday's FA Cup exit I received an e-mail on Monday asking if I
wanted to change the 'blurb' accordingly but I thought it best that I wait
to make any changes, so that I could make them once and for all, rather than
changing it all, with each successive snake and ladder end to this season

I am now wondering whether I've made a major ricket in not sending the
contract back immediately and at least collecting on my advance, as the way
things are going at this moment in time, the publishers might not be keen to
send a cheque at all until they've seen which way the wind blows and by this
time next week, there might not be a book

Then again, if (heaven forfend) it does continue to go completely
pear-shaped, perhaps they'd be doing me a favour by pulling it, since it
won't exactly be a "fun" project, if I end up having to spend the next six
weeks detailing our demise and perhaps the greatest ever anticlimax in
writing!!!

And I'm bloody counting on the advance as a contribution to the cost of our
season tickets (basically the only material motivation for all the effort
involved in producing another book)

It seems me and the Arsenal are not on a lucky streak. I can hear all the
"yeh sure" responses but I swear this is true (and Shane can back me up). We
were in the Holiday Inn just north of Villa Park early Saturday morning and
I was on the karsey reading the paper as usual. I'd finished all the footie
related tales and I was looking for something else to capture my attention.
On the front page of the Times was an article about the Grand National (I am
sure there will be others who read it?) in which they reported on the
scientific studies which have been done on this race and the results show
that your money is invariably far safer being put on a horse that has run
the course before.

The piece specifically mentioned the two horses which, based on these
results were most likely to succeed, along with the obvious punt for a
Gooner, "Gunner Well Burn" which I assume has also run the Grand National
course before (as this was the parameters the scientists suggested for
picking your horse to have a punt on). I shouted out to Shane asking who he
fancied in the race but I realized that there was no need to have a bet now,
because we could sort it out after the game. When the time came to leave for
the match, I checked at reception to find out exactly how long we were
entitled to keep the room based on the "day" rate we'd paid.

Since we had the room until five, I told Shane that perhaps we'd come back
and watch the race on the TV in the room. As it turned out, all I wanted to
do was to get home as quick as possible and go to bed!! The last thing I
fancied was getting caught in traffic heading one junction North on the M6
with all the Utd fans (although I imagine more of them would have headed
home south!!)

I am not much of a betting man. Apart from sometimes placing a biannual punt
on the Derby and the National, the only other times I've had a bet is when
I've tried to follow a free 50 quid scam on an Internet gambling site, only
to get the detailed sequence wrong and missing out on the special offer. So
I ended up putting fifty quid of my own money on this account and using it
up over time. With my addictive personality, I can't really afford to get
involved, as my lack of self control could be very dangerous

However I've had this credit card type thing with my account number at
William Hill for several years, as it has worked out very convenient when
all the family wants to place their Grand National bets.

Apart from being so depressed that I couldn't muster much enthusiasm for the
gee gees, the thought occurred to me that I wouldn't just be able to make a
bet on my account whilst driving home because, having not used the service
for some time, I would no doubt have to pull over in the car in order to dig
out and pass on the details of the Switch card which would have doubtless
replaced the expired one on their records.

We all know Gunner Well Burn didn't come up trumps (along with all the other
Gunners that day) but you can imagine how my heart sunk as we heard the race
commentary on the radio and the other two horses mentioned in particular in
this piece on the front page of the Times (and which I swear would have been
my three choices for a bet if we'd beaten Utd and gone back to the hotel to
watch the race, or if I thought it would have been just a matter of a quick
call rather than all the palaver of updating my account) came in 1st and
2nd. Bloody typical of our Gooner luck at the minute!

I only hope it's true and these things come in threes and our bad luck (and
let's face it a little bit of misfortune was more than overdue considering
the way things were running for us prior!) has been used up against Utd, the
National and last night.

However while I seriously wish I could offer you some optimism and I pray
that just by stating them here, I am going to guarantee that my pessimistic
thoughts are proved completely wrong (no-one would be happier), I said to Ro
before last night's game that not only could we not afford to lose, but I
believe we couldn't afford to scrape through by some fluke into the Champs
League semis.

My feeling was that we needed to beat Chelsea last night convincingly (2 or
3-0) if we were going to get absolutely anything from the six points
available over Easter weekend. It's not just for our own confidence that we
needed to beat Chelsea in style, to rediscover our air of invincibility,
that swagger and strut which would have ensured any thoughts of fatigue had
evaporated

But with both the Scousers and the Toons hitting a purple patch in their
last games, it was essential that we recaptured our air of invincibility
principally because of the way it would mean these two opponents would
approach us. With both these two teams seeing us having been beaten by Utd
and Chelsea, they will both suddenly believe we are vulnerable and whatever
the instructions of their respective managers, psychologically their
instinctive approach to their encounter with the Arsenal will be entirely
different

You see we were getting away without getting beat, even when we weren't at
our best because of the respect shown to us by our opponents. They were all
sh*t scared of us, absolutely terrified of Titi and therefore showing us too
much respect, dropping off and defending in numbers, allowing us to get away
with less frantic and far less physical encounters.

It is a compound problem. The principal point Pool and the Toons will take
from our previous two games is that we don't like it 'up' us and as a result
they are both going to try and go for us with all guns blazing, which will
certainly mean that our lads are going to find themselves facing far more
physical and exhausting encounters, than against sides who would have
previously been approaching a game with the invincible Arsenal side of a
week ago, focusing on getting away with anything better than a resounding
defeat as a good result

So whereas previously we could have expected the sort of encounter with both
teams, where they would have sat back allowing us all the time in the world
to try and break them down, hoping to nick a goal and a draw at some stage,
we are now looking at two encounters against teams who both will want to be
the team to break our undefeated record.

Personally I don't fancy our chances at all. Although I guess the fact the
Newcastle match is squeezed between their 2 legged UEFA cup quarter final
might swing things slightly in our favour. However I can't see their trip to
Holland taking too much out of them.

Absolutely the only silver lining I can see on the horizon is that perhaps,
after the title race is thrown wide open if/when we drop six points this
weekend, a resurgent Arsenal coming back to take the trophy will take away
all those subconscious thoughts that a title triumph would be tainted, as
only a humble consolation prize, if we went ahead and just won it from here
(although it would save a hell of a lot of stress and heartache and I swear
I wouldn't throw it back in anyone's face :-) !!)

There is one other consolation on which both Ro and I agree. I still don't
rate Ranieiri as a manager (Spurs are welcome to him - it is only my humble
perception and perhaps I am being somewhat simplistic, but I thought that
his team selection last night, his inclusion of Hasselbaink for his first
European game this season and the fact that he stuck with the same line-up
from their last match at WHL I think for the first time this season, was
merely Claudio's way of sticking two fingers up at all those pontificating
pundits who predicted that he wouldn't play Jimmy and who've taken the piss
out of his 'Tinkerman" reputation ) but you can't help but appreciate the
sweet irony of his success considering how much and how regularly his
employers have sh*t on him this season. What's more it would have been so
much more unbearable to have lost to a Chelsea side which still included the
likes of Le Bouef, Wise, Le Saux etc, those figures who inspired so much
hate when playing in a Blue shirt. But without feeling any such intense
animosity towards any of the current Chelsea team, it's not quite such a
painful experience as it would have been back then

Besides the approach of our opponents leaving me feeling that this weekend
is a lost cause, when you think of how badly we have reacted in the past to
our exit from Europe, you have to imagine that this will be multiplied on
this occasion based on the fact that we've gone that much further than ever
before.

What's more, not only does Wenger appear completely depressed, never
sounding more hollow with his claims that winning the title would make up
for all that's fallen by the way side (because you just know how badly he
wants the respect he's entitled to and which he can only truly gain from the
media in general by winning in Europe), he just doesn't come across as the
sort of character who is capable of delivering a moral boosting speech.

You won't hear a Churchillian "fight them on the beaches" oration from
Wenger and what's more it wouldn't work when coming from a man whose methods
are based on imbuing his players with self-respect. I imagine Wenger will be
expecting his players to have the self-belief to lift themselves. If it's
down to Arsene to lift the players between now and Friday, I wonder who
exactly is going to lift Arsene?

However when put into perspective, we shouldn't really be complaining, after
all it may feel like a wake but no-one's actually died. It is only as a
result of Arsene's incredible astuteness in the transfer market that our
expectations have been raised beyond belief. Nevertheless I am going to do
just that, if only to get it all off my chest at your expense.

Personally I can't think of a team who has won the European Cup without
having a top class keeper between the sticks and Lehmann was a million and a
half quid summer purchase from a very short list of keepers who were
supposedly capable enough and cheap enough for us to be able to afford him.
At his age, he ain't going to become a Schmeichel and if he was any better
than he's proved to be, he would have come out from under the huge shadow
cast by Oliver Kahn long ago.

You can't really blame him for not holding Makalele's shot, since the ball
did a hell of a lot in the air, but I guess you would have expected him to
have pushed it out anywhere else but into the middle of the six yard box.
Sadly, in truth Edu was partially at fault for both goals, which is an
incredible shame considering how well he's played in far less consequential
games than the the last two! For the first goal it was his clearance which
instead of going into Row Z, landed in the centre of the park, sitting up
sweetly for Makalele to hit. Although how come Lampard was first to the
ball, why weren't we so quick to get back in there?

And for the 2nd goal, we had lost our shape, with Pires, Ljungberg and Edu
all attracted to their left. Edu was the first to get back across and cover,
however I assume it was just because he didn't have the legs that he failed
to track Wayne Bridge's run into the penalty area. But then ever since we
blew Pompey away, we've seen the occasional sign in subsequent games,
perhaps a mixture of tiredness and over confidence, where every now and
again our entire midfield has been guilty of failing to track their opposite
number, letting them pass them by when making runs into the box. It could
just be an unacceptable result of such a rock solid defence, where the
midfield has too much faith in those behind them being able to take care of
anyone who happens to get a jump on them with a run into the box

After such impressive performances by Edu (and Pires, who was perhaps
suffering on Saturday and last night from having worked harder than I can
ever recall in a couple of recent games), his dip in the last two can't help
but beg the question whether Arsene should have stuck to his guns with his
preference for the defensive capabilities of Gilberto. After Edu positively
forced his way into the frame with performances which prevented Wenger
dropping him (not to mention the ground swell of Gooner opinion), I wonder
if we will now hear all Gilberto's many detractors pleading for his
reinstatement?

So considering the cracks have been visible for the past couple of weeks, I
suppose it was inevitable that the two best teams would make the most of
them. However in both Saturday's game and last night, if there was one thing
which struck me inn the second half, it was that despite Vieira's best
efforts to lead by example, I felt we were lacking a vocal general on the
pitch (a la Tony Adams)

On Saturday I could have pictured an Adams figure turning to the crowd and
geeing us up with an aeroplane wave of both arms and last night, that sense
of inevitability about Chelsea's winner might not have been there if we'd
had a leader individually giving players a necessary kick up the arse to
remind them who they were playing for, that this was "the mighty Arsenal"

Who could have imagined that I'd have such a pleasant complaint, considering
the dross I was watching at THOF not so long ago, but if I have one
criticism of the current squad it is that there is too much flair and not
enough steel. The ironic thing as far as I am concerned is that if I had to
choose the Chelsea players who made the difference last night, after all
that money they've spent on their recent influx of stars, it was Lampard and
John Terry

I hope no-one accuses me of being racist, but from what I've seen in recent
times, if there is one difference between the Gallic and the
Anglo/Irish/Scottish nature, it is the way they react when put under
pressure. In my humble opinion the main reason why the team of '98 was so
successful was because of the perfect balance, whereby when the chips were
down it was the attitude of the domestic players which influenced our
foreign stars and encouraged so much more out of them than might have
otherwise been instinctive

If Chelsea had scored their second goal with ten minutes to go, I don't
think any of us would have really expected us to come back to score twice,
we just don't appear to have that "never say die" belief anymore. Whereas up
until a few years ago, the crowd and the team would have been giving it
large right up until the final whistle, knowing that there was every chance
we might dig sufficiently deep to pull some miracle out of the hat. These
days Parlour and Keown are our only equivalents to Terry and Lampard.
Neither of whom are the sort of vocal guv'nors one might wish for.

I knew it would take only one defeat for the media "bottle it" bandwagon to
start rolling and after two, it's a positive crisis. However could you
imagine any of the media muppets labelling an Arsenal side "bottlers" if
there was any last vestige of the George Graham installed "Arsenal Spirit"

There was a time when we'd all be revelling in the turnaround in the
tabloids, from the title race all being over including the shouting, to
being up for grabs again, because we would all have that innate faith that
despite our penchant for doing things the hard way, we'd come up trumps in
the end. With Henry injured, previously you could have guaranteed a couple
of suspensions to add to the crucial injuries, in order that a threadbare
team could have all the hacks eating huge portions of humble pie, after
delighting us all with a 'typical' backs to the wall, display of the
infamous Arsenal spirit

I am sure I am not the only one who is struggling right now to express that
belief as anything but slightly bogus bravado!

Whatever happens over this weekend, I have to tell you that there is a side
of me that is really looking forward to Sunday's game on Tyneside, if only
because of my belief that a 500 odd mile round trip to Toon Town on an
Easter Sunday when you know only too well that there's a fairly good chance
of getting beat, is one for the real Gooner suckers for punishment and I am
looking forward to jettisoning the fair-weather, glory seeking flotsam and
jetsam for the day, to be surrounded by like-minded, win lose or draw lovers
of the Arsenal.

Although I am no fan of the fact that we are sat up in the gods these days,
where despite having a wonderful view of the chess match below, I find it
most demoralizing that you are so high up that ones voice dissipates long
before pitch level. I know they can't hear me and care even less what I have
to say, but I find it a whole heap more encouraging to scream my head off
when I can maintain the delusion that I can influence matters

The prematurely hyped end to the title race had many believing we would
going to WHL in a couple of weeks to party away the formality of taking the
title on the enemy's turf for the second time in my lifetime. Time to roll
up those red & white sleeves and make everyone eat their words

"We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls."

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

"Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large
or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.
Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of
the enemy.''

"We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the
mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy."

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is,
perhaps, the end of the beginning."

- Winston Churchill

Peace & Love

The Silence Of The Lambs

Everyone recognized that the four games in the past fortnight were a make or break point in the Arsenal’s amazing season. You’ll already know whether we’ve been broken by the Blues on Tuesday night, or have bounced back after the gut-wrenching disappointment of Saturday’s defeat, to make it into the semifinal of the Champions League for the first time in the Arsenal’s illustrious history.

I have to admit, in all honesty, that having schlepped to Cardiff for the past three successive seasons, I am not unduly distressed about missing out on another expensive outing this May. Especially as it would have proved a none too glamorous encounter. Millwall have made admirable efforts to achieve respectability, attempting to eradicate the recidivist hooligan element that revelled in the sort of savage acts which reinforced their “no one likes us� disrepute.

Nevertheless, if the infamous surgical masks have vanished from the terraces, it doesn’t mean that the violent right wing Neanderthals who wore them have simply stopped supporting the South London side. A rare derby against the Arsenal might have proved an irresistible invitation. All their worst psychos might have come crawling out of the woodwork, wanting to settle ancient scores and prove off the pitch, what might have been a poignant mismatch on it, their adrenaline pumping at the prospect of giving the Premiership softened, bourgeois Gooners a good bashing.

Their encounter with the Mancunians might prove just as attractive and I pray that come May, the Welsh constabulary are suitably prepared. Otherwise it won’t be an advantageous advert for Britain’s beautiful game if they can’t contain this particular passion play within the Millennium Stadium and it spills over into the streets of Cardiff.

You’ll know by now whether I am right in remaining hopeful that we might have bigger fish to fry four days after the FA Cup Final. And if we’ve negotiated Beecher’s Brook and the Chair in Chelsea and Madrid, the last thing we’d want is a melée with Millwall as a warm-up for our greatest ever challenge in Gelsenkirchen. Not that any disdain I might have felt for this domestic competition meant that I was any less devastated by Saturday’s debacle against the Red Devils.

The Arsenal fans’ only success of the day was that most were sitting comfortably in their seats at kick-off. An accident at Spaghetti Junction saw Utd fans still breathlessly bowling into Villa Park just before Scholes scored (fortunately for them!). Mayhem on the M6 has been responsible for us Gooners missing more than our fair share of semifinal footie. I will never forget hobbling to the Holte End on crutches, grateful for the TV on our coach which meant that unlike many, we at least saw the only goal of the game against Wolves in ‘98. We were caught in a complete gridlock, frustratingly within sight of Villa Park’s floodlights, whilst being entertained by the Gooners who were daft enough to dive off an eight foot embankment after abandoning their cars and the unlucky driver . Consequently most Arsenal fans had left at the crack of dawn.

I thought I’d been clever plotting up at a hotel, one junction past Villa. But it meant we were caught up with the Utd fans on our way back to the match. We ended up missing the frantic first few minutes, as the Arsenal began a bad day at the office with their failure to bury the first of five great chances. Worst of all was the longest ever trudge back to the car afterwards. Or at least it felt like that surrounded by celebrating Utd fans. Naturally they were cock-a-hoop, but not about having made it to the final and the likelihood of an FA Cup consolation prize (when only hours earlier they might have expected to end the season empty-handed). No, the congratulatory chorus grinding a hole in Gooner heads suggested that they were far more concerned with putting the kibosh on the possibility of the Arsenal repeating (and belittling) Utd’s own treble feats, before most of our fans had dared be so presumptuous to even let this fateful word fall from our lips.

Personally I wasn’t grieving because the Gunners had frittered away a rare treble chance, or for our failure to break yet another record with a fourth consecutive final. Along with Dennis and any other Arsenal players involved in the 240 minutes of football which culminated in Giggs running round Villa Park showing off his hirsute charms five years back, I badly wanted to beat Utd on Saturday to exorcise the ghosts of ‘99. Some of these were laid to rest in last season’s 5th round cup tie at Old Trafford, with the Welsh wing wizard’s passable Johnny Wilkinson impersonation in front of an open goal, when it was harder to miss than to score. S’funny, after going on to win 2-0, I don’t recall ingrate Gooners giving Arsène any stick for leaving Henry on the bench!

Yet such was the synchronicity on Saturday with the semi which turned out to be the springboard for Utd’s treble, that I never dreamed our downfall might be due to a lack of desire on the day. If I was disappointed because our players were devoid of the sort of fire so obviously burning in Utd bellies, I was downright flabbergasted by our fans feeble efforts. It was as if the Arsenal had brought an 18,000 strong army of the Library’s most silent lambs, who simply sat back and accepted their fate.

After Utd took the lead, I kept staring through my binoculars at the other end of the ground, in the hope that I just couldn’t hear the Gooners in the Holte End. When our team most needed a twelfth man lift from the terraces, the Arsenal’s “audience� remained completely becalmed. All I saw was a sea of inertia! Perhaps they were all similarly blasé about the prospect of proceeding to a 4th Cardiff final. Yet so voracious was my appetite for this particular victory that I was not only blue in the face, but completely hoarse long before half-time. Sadly it seemed that Utd and the vast majority of their fans were that much hungrier than the Gunners (certainly in the first-half) and our impotent army. We usually make more noise with only a couple of thousand. Perhaps the early start left our lot exhausted. But I couldn’t fathom getting up before the cock crows to travel all the way to Birmingham only to be a silent bystander, allowing events to transpire without bothering to at least try and influence matters.

It’s all too easy to criticize with the benefit of hindsight, but Le Prof’s Henry ploy has paid dividends in the past. I might be a great believer in always starting with your best available team and I couldn’t for the life of me comprehend what possessed a pragmatist like Wenger to throw Aliadière in at the deep end, only to sink like a stone. However Arsène is a manager who’s worked absolute miracles with relatively meagre resources. He would have to be guilty of several season’s worth of misdemeanours before Gooners would be entitled to gripe about the man who is single-handedly responsible for the greatest entertainment we have, or are ever likely to witness at our Highbury home of football.

We ended up listening to music on the drive home, because I just couldn’t bear the sound of the same sad saps who couldn’t be bothered to raise their voices in support of our team, berating our manager on the radio phone-ins. It was the height of hypocrisy. If I wasn’t sufficiently embarrassed by their woeful vocal effort at Villa Park, their whinging left me ashamed to be included amongst the same tribe!

Fatigue and a little too much confidence could have been the recipe for a defeat which was frankly long overdue. Our midfield was guilty of not tracking their opposite numbers, possibly leaving them to a back line which has so rarely been breached. But I shouldn’t really single anyone out, on a day when no-one shined overall. Although at one point in the second half Paddy seemed to be trying to rescue the situation almost single-handedly. Our reticent captain’s ‘lead by example’ efforts to rally the troops were admirable. But if we were lacking something, perhaps it was the sort of inspirational captain who could have turned and roused our fans from their torpor with a single clenched fist gesture.

If anything Saturday’s demise was even more frustrating than the defeat five years ago. Personally I have never rated Giggs' ability to run the exhausted dinosaurs of our defence ragged, quite so highly. Yet as I recall the Welshman’s “wonder goal� was the only thing to separate two evenly matched teams. Whereas we missed an opportunity at the weekend to reinforces the marked superiority of the current Arsenal squad. We favoured Utd with a fillip for the future which Fergie will undoubtedly use to rebuild their badly bruised confidence. When we should have left them facing any forthcoming encounters with the same sort of inferiority complex which has bedeviled us for so many seasons.

A cause for more current consternation is the cracks that Utd have inflicted on the Arsenal’s air of invincibility. Suddenly everyone is talking up Chelsea’s chances of administering a fatal blow in the Champions League and the tabloids are backtracking about our premature Premiership coronation. I always knew we were only one defeat away from a media bandwagon waiting to delight in the prospect that we might “bottle it�, with many already reading the Arsenal’s last rites.

If I was absolutely shattered on Sunday morning, I imagine our squad must have been more aware of their aching limbs than they’ve been all season (especially Reyes, after witnessing a slow motion repeat of Paul Scholes cynical attempt to rupture the Spaniard’s knee ligaments). Lifting their spirits for Tuesday’s game is possibly the most crucial task of Wenger’s tenure. If anything a losing habit has even more momentum than a winning one. With the Scousers and the Toons both hitting a purple patch, there's every possibility that a European exit might be followed by a slump of seismic proportions at the weekend. It could conceivably result in the ultimate anticlimax of the Arsenal’s record breaking season coming to a conclusion without a single piece of silverware to show for all their efforts.

I don’t even believe we can afford to scrape through to the Champions League semifinals. We require a resounding triumph on Tuesday to reestablish the sort of superiority that will frighten the lives out of our Easter weekend opponents. That doesn’t mean I won’t be delighted with a dodgy 0-0 draw. It’s not just that I’ve been desperate to see the Arsenal play in the Bernabeu these past few years, but I am also anxious to make use of our flights to Madrid, after recently finishing the last carton of Camels from the plentiful stock purchased in Vigo and being forced to pay five quid a pack again is far too great a shock to my system!

In fact I am looking forward (albeit with all due trepidation) to Tuesday night, to discover what sort of mettle this Arsenal side are really made of. Our players are constantly harping on about the best team spirit they’ve ever experienced. Well we are about to discover whether it is the genuine Arsenal spirit and the cause of our success, rather than merely a consequence of it. On the pitch it will be a night for real men in red & white to stand up and be counted. I only hope that unlike Saturday, the lummoxes on the terraces can do likewise.

I scratched my arse!