Saul_Mikoliunas Firstly I also trust Wenger. Love him to pieces. Also, he does always seem to end up correct in the end (Except with Eboue) but lately he has been doing my head in. After the Wigan game I was thinking about this and I sseriously think he should bring in some of them. Not all of them though but sdtill some of them. I get what he says about not wanting to rush them and push them into something when they aren't ready but right now, they have shown that they can whoop Wigan and make them look stupid and even just bringing them in sooner would be better. I dont like starting them Champions League because its just such a huge deal and then after that is Chelsea (I think). Hold on. Ok I just checked the fixtures and next it is Chelsea which I also don't think is a good plan, throwing him in the deep end is bad. After that it is the QF and so obviously he will put them back in for that and then the week after it is Wigan in the league so I think he should take a few youngsters and give them their chance. Obviously I still think he should keep the core of them team like Fabregas, Almunia etc but stick in some of the more experinced youngsters. I am making no sense right now so onto Gallas. Gallas-He got alot of stick after the Birmingham game but in all honesty I stuck up for him. Don't get me wrong, I thought what he did was stupid and wasn't captainey at all but I understod where he was coming from. He had just watched a friends bone sticking out of his leg, then he had all the pressure of keeping it together and then the referee arsed up majorly twice and I think it just got too much for him to take. To be honest, if people hadn't critised him for that, I probably would have and my brother said I was only standing up for him because I felt sorry for him but I do understand where he was coming from, I just thought it was extremely uncaptainey thing to do. Fabregas as captain-I really am unsure about this. See Manu as captain would have been perfect only I don't really think goalkeepers should be made captain. They are just normally so far out of the action that I think ideally, a captain should be a defender/midfielder. (A strikercan be too but they tend to be more insane =P) Fab is just so young! Mind you, going through the team who are regulars right now, I think Fab was probably his best choice. I still think Toure makes the perfect captain he just doesn't make the perfect footballer =D Ok this comment has gotten far too long, I have to stop now. Have fun reading it Polo! Hah =D

pollyloveshouse Yes I am definitely with you on the youngsters. Throwing them in at the deep end will end up with them having too much presure piled on them and they will start making mistakes, and if we are playing big teams such as Chelsea then mistakes can easily lead to goals. This can possibly shatter their confidence too, well any big mistake can shatter confidence. Just look at Scott Carson in an England shirt, I don't think he ever really got over that horrendous howler against Croatia. I think Capello was definitely doing the right thing though, he waited a bit before putting Carson back in again when it wasn't too important. Unfortunately that kinda backfired, didn't it?? But yes, back to my point, shoving on pressure = mistakes, mistakes = confidence downer, confidence downer = more mistakes, etc etc. So, I'm looking forward to them playing again when they have nothing to lose, like the Carling Cup and hope we can see more first team action from the likes of Wilshere and more starts from Vela. As for Gallas, well I think his behavior against Birmingham was unacceptable no matter what player you are. In circumstances like that, with Eduardo's injury and the ref players need to stick together, to actually work as a team far more than any other. If it was Fabregas who stomped up the pitch I think he would have gotten just as much stick as Gallas. But, I also think people need to forgive and forget that some time soon. i think what we need from Gallas now is a string of consistency, making sure he doesnt stick out too much, but is still doing the job. We, being the fans and the press, need to focus more on our problems on the pitch than off them, which means we need to stop having problems off the pitch. Hopefully appointing Fab as captain might help to get a lottle more consistency, somehow... And that carries onto the third point quite nicely, Fabregas as captain. Now, I am on agreement with you on not making goalkeepers captain, it doesn't work. Myy coach tried it for a bit, with me as captain, and I don't have the loudest of voices, making it virtualy impossible for me to get messages around the team. If I were in midfield I could just go and tell the player myself, but being stuck back at one end of the pitch kind of restricts that. Also, to me the mentality of a keeper is much more fragile in matches than other players, generally. Say you were a midfielder and you made a howler, the worst that could be would be mucking up what would have been an excellent, goalscoring opportunity, be it a pass or a shot. Or it could be you let a player through stupidly, or did a horrible tackle, well that's not too bad. But for a keeper to make a howler, everyone notices. I now for a fact that if I make a howler and I see my team disappointed in me, my confidence drops like a stone. Now if I were a captain and my confidence drops like a stone, then that is going to bring the rest of the team down with me. This is why it is hard to have complete consistency as a keeper, because everyone does make howlers every now and again, and most of them aren't remembered, but keepers have it much harder. Everyone remembers the Carson and Robinson howlers, but I doubt everyone will remember a particularly dodgy pass you made to let a player through on goal. I'll stop there with that, I'll start ranting in a moment. Onto the actual topic of [i]Fabregas[/i] being captain, rather than positions lol Like you said, there aren't really many alternatives at the moment. And considering the average age of the squad normally, he's not that young. I had never really thought of Toure in a sense of how he would cope as a captin before, actually to be honest I never payed much attention to anyone being a captin really, so I shall stop this monster comment now =D Your turn!

Saul_Mikoliunas Again, I am going to point out a situation from Hearts where we had a really talented boy who played for the reserves, I go to see the reserves every week so I thought he was amazing but the manager put him up front on his own in a Champions league qualifier with next to no service and it killed his confidence. I haven’t seen him play one game where he looked anything like the player he was before just because we put him in the deep end. I just think that with the cup coming up, we can put in the youngsters for the cup and keep them in. Wigan are a relatively good side but they have shown they can beat them once before, I reckon they can do it again. I just went through the team from the last game and I think maybe depending on performances/players available, that putting in Wilshere, Vela and maybe even Simpson could benefit Arsenal. Also I’m not sure that Song counts as a youngster but I love him in central midfield. I know Arsene likes him as a central defender but I think that boy could do better than Denilson is currently doing. Right now, Arsenal literally have nada to lose. Except perhaps players, I am still hoping that once we get over this mini injury crisis we can start to settle down a bit and be in the newspapers for the right reasons. I genuinely believe that if people were in that same situation as Gallas was, they…well they would have acted differently but I think they would be a lot less critical of him. Seeing what he saw, all of that was on his head, I just think it was a bit too much to handle. I also think that after the way he acted at Chelsea, this isn’t going to be something he will forget in a hurry. I like Gallas as a player, I really do but I think as a person, he might be a tad bitter about Wenger dropping him and I am just hoping it doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass. It is true about the mentality. Like you say, a goalkeeper making a howler tends to lead to a goal but a striker miskicking is really only going to end in a by kick. Your captain needs to be the one who is saying “It doesn’t matter that you just kicked yourself in the face before falling over the ball and sticking it in your own net, humiliating yourself in front of sixty thousand, keep your chin up!” and that is so much harder to do as a goalkeeper. I mean, I try not to but even I remember Pepe Reina messing up against Everton but I couldn’t tell you anything else about that game. To be a goalkeeper you have to have total confidence and I don’t think Almunia really has the confidence to keep up his teams spirits after he makes a mistake. I have only ever seen a goalkeeper as captain working once and that was when Craig Gordon was captain for Hearts and I think the only reason that it worked was because he made no errors but I still disagreed because you just can’t get the info across that way. I think fabregas has plenty of confidence, especially for a boy so young but at the same time, can he take on all the extra responsibility? In Britain, captains are still a huge deal (much less so that overseas) and I don’t know if he can handle all the extra criticism that will come his way now. I suppose given the average age, it doesn’t actually matter. I can’t help it but I still think of Fabregas as a tiny young boy because he is only like two years older than me. He has had a lot of experience and he is very vocal and according to other people, very nice person but still. …… He’s soooo young! =D I can’t help it but I just always think of Toure as captain material. Probably because when he first came to Arsenal he reminded me of the Hearts captain at the time. Anyway, I guess all we can do about Fabregas as captain is wait and see how it turns out. I just realised that I could have typed "I agree" and saved a whole lot of conversation there but oh well =P

pollyloveshouse Where would be the fun in just saying I agree!? I worked it out, I have now typed my english coursework twice over in here lol For me, half the time with injuries it is harder to return psychologically than physically. So the same is kind of ther with your scenario at Hearts, psychological "injuries" are very hard ot overcome, and you never really get the same confidence back in my opnion. especially when you are young, I mean building up and up in ranks and getting the opportuniity to play professional football for a team like Hearts, well that's got to fill you right up with confidence and having that knocked down is something very hard to come back against. So for me the solution, or at least one for a bit, that you said, putting them in the Carling Cup then against Wigan in the league. If they perform as we know they can then this will boos their confidence as such that when the next matches come along they will be confident enough to take more risks, which could pay off more, then we start to witness the birth of mroe great Arsenal legends! Yay! =D I do think this season we've missed that strong midfeild that won us so much of last season... Fabregas, Hleb, Rosicky, Flamini... they gave us that solid consistency that we just haven't had this season!! I think for us to give a proper chance to the youngsters to shine we need to start being more consistent! I think we do need some of the more experienced players back, Rosicky of course, one of my favourite players, Eduardo! Ade, Theo... if the rest of the team are constantly performing well then it is much easier to give chances to the youngsters to shine because there is much less to lose. Although as you say there's nowt to lose now either! I will reply to the rest of your essay tomorrow, sleep doth call me!! Just one whting before I go, did you watch the match?? I was soooooo thankful we scored, otehrwise what happened to Gallas would actually have broken my heart!!

pollyloveshouse Right I'm back to finish me comment =D For me the captain of a team should always be the most stable player, no matter how good they are, as such. If they are in the team clearly they are good enough, but for me a captain is someone who really keeps the boat from rocking, if you know what I mean. Someone who, no matter what their performance was like, focuses on the positives, and every else's positives too. For example, the other week a girl on my team scored an own goal, and she was completely gutted about it and no one could cheer her up, apart from Talya (our captain) who managed to really make her see that it didn't make a difference as we lost as it was, and that it would have been much worse if she hadn't been having such an awesome game for the rest of it. So yeah, for me a captain is just there to keep the stability, and keep everyone's heads up, which definitely requires confidence in a player. I think part of the reason Wenger may have dropped Gallas as captain, was that by coming out with those comments that Gallas did, it showed that he didn't really have much confidence in the team. It was like he didn't think what he said would matter 'cause they were screwed anyway. With appointing Fabregas as captin to me it was like Wenger was saying "we're not giving in, we're not just going to keep pressing on when that isn't getting us the results we need, we're changing things. We aren't sitting around like duckies, we're standing up to be counted!" =D I do hope Fab manages to handle the extra pressure, but I'm sure he will. He is a class player, we saw that with his supreme pass/free kick? to set up Bendtner's goal on Tuesday! So lets just see what happens, then =D Lol I love that fact he's only 2 years older than you XD

Saul_Mikoliunas I keep coming home, replying to all other comments/mail messages and then opening this up last to write a big long reply and then having to leave before I finish it =D I shall come home tonight, save the reply and I WILL REPLY SOON! =D

Saul_Mikoliunas [B]I'M BACK!![/B] Sucks to be you right now Polo =D Anyway, I am starting at the most recent events and working backwards. [b]Eboue[/b] I genuinely don't think Eboue is good enough for Arsenal and I haven't for a long time now but my heart went out to the poor boy on Saturday. He drives me insane with his constant non running, his complete inconsistency in passing and his lack of passion but he didn't deserve the booing/applause when he went off. I really felt sorry for him and I know I sound like a total girl (Which I am....but still) but I really wanted to hug him. I find it alot easier to criticise him when he isn't being booed by 40 thousand people. [b] Youths/Injuries [/b] I suppose my bring in more youths theory is coming into force right now however not voluntarily. It was kind of arsed up with the loss at Burnley but with all the injuries we are getting we are having to bring in more youths anyway and I like the look of Ramsey & Vela & Wilshere. I suppose the win at Chelsea did change things because in all honesty, I wasn't expecting even a point from that game but that clearly upped the confidence even more. It just drives me nuts that we can win against Manure & Chelsea but not Hull!!! I totally agree on the midfield issue and in particular Flamini. He was such a good find in the centre of midfield, like a smaller Viera. Tough tackler, good runner, covered far too much ground (Dunno how he ever lasted 90 mins to be honest!) and yet he could still pop up in the other half and score. I think that him & Fabregas were easily the best midfield last season and we have really missed a tough tackler in the middle. I try to like Denilson and I know he is improving but I just think he is a bit too lightweight for the EPL. I really loved watching Song in the middle of midfield in the African Nations cup thingey but he just hasn't reproduced the same forum for Arsenal. Granted he hasn't beeen given many chances but I had really high hopes for him to be the next Flamini but those are fadiing slowly =D Ok I have typed way too much and answered like one of your point so I shall come back at a later date =P

hooch-is-crazy All your long comments make this tiny one look pathetic but, think of '98 we won the double then after finding ourselves miles off the title race at Christmas, as long as we can get an experienced head in the side, we could climb back up (although I can't see us going the whole way and winning)