Pretty much all footballers have some sort of charity commitments to fulfill, these days its stipulated in their playing contract, it is no different for Jack Wilshere – but this goes way up and beyond what you would expect of a footballer.

Jack Marshall is a little kid with a brain tumour, looking in from outside Jack has formed a very close bond with a child who is basically dying in-front of him. It is written about in much more detail by Oliver Holt in his Mirror column. It makes me proud to be an Arsenal fan, proud that we have a player like Jack playing for us and very, very happy he is in the headlines for the right reasons. It is true when people say he is England and Arsenal captaincy material and giving up his time not just for contractual reasons, but because he genuinely cares, is just another reason why he will captain club and country in the future.

It is so refreshing to see, that is not to say other players are not just as caring, but it would be nice if more than just the negatives were reported for once. Nice one, Jack.

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We have seen yet more negligence by Ivan Gazidis when it comes to tying down our better players to lengthy contracts – Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott and Tomas Vermaelen all have contracts that expire at the end of next season, the question is why wasn’t this situation sorted at least a year ago? Once again it puts Arsenal on the back foot when it comes to negotiations, if we lose van Persie and Vermaelen in particular, we are in massive trouble.

Gazidis has asked Richard Law to open negotiations next month. Next month? What is wrong with this week? Or six months ago maybe? It is a total farce.

And if the player is refusing to enter contract negotiations? Sell them.

Proper football is back in a few days now, thank goodness for that.

The last few meetings with Sp*rs in the league have not been events to write home about. In a nutshell, we have epitomised the phrase ‘self-destruct’ in most of them.

However, whilst I understand a lot of the pundits placing their money on a Spurs win today because of our poor start to the season and T*ttenham getting a few wins under their belts, they seem to forget they have done this a fair few times before.

How often have we heard that Sp*rs are catching Arsenal up? Over the past four years it has become a recurring phrase we have heard every summer and autumn – they aren’t so loud when the end of the season comes around are they? Please remind me of the last time they finished above us in the league?

Don’t get me wrong, Sp*rs are a good team with some excellent players – all of which I hate with a passion – but are they really better than us? Not a chance in hell are they better than us. We have played six games so far this season and had our worst start to a season since TV’s were in black and white but we still have that extra quality, despite being continuously undermined by a defence that is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Due to work I’m going to miss the first half at least, I’m sure it will be a nervy occasion, I’m sure Sp*rs will score some flukey, long-range, once-in-a-career goal – I just think we will score more. My reason? We are The Arsenal.

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A certain Arsene Wenger celebrated 15 years as manager of Arsenal a couple of days ago. The last five have not been as glorious as the first ten, but the next one is probably his most vital as manager of this club. Often portrayed as a man who is somewhat of a joke figure, what with all these Basil Fawlty references kicking about, but never will a more intelligent, classy and passionate and revolutionary manager grace the football league in this country.

Compare and contrast: Wenger and Redknapp.

Hey, if i bunged Redknapp a couple of quid I may even get a quote..

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A lot is being made of a certain Mr Adebayor. I’ll be frank, I’d have got him back to Arsenal this summer provided his over-inflated opinion of his own self-worth had shrunk sufficiently. He is a class player when he is really giving it his all, a player that defenders hate playing against.

He is also a player that stole a ton of training gear when he left the club. He stole from his fellow workmates, his friends, the club that had put faith in him.

I just get the feeling that this may be one of the last games the Sp*rs fans see that Adebayor gives it his all before his ego catches up with him. The upcoming strop is inevitable as an Arsenal defensive error.

I for one, will be laughing…

Another game and another defeat, a common running theme running from February/March time.

Over the past few years we have endured many peaks and troughs, this one though is very worrying indeed. There have been questions asked of Wenger from sections of the support for a couple of years now, longer in some cases, but right now they are being asked genuinely and seriously – his sacking is being touted as one of the main cures for this horrible run we are currently on.

For many reasons I can’t see him being sacked; first of all he is far too valuable to the board, he is still in credit with them and it would be a little silly to pay him off and send him on his way with the money that he has saved them himself wouldn’t it? Sacking Wenger would also be the best way of making sure that we miss out on the top four come the end of the season. The time isn’t right.

From the outside it looks like he has just lost the players, lost their belief, trust and their faith in his philosophy. The state we are in is a culmination of many factors, one of them being the neglect he has given the defence over the past four years, time after time he has managed to wing it in this respect, he can do that no more.

How can he blame his players for not being good enough when he is the man who targeted them and brought them to the club? I don’t mean to say I told you so but just how many times have I said it’s less an issue of personnel than the system used, it needs a complete overhaul from a fresh face.

The question is, will Arsene do that? Will he swallow his pride, admit failure and go for another approach? He probably has to, he is fast running out of cards to play – a few years ago he held all the cards, right now even the very minimum guarantee under Arsene’s reign is looking in some quite substantial jeopardy.

Gut feeling says that this will be Arsene Wenger’s final season at Arsenal, it feels like the end of an era – tonight we face Shrewsbury in the Carling Cup and anything but a good win will be met with more depression and uproar, defeat is unthinkable. A win would be a start though, you can only have so many fresh starts but a win is a win is a win, nobody can take that away from you – no referees, not UEFA, and what we need is wins and plenty of them. Fast.