Common consensus yesterday, gleamed from my comments, twitter and reading other blogs was that the win in the Middle Eastlands was superb.

Most people also agreed that Sky did their best to play down the size of our win. Let them, we made a mug of them last year when they ousted us from their top four image and included Liverpool and City so we can make fools of them again this year.

That’s no problem.

So, do we have time to dwell on yesterday? Well, not really as we have a Carling Cup match coming up and as Arsene has decided we are going for all trophies this year I guess I should start to take it a little bit seriously. That’s the thing with having dismissed it for so long, should we win it I run the risk of looking like a bit of a fool should I celebrate too wildly. What to do, what to do? Well, looking like a fool has never really stopped me before so let’s do that then.

What was evident from the bench at the Middle Eastlands at the weekend was that we do have that much fabled strength in depth that many have said we’ve been lacking for some time. I haven’t been one of those, I saw that injuries were what was robbing us of our depth, and I know some would say then we should have had more players but really, how many strikers/left backs/midfielders do you want?

With players returning every week it seems as though the injury hokey-kokey has finally slowed down, although out injury list does contain integral members of the first team such as Van Persie and Vermaelen. Some might argue that Almunia should be counted too but I don’t and have a feeling we could see the Spaniard leave in January in his quest for first team football.

Good luck with that.

The number one Pole (and opposed to the one and only other Pole Chesney) is in a great run of form and with every passing match he is growing with confidence. So far in this recent run we have seen him demonstrate a better shot-stopping ability, an ability to read a game, to know when to come for crosses and also when to come and put the attacker off that the Spanish waiter. All round he is a superior keeper to Almunia as I’ve always said, and yes, he did make more mistakes, but he always had the potential to be a top-notch keeper, something Almunia never ever demonstrated. I will not shed on single tear should we never see Al wearing the toothpaste green of Arsenal again. Should he be restored as number one then serious questions need to be asked about Wenger’s mental health.

There will, of course, come a time when Fabianski makes an error, all keepers do, look at Van Der Sar last week, but how we react to it is as important as how Fabianski himself responds. If we immediately return to the pits of despair then that is simply not helpful. If we are behind him, we need to be behind him.

Properly.

So, the Carling Cup. Newcastle it is, a team who probably will field a weaker one than us as they prioritise staying in the Premier League ahead of winning the kids cup. You never know though, but given our ‘second string’ will contain the likes of Chesney, Gibbs, Koscielny, Denilson, Vela, Walcott, Bendtner and Rosicky I can’t see them stopping us unless we have a collective Albion performance.

More on the team nearer to the match.

In other news Cesc has been having a dig at Man City saying even if they had 15 players on the pitch we would have still won. I think he’s slightly confused for Man City are not a rugby team, it’s only the likes of Stoke, Blackburn and Bolton who would try and field 15.

I jest, we know what he meant. Would we have overcome them if they had’ve had 15 players? I don’t care because it’s not something we ever have to worry about. What I worry about is beating what is in front of us and we did that yesterday quite comfortably.
“We always want to go forward and create chances but the way we played, we were very difficult to stop. I think we were fantastic. I think we played some outstanding football at times and it’s difficult to stop a side when they play at that tempo at that level.”

To those who doubted Cesc commitment to Arsenal look at this -

Does this look like a captain who doesn't care?

Does that look like a man who doesn’t want to be where he is? No, then shut up.

And that is exactly what I’m going to do as well.

Until tomorrow, have a great one.