This year has seen Chelsea have a commanding start then falter into mid-season mediocrity, Man City still not haivng the threat needed to win the title and teams like Tottenham or Liverpool coming close to being up there but not close enough.

Add to that a Manchester United team that have been average at best by their standards and you see how this year has been Arsenal’s best chance at claiming the title.  Ignore the fact that Man United have inexplicablly managed to churn out results and stay up there, this should of been Arsenal’s season.  They have not only played some fantastic football which has seen young players step up and shine (like Walcott, Djourou, Nasri, Szczesny and Wilshere) but they have also managed to grind out wins away against tough teams where normally they would have dropped points.

However, even though at this point Arsenal are only three points behind Man U with a game in hand, I still think the Red Devil’s will somehow win another title.  I believe nine games are at fault.  They are:

Sunderland 1-1 Arsenal

The teams first slip of the season.  They played well once again and should of had more goals but at 1 nil up and with the allocated stoppage time played they failed to simply whack the ball out and finish the game which led to Bent scoring a tap in after a scramble in the area.  Yes the whistle should of been blown, but once again Arsenal’s inissitence on passing the ball out of trouble cost them

Arsenal 2-3 West Brom

If you want o win a league title you can’t be drawing games like this, yet alone losing them.  To West Brom’s credit they played well and were tactically astute to stopping Arsenal, but the gunners were poor more than anything.  Poor goalkeeping and defensive errors allowed West Brom to score goals and it wasn’t until 3 nil down when they Arsenal started to play well and got two goals courtesy from Nasri.  However these two werent enough and Arsenal threw away three points.

Arsenal 0-1 Newcastle

After a good run of results which included a good win away against 10 man Man City, the North London outfit once again slipped at home losing to a Andy Carroll header.  They didn’t play well, the goal was soft and they once more threw away points.

Arsenal 2-3 Tottenham

Probably the most painful North London derby for Arsenal fans in a long time, particulary as the were all over Spurs in the first half and went into the dressing room with a 2 goal lead. 

It doesn’t matter whether your playing a strong rival team or not, it was not good enough to let spurs back in.  by their own admission, Tottenham didn’t even perform that well.  Even though they conceeded a silly and soft penalty for the equaliser, Arsenal still showed mental weakness in lettig this result happen.  They completely played into Spurs hands by being too predictable in the final third and their defence frailty from set pieces was once more punished.

Man Utd 1-0 Arsenal

Like so many teams, the Gunners went to Old Trafford playing like they had already lost.  The didn’t have enough boldness and the game played into United’s hand when they got a lucky (in my opinion) deflected goal courtesy of Park.  They came close with a block on the line from a Chamakh shot, but if you want to win the title, you need to be more attacking and more confident against your biggest rival.

Wigan 2-2 Arsenal

Aftera string of good away performances this season, Arsenal were defensively poor against Wigan to allow them back into the game.  Squillaci looked uncomfortable at the back allowing both goals through and Arsenal were unlucky not to get a penalty.  Once more Arsenal were unlucky where in the same fixture, United were lucky.  Rooney got away with a definite red early on in the game and stayed on the pitch.

Newcastle 4-4 Arsenal

Probably the most annoying for an Arsenal fan.  After dominating the first half and being 4 nil up, Newcastle came back to draw 4-4.  Arsenal once more showed how frail they can be at times, but this result was also down to poor referring and luck.  Diaby was rightly sent off for a stupid lash out at Joey Barton yet Kevin Davies got away with the same offence later on.  Phil Dowd gave two very soft penalties, the second in particular was never ever a penalty, unless of course falling over on your own account is now a foul for you.  The fourth goal was one of those once in a lifetime wonder goals for Tiote.

Van Persie scored at the end but it was narrowly given offside.  It could of been the bit of luck they needed that afternoon as he looked level.

It was awful.  Everytime Arsenal seemed to get back in the game a decision went against them.  Also Newcastle decided to be good against Arsenal when no doubt they will weakly captitulate against Man U.  A great game for a neutral, but an awful slip for Arsenal.

Arsenal 0-0 Man City

Not for the first time this season, Man City plaed a big team and looked happy just to play out a boring draw.  Arsenal were unlucky not to score after some good chances but it was another 2 points gone.  In the same result against United, City attacked them more, letting Man U in to score.

Arsenal 0-0 Sunderland

Okay Arsenal didn’t play well, but they fully deserved all three points.  The two key moments were Andrey Arshavin’s perfectly timed run wrongly being given offside and titus Bramble pushing Arshavin right as he shot not being given as penalty.  It was and the referre cost Arsenal another 2 points.

So in summary perhaps I’m moaning,  but I feel frustrated more than anything.  This season Arsenal have been better than United, but havent had the luck they have.  They have also had some inexcusable results which could well cost them the title.

Now with a difficult run which includes Man United at home, Stoke away and most importantly a must win trip to White Hart Lane it looks like Arsenal might once again be the almost team.  And this should of been their year.

Despite their best claims they can have little to argue with.  All three teams have without doubt been guilty of this.  Wolves systematic hacking of Newcastle’s Joey Barton and Diouf’s attack on Schwarzer are good examples of this.

These teams and fans of these teams usually argue that they do not have the quality in depth as opponents such as Arsenal or Manchester City and therefore their only chance of getting points of these teams is to physically intimidate them and muscle them out of their way of playing.

Although I can see where they are comnig from, particulary when you consider how much money is involved in Premeriship survival and how much is lost through relegation in arguably the most competitive league in the world I still think that this attitude is fundamentally wrong and shows a key weakness in ethos of English football itself.

Before I argue my case I should point out that I acknowledge that there may be a degree of bias in my thinking due to me being an Arsenal fan.  But still I hope that my argument makes sense and that it is the correct way to apporach this debate.

The English Premier Leauge is a very physical league.  We all know this and it is one of the ingrediants that makes the Premeriship what it is.  However to as a team adopt the mentality of stopping playing and resorting to merely bulling a team and physical whacking them about so that they cant find a natural rhythm is to start on a very negative road that flies in the philosophy of the game of football.

Yes you may stop players at times from outplaying you, but at what cost.  Surely the natural progression of this route if pursued any further is the death of football as soon the game turns into a brawl more akin to rugby.  Yes its unlikely that a team like Blackburn might outplay and beat a team like Arsenal, but its even less like to happen if you don’t even try in the first place.  West Brom showed that if you play good attacking football, if you adopt a good stratedgy which focuses on out playing them, such as closing them down qucikly or hitting them on the break then you can beat teams like Arsenal.

If a team likes a Manchester United plays better football than a Stoke City and beats them this is to be celebrated.  Man United won because they played the game better.  Some of the lower teasm in the prem should just accept that they will probably lose to some of the higher teams but always strive to beat them by outplaying them or out-witting them.

For too long the English have placed too much emphasis on a player having physical strength to the determent of ability, skill and footballing intelligance.  This is one of the reasons why Spain are doing so well internationally where as a very talented England squad are seemingly floundering.  How likely is it that a player like Messi could have progressed through an English youth academy?

The English game needs to resdiscover that the best way to defend or stop a team is not by bundling them over or using your body strength but instead to call players to use their bodies intelligantly and position themselves well in tackles.  It needs to recover the art of playing good football instead of always emphasisng winning at any costs, a philosophy of football we are currently seeing at Wolves, Blackburn and Stoke which is not only unnattractive, but ultimately limited and anti-football.

Chelsea will retain their title.  Their looking too good and the closest rivals for the title Arsenal and Man United both look too likely to slip up.  This is due to United’s increasingly ageing squad with an underperforming Wayne Rooney for the moment and Arsenal’s shaky new defence and continued problem with goalkeepers.  Chelsea on the other hand look solid all across their team.  Saying that both Arsenal and Man United look likely to feature strongly in both domestic cups and they will be up there near Chelsea at the end.

Over the last two seasons Spurs and Liverpool have essentially swapped places.  Spurs look like they could well progress through the group stages in the Champions League and Liverpool are struggling away from home in the Europa Cup.  Under Redknapp Spurs keep getting better and better and the talent and depth in their squad makes it look like they could push Liverpool out of the top four for a much longer time, particularly as Man City still look so shaky despite having such a strong squad on paper.

Liverpool will be really good under Hodgson, but he needs a good couple of months to get the team going and get players like Torres back to form.  They all look a bit under par or not used to each other yet, but I have no doubt that in a few months time Liverpool will be back up to their form of previous seasons.

As for the rest of the teams in the Premiership, the quality seems to be getting better with each season meaning that the gap between the top seven teams and the rest continues to get smaller.  Increasingly games that a Man United or Arsenal fan might have identified as an easy three points now look like a much harder prospect.  The only team you could say that of at the moment are Blackpool, but even they are really having a go at teams.

Blackburn and Wolves seem to be competing with Stoke this year on who can be the dirtiest team.  Diouf’s tactic of felling the Schwarzer and Henry’s attacks on Joey Barton are good cases in point.  If things stay the way they are, it probably won’t be long till another play is on the end of a season ending tackle like that of Ramsey or Eduardo.

For me the most exciting thing of this season so far has been the rise of teams like Sunderland, Bolton, Birmingham and West Brom who are, together with the poor form of teams such as Everton and West Ham, making the games in the Prem increasingly more unpredictable and exciting.

So all in all its been a good start.  As an Arsenal fan I was very optimistic about our first couple of games, but after the Sunderland 95th minute equaliser (which had only 4 minutes of extra time) and the inexcusable 3-2 loss at home to West Brom, I have found myself slipping back into a cynical expectation of another 3rd place finish with no silverware.  But who knows, the boys could prove me wrong as long as key players stay fit and Arsenal show up to the big games (which they often failed to do last season).

We will get to see Spurs in action in the Champions League (wow that hurt to write that!) and see if Mr Redknapp and co are up to the task of top tier European football or will they fall at the first hurddle and join the rest of us in the Europa League playing against some Eastern European farmers!! We will know just how Man City are going to play 18 top class players in a formation that only allows 11, and we will know just exactly where and who for Fernando Torres will be playing. 

Alongside all that we will also no doubt be listening to managers moaning about players getting injured whilst playing for England the week before the season starts.  And rightly so!! Who on earth decided it was a good idea to play a international friendly the week before the season starts.  Idiots!!  

All in all, this month holds so much promise for a lot of banter and a lot of fun, but I wish we were already at 1st Septemeber so I knew all the answers!

1. They gave us a brand new and much-hyped match ball, the JABULANI, which is supposedly the most ‘advanced’ football ever. Unfortunately, Every single Jabulani seems to have been BEWITCHED, presumably by some capricious African witch doctor with a hatred for goalkeepers. In other words, it is plain awful. FIFA have now (finally) acknowledged there is “a problem” with the ball, but have said they can’t do anything about it. Well done chaps.

2. They have repeatedly refused to consider any kind of ban or sanction on the notorious VUVUZELAS, those loud plastic trumpets which drown out any real atmosphere at games, and make TV commentary inaudible for millions watching at home in their slippers. According to FIFA the vuvuzelas contribute to, rather than drown out, the atmosphere at games. Unless by ‘atmosphere’ you mean the perpetual and deafening drone of a solitary low B♭, a cacophony not unlike the sound of a million bees flying around and around and around inside an amphitheatre the size of Wembley Stadium, I fail to see how this is the case, however.

3. They arrested and are prosecuting a group of ten or so women for wearing ORANGE DRESSES at a Holland match. The wearing of the aforementioned dresses was apparently covert advertising for some dutch brewery, and according to FIFA this compromised Budweiser’s sole sponsorship rights (for which FIFA gets a lot of money). So much for civil liberties, of course, but it was also pretty counter-productive given the press coverage the dutch brewery received as a direct result of FIFA’s draconian behaviour.

4. And now there have been two absolutely PREPOSTEROUS refereeing decisions (costing two key goals in two key games) which could have easily been avoided if FIFA allowed even the minimal use of video technology by referees or fourth officials, which they of course do not because their president is an ignorant technophobic fool.
a) On Sunday afternoon a Frank Lampard shot bounced off the crossbar and two feet over the goal-line, but the goal was not given by referee or linesman. Within 30 seconds everyone at home had seen a TV replay which confirmed that it was a perfectly good goal, and yet nothing could be done to change the decision. Reportedly on seeing the TV replay at half-time the referee had simply shouted, “Oh my God”. Quite.
b) On Sunday evening Carlos Tevez scored a goal for Argentina from a blatantly offside position. The linesman had failed to see this, but within seconds the WHOLE STADIUM had seen a replay on the stadium’s big screen showing that the goal was offside and shouldn’t have stood. The Mexican players surrounded the referee, imploring him to look at the replay on the screen. He was sadly unable to do so, or to change his original decision because of the strictness of FIFA’s rules on how decisions can be made (essentially, “no videos”). Again, idiocy.

In both cases, FIFA’s attitude to technology has been shown to be stupid. It is making nobody happy. If they don’t want technology, then every time decisions like these go wrong, Sepp Blatter should be publicly flogged by Pele and Franz Beckenbauer at a place of their choosing, and then forced to apologise in person to everyone whose day was ruined by such unnecessary injustices. This is the only reasonable alternative.

Goalkeepers: Joe Hart (Manchester City), David James (Portsmouth), Robert Green (West Ham).

Defenders: Leighton Baines (Everton), Jamie Carragher (Liverpool), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Michael Dawson (Tottenham), Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), Ledley King (Tottenham), John Terry (Chelsea), Matthew Upson (West Ham), Stephen Warnock (Aston Villa).

Midfielders: Gareth Barry (Manchester City), Michael Carrick (Manchester United), Joe Cole (Chelsea), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Tom Huddlestone (Tottenham), Adam Johnson (Manchester City), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Aaron Lennon (Tottenham), James Milner (Aston Villa), Scott Parker (West Ham), Theo Walcott (Arsenal), Shaun Wright-Phillips (Manchester City).

Forwards: Darren Bent (Sunderland), Peter Crouch (Tottenham), Jermain Defoe (Tottenham), Emile Heskey (Aston Villa), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United).

Number of players from each club:

Tottenham Hotspur: 6
Chelsea: 4
Man. City: 4
Man. Utd: 3
Liverpool: 3
Aston Villa: 3
West Ham: 3
Everton: 1
Sunderland: 1
Pompey: 1
Arsenal: 1

From this I think it is fair to say that Tottenham Hotspur are truly serving their country well. Unlike Arsenal.

I predict, however, that two of the Spurs players will drop out of the final 23-man squad, probably Michael Dawson and Tom Huddlestone. If Ledley King can’t prove his fitness, he will obviously go, but I think in that case Capello will take Dawson.

Any predictions for the final squad??

So, while a complete shock in one sense, in another sense this semi-final loss was not surprising at all. It was Tottenham doing what they’ve done, on occasion, throughout the whole season. The points we’ve lost in games we should undoubtedly have won this year may still cost us fourth place (that will largely depend on how we do in our next few games against Arsenal, Chelsea and Man. Utd), but that same weakness has now cost us a place in our first FA Cup final since 1991. If we’re really going to make the transition to become one of England’s elite clubs, we will need more cutting edge.