Wigan, Leeds, City: Arsenal a team on the up

Arteta: pointing Arsenal direction

Firstly allow me to apologise for my long absence from the Arsenal blogging scene. I have had a tough 2 weeks, travelling, technical outages and eventually the breaking down of the Afrogunner mobile that has necessitated and overhaul...

A lot has happened at Arsenal since my last blog. Firstly, we were narrowly beaten by a strong Manchester City team in a game where we should have won had our strikers been at their best on the night. Our midfield and defence looked solid throughout. The Coquelin/Frimpong partnership in particular looked and looks very solid for the future of Arsenal.

I am not very sad that we lost. You can't reach the final or semi-final of a cup competition every single year. we'll try again next year. The key thing for me is that we were competitive. Yes, we haven't spent the Gazillions that Manchester City have spent and are spending on salaries, but we are competitive. On another day, we shall beat them. Make no mistake about that. I say bring on the first team and we shall see.

On Saturday we went to Wigan and came out 4 goals to nil winners. I must say that these days, unlike our past squads, you never quite get the nerves when we are two goals up. I think the squad is technically and mentally stronger, or to put it another way, we are more balanced. So far, we have been generally lucky with injuries or lack thereof to key players such as Van Persie, Theo, Song, Arteta and Vermaelen. I have a growing hope that perhaps the Gods of football will be kind to us and we shall see less serious injuries to our players this season. If Van Persie can play the entire season... But I digress.

It is very clear so far that we have really missed Thomas Vermaelen. This guy is just something else. He is very commanding, very quick, reads the game very well, starts attacking moves from the back, scores goals. He started the move that saw Arteta rifle in a shot for the opening goal. Two minutes later, he rose higher than the Wigan defender marking him and attacked the ball with a technic that would make many a striker proud. The ball landing inside the side netting. 2-0 up to Arsenal and the game had quickly gone away from Wigan.

I was also happy to see Van Persie playing very deep throughout the whole game because it threw Wigan minders all over the place. It allowed Gervinho and Theo to roam up top, switching flanks, taking turns to play through the middle and hence Gervinho managed to get the third goal. This time around Van Persie became provider.

And that little formula 1 car of a winger called Theo is looking more and more dangerous. I think he is now at a stage in his career where goal scoring will soon start coming naturally. You can see it in his attempts at goal. Once he scores a couple, I think we shall see him producing Thierry Henry-like goals, the type that look easy and funny at the same time. That Henry goal against Liverpool in 2004-5 season I think, where he robbed Carragher in the corner and went to score comes to mind. Theo did a similar thing for the fourth goal, he pounced on some Wigan hesitation and although he didn't score it himself, he set up Van Persie to score his customary goal per game.

A word too for Aaron Ramsey. I look at him and he is really trying to get on the score sheet. You can see from the positions he is taking, often running from deep into the box. He has something of a Frank Lampard about him. He too will become a regular scorer with time.

In other stuff, Arsene Wenger doubts needing to buy any strikers in the January window. Then goes on to say that if somebody offers him a super player maybe he'll do business. Is he serious or is he trying to put pressure on Chamakh and Park? Only time will tell. There will be plenty of time for the transfer shenanigans in January. But expect to see "Arsenal swoop for Barcelona Star Messi in £27.63M deal"

So, onwards and upwards we go. There is a small matter of Olympiacos in the Champions League, a game that has no bearing on our position in the group so I expect our squad players to go have some fun in that one. The big one though will be the Everton game. Mikel Arteta will come up against his former teammates. What are the odds that he will score the winning goal in that game? More on that in the coming days.

Onwards and Upwards march the Arsenal!!