Let me start off by saying that if i ever see Emmanuel Eboue in a red and white shirt again i will not be happy. He is a disgrace.

It was a gripping game of Sunday League quality and there were three stand out performers, Wilson Palacios, Manuel Almunia and Alex Song. We started nervously and ironically, Eboue was the best man on the pitch early on, yes, it was that rubbish. He had a perfectly legitimate goal ruled out early on (13 minutes) and that seemed to make him flip. He proceeded to piss off the referee so much he got booked for dissent, then the silly bastard kicked Luka Ratface and got a second yellow, all before the clock had hit forty minutes.

Dear oh dear oh dear.

Wilson Palacios was a man mountain in the middle of the park and oh how i wish he was playing for us right now, he stopped Van Persie from dropping deep and effortlessly snuffed out the non existent attacking threat from a very tired looking Denilson and the superb Alex Song. Yes, he had a good game.

Adebayor is going to be out for at least three weeks with a hamstring injury and the man with 8 goals in 8 derby games was off before the clock hit forty as well, it seemed then the game was destined for anything but an Arsenal win.

We are very fortunate to come away from that utterly crap performance with a point, especially as we had Fat Toure partnering Gallas, Wenger is now paying the price for bowing to Toure’s demand for the captaincy because Gallas will not settle for the bench so he is in a rut. The only way out of that is more upheaval and giving the armband to Almunia or Van Persie.

Almunia was immense, he commanded the area unlike any keeper has in recent memory, Lehmann had a tendency to flap and so does Almunia at times but he did not flap once, he was quick and correct in his decisions and pulled off a fantastic save in the dying minutes, i thought it was in. I had my eyes shut.

Robbie Keane man of the match? He was pretty awful, it should have gone to Palacios or Almunia.

Wenger pulled off his compulsory ‘i did not see it’ phrase, maybe he didn’t, it looked like the ref needed the help of the linesman and the tv cameras did not pick it up instantly either so i will give him the benefit of the doubt, just this once. He was chuffed with a draw, i wasn’t, but he said,

“I believe we had a resilient, committed attitude and I’m proud of our attitude during the 90 minutes. But I feel it is two points dropped because we had the best chances and we scored a regular goal that was ruled out by an illusionary foul seen by only the referee. I watched it three times on television and I still don’t see what was wrong. That is why at the end of the day it’s frustrating. “We keep going. We have a momentum it is true but we didn’t score today. We haven’t lost for 11 games now and we just keep going.”

What is the point of an unbeaten run if its full or draws? You might actually gain more by going gung-ho every now and again and nicking a winner. On Eboue’s sending off he did not really go into great detail, but sort of agreed that he deserved the red,

“I believe that the first yellow card was very harsh. You have players who make 15 fouls in the game but don’t get a yellow card. What he did was clumsy but the first yellow card was very hard. The second one, I haven’t seen. They have told me that he has retaliated, if he has retaliated then he deserves a yellow and a red card. It doesn’t matter who saw it. If someone saw it for real then he deserves to be sent off. We deal with our problems internally. The newspapers never help us to sort out problems out. If he has retaliated today then we’ll see. I want to first see it before I assess the situation. It was impossible to see what happened because the ball had gone.”

The fact is that Eboue’s reaction would have warranted a red card for violent conduct anyway, meaning the first yellow is irrelevant. Im not going to go into it much because he is a disgrace to the football club. He has since issued an apology but the fact is he is at fault for not thinking of the team before kicking rat face and the other members of the team are at fault for not dragging the bastard away from the ref, he was moaning for long enough, where is the leadership?

Eboue said in his statement;

“I am sorry this game was very, very important for us. We must always win when we play against Tottenham and give our best for the fans.”

Ok, ok cut the shit Manu, this is the bit that riles me,

“I say thank you to my friends [team-mates] who gave everything. We drew and we are happy. It is a good point for us after playing so long with 11 v 10.”

For starters, its Tottenham and if these foreign boys don’t understand how much this fixture means to us they are even more stupid than i think. This is Tottenham, not bloody Barnsley. It means a hell of a lot to us fans and to be satisfied with a point, especially when this muppet got sent off is enough to make fans’ blood boil. Fuck off Manu.

Oh how we are going to need these two

We now find ourselves six points off fourth place and eight points behind Villa, we will be very lucky to get fourth this season. O Neill is a manager that knows how to take chances from his time at Celtic and will not choke under pressure. You can’t see Chelsea dropping out the top four and to be honest, i think we will get fifth this season. Not good. Lets hope im wrong, please.

Right, thats your lot for today. Take care in the snow.

Til Tomorrow

up the Gunners.