West Bromwich Albion (1) – (1) Arsenal
Wilshere 63’
The Hawthorns, West Bromwich
Barclays Premier League

We all know about the amazing run Arsenal have been on over the last few weeks – 10 consecutive wins in a row and top of the Premier League and top of our Champions League group. Simply stunning form since the opening day defeat to Aston Villa.

Yesterday’s game against West Brom was always going to be a tough test – before the match I was nervous because they were a team full of confidence after beating Manchester United at Old Trafford and they had a newly signed Sessegnon – it’s well known that he can be a world beater in the first 8/9 games for  a new club and they he’s completely useless for the rest of the season and following years (Sunderland fans will be able to vouch for that) but unfortunately for us, this was West Brom’s 7^th game of the new season.

They also had useful players such as Amalfitano (who is a hell of a find by the way) and a player who can also make a difference.

And so it proved.

Sessegnon and Amalfitano were lively and causing Arsenal all kinds of problems throughout the game. We didn’t play with our usual tempo partly because we had a demanding Champions League game midweek and partly because West Brom were so well organised. They sat deep, prevented us from having any space in the final third and broke on the counter attack with pace.

They opened the scoring after we failed to clear a corner only for Amalfitano to send in a decent cross for Yacob to score a powerful header at the near post. After that, we struggled to get our game going but Jack Wilshere, who has been in the press for all the wrong reasons this week, made up somewhat by driving Arsenal forward and scoring a well taken equaliser.

Overall, you could argue that a point was a fair result. Although Arsenal can count themselves lucky at certain points of the match – Nicolas Anelka had two massive chances to put West Brom two nil up and you would have to say that if they scored a second goal it would have been a step too far for us to get anything from the game.

Olivier Giroud did have a great chance after being put through with a wonderful through ball from Wilshere but he couldn’t get the ball past Myhill.

At the end of the day, we finish the weekend back on top of the Premier League table and are still 2 points ahead of Chelsea, 3 ahead of Manchester City and Tottenham and 6 ahead of Manchester United.

And after 7 games of the Premier League season and after the woeful performance against Aston Villa on the opening day, we would have taken all day long.

Onwards and upwards.

As Jack Wilshere was spotted outside a nightclub smoking, Arsene Wenger appeared not to be too happy when this came up at this afternoon’s press conference.

The Arsenal manager mentioned the health and social issues of smoking, and the fact that it may have been acceptable for Johan Cruff to do it 20 years ago, todays athletes should know better.

Personally, I believe that any footballer who can’t refrain from smoking and drinking is a disgrace. Yes, they’re human beings like the rest of us but they are professional sportsmen. You are being paid huge amounts of money for your talent and athletic capabilities. Smoking is just downright stupid.

Personally, I don’t drink, smoke or do drugs. I live a happy enough life and I don’t preach to others about drinking, smoking or doing drugs. It’s a personal choice and I happen to believe that doing those things can have a negative effect on your body. I eat healthy and exercise reguarly. I’m not gloating, that’s the personal choice I’ve made.

But if you’re a highly paid footballer then I don’t think that’s acceptable. I’ve supported Arsenal for over 26 years and the majority of that has been taken up by the Arsene Wenger reign. The words I will always remember when he first came to the club were:

“The body is like a car, if you put in the wrong fuel then you won’t go very far.”

And I completly agree.

You will get people saying “who cares” if Jack is smoking but Arsenal Football Club, thanks to Arsene Wenger, has high standards and expectations. It’s not a good example to set young fans, it’s not good for your health and it’s just stupid to do it outside a nightclub with all the press waiting to take pictures outside.

And the fact that the official website has commented on it with Arsene’s thoughts show that Arsene and Arsenal are dead against it.

If this was any other player at any other Premier League club, I would be branding them a disgrace as well.

Jack has the ability to be a great player for Arsenal but he’s a long way off being that yet and needs to get his act together and not waste his potential.

When Arsenal lost to Aston Villa on the opening day of the season, every Arsenal fan was angry and upset. We had one of the most frustrating summer transfer windows to date, bringing in only Yaya Sanogo and Mathieu Flamini on a free, had spent absolutely nothing of our massive “transfer war chest” and just been humiliated at home to a side that struggled to stay in the Premier League last season.

We made the same old defensive mistakes, performed poorly and clearly needed new players to revitalise the club. In terms of winning trophies, we were miles off.

But yet again Arsene Wenger, not for the first time in his 17 year reign as Arsenal manager, didn’t panic and got on with his job. He endured abuse from the fans and questions from the press – Arsenal were in crisis. But 6 weeks on we are top of the Premier League by 2 points and 8 points clear of the reigning Premier League champions, top of our Champions League group (labelled the “group of death”) and have only lost 1 of our last 22 games.

Unbelievable eh?

We brought in Mesut Ozil, who is truly a world class player and we are playing some of the best football we have seen in a good few years. Our confidence is sky high, we are getting players back from injury and the whole squad seems to be flying at the moment.

The performance against Napoli last night, especially for the first half an hour, was immense. I was privileged to have witnessed such wonderful football – it was ridiculously good.

So I would like to offer my sincerest apologies to Arsene Wenger. I will admit that after the opening day of the season I lost my rag. Even though now after taking some perspective and realising things weren’t as bad as we all thought, Arsene knows.

The results, performances and position we find ourselves in at this moment in time is just a dream. If you said we’d be top of the league, be on a huge winning streak, performing with massive confidence and playing the football we have been on the 17th August I would have told you that you were crazy.

In Arsene we trust indeed.

The Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has come out yet again to talk about Mesut Ozil, in an attempt to deflect any responsibility of selling the player with the highest assist rate in Europe.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Sergio Ramos, Sami Khedira, Joachim Low amongst other high profile names in football have expressed their surprise and dismay at Ozil being allowed to leave Real Madrid. Even the Real Madrid fans were upset; reportedly chanting that Ozil was not for sale during Gareth Bale’s unveiling at the Bernabeu.

So after talking about Ozil’s personal life (classy) he’s now come out and said:

“The player asked to leave and nobody here should be upset about it. He couldn’t handle the pressure at Madrid,”

Okay Perez, let’s go through your statement shall we?

He had (and still has) the highest number of assists in Europe. He has played in the Champions League, World Cup and European Championships. He’s won La Liga, the Copa del Rey and been in the Euro 2012 Team of the Year and had the most assist in the 2013 World Cup.

I would be inclined to ask what the hell are they smoking over there at the Bernabeu?

If that wasn’t ridiculous enough, Perez had this to say about Jose Mourinho:

“He’s a coach who gave Madrid a lot, we’ve taken a real stride forward because of him, especially in Europe.

“I like him and he did great things for the club. His values and way of seeing things is the right one.”

Right, so this was the Jose Mourinho that caused loads of friction in the board room, dropped Real Madrid favourite Iker Casillas and had issues with some of the big names at the club such as Jose Mourinho and even Ronaldo towards the end of his Real Madrid reign. He also engineered a move away from Madrid so he could join Chelsea.

Seriously, Perez is one massive c*nt.