everybody makes mistakes and that's just what we do.

i sat here pondering about a title for this blog for a long time. i turned to mcfly, four lads who never fail to inspire me. 'sorry's not good enough' came onto my ipod. too many lyrics appopriate for what i'm just about to write. no don't worry, this isn't an obituary for arsenal football club, i'm not ruling us out of winning a trophy this season, i just think writing this will help me put yesterday firmly in the past. i was distraught when the final whistle was blown by mike dean. the cheers of the thirty thousand birmingham supporters seemed deafening all of a sudden: even watching on a television just under fifty miles away. this isn't a platform for me to air my childish and depressing rants, so i'll stop now. we should focus on the positives! our first final since cardiff 2007 and we had a memorable journey to wembley, which is well worth reliving at least one more time.

21.O9.1O
tottenham 1 arsenal 4
a scoreline that i'll never get tired of hearing.

i was thinking of just simply stating the scoreline without any story or summary, as looking at the score is more than satisfactory to me. however, beating someone 4-1 usually suggests battering the opposition for ninety minutes but that wasn't exactly true of this game.
we were leading one nil within the first fifteen minutes, a good goal from henri lansbury, a fantastic talent who i'm sure will be a star of many of my future blogs. arsenal looked relatively comfortable for the rest of the half. a second goal was a must and would've killed them off. but you know arsenal, doing things the easy way just isn't how we work. four minutes into the second half and keane scored. more chances followed but the winner didn't come. an extra thirty minutes then lay ahead of us. only one minute into extra time and we were awarded a penalty. confidently our player of the season so far, samir nasri, scored. repeating the same action five minutes later, another penalty calmly tucked away. 3-1. not long till substitute andrey arshavin scored and made it 4-1. 'shall we make a dvd?' rang around white hart lane, what a beautiful sound.

27.1O.1O
newcastle O arsenal 4

i dont particularly like writing about games like this. we weren't dreadful, so i can't write a thousand words about a horror show. but it wasn't the perfect performance. it was good. we were comfortable against a weakened newcastle team. after a frustrating forty five minutes, we were rewarded by an own goal from newcastle keeper tim krul. the second half flew by, we were rather more successful when it came to taking our chances. two goals from the impressive theo walcott showed how potentially influenical he could've been at the world cup with england, even as an explosive super sub against tired defences.

3O.11.1O
arsenal 2 wigan O

i snapped up my ticket the minute they went on sale, hoping for an exhilirating goal fest. wigan, poor away from home and struggling at the bottom of the league, weren't expected to pose much of a threat. it turned out to be much more of a tense evening than we thought at a snowy emirates; mostly through our own wasted chances and not wigan's resilience. not the best arsenal game i've been to but we did okay and okay was enough against a wigan team who offered very little in front of goal. semi finals of the carling cup beckoned, exciting times ahead for the arsenal.

12.O1.11
ipswich 1 arsenal O

ask any ipswich fan what they thought of this game and they'll tell you it was the highlight of their season. on the other hand, any arsenal fan will tell you that it's a game they'd rather forget. sadly a performance like that, wont leave my mind. i'm rarely that infuriated by an arsenal game but i was speechless after that game. sloppy, wasteful and disappointing are only a few of the adjectives that come to mind. the defence looked shaky and frail against championship defenders. the midfield lacked its usual creativity. at the end of the game, the players looked crushed as did the fans. we knew the players were capable of so much more. wembley was so close and improvement was crucial for the second leg.

25.O1.11
arsenal 3 ipswich O

i purchased my ticket for this game over a month beforehand. the biggest and argubably most important arsenal game i've been to. after the dire performance of the first leg, i had enormous butterflies in my stomach on the train and tube. sadly at half time, i still had those butterflies. chance after chance and still no end product. the crowd were howling. screams of 'how did he not score that?!' came constantly from our block. and i began to think, 'what happens if this carries on? we might not get to wembley after all'. i was panicing, as i'm sure a few others were too.
forty five minutes later and after a tearful rendition of 'que sera sera', i stood at the bottom of the stairs of block 3O and clapped the players off the field. three goals in twenty minutes had sent us to wembley. we weren't exactly amazing but we were on our way. a place in the carling cup final.

27.O2.11
arsenal 1 birmingham 2

even writing the score hurts. i don't think i can sit here and write a full match report. i'll have to summarise to stop myself from crying. we played well, as did birmingham. unlike us though, birmingham didn't make ridiculous mistakes. we ruined our own chances. credit to birmingham though, they gave us a difficult game and their fans didn't stop singing for ninety minutes. i don't want to sit here and analyse their winner. a suicidal mix up between koscielny & szczesny.
we were so close, so it hurt but we'll get another chance. we've got too many good players for us not to get another chance at silverware at wembley. we're still in three competitions and going strong. come on you gunners!