Carling Cup, World Cup Draw

Another day, another terribly disappointing performance from Arsenal, another 3-0 defeat, another trophy gone. Man City's experience and quality all over the pitch was the difference last night, they didn't ever look close to conceding a goal (Merida's late cross bar effort accepted), they were much better in the midfield and 3 really good goals put the young guns to the sword. However good these goals were, they were surround by defensive incompetence that us Arsenal fans just have to become used to these days. The first, a good performance from Rosicky was chucked away when he, one of the most experienced members of the team, was robbed of the ball and Tevez proceeded to drive into the box doing that little fake shimmy thing he does, that clearly bamboozled the Arsenal defence some of whom literally dropped like flies. Bang, goal. The second, under no real pressure the worst player on the pitch Silvestre played a hospital pass forward to Merida who proceeded to get robbed again, Wright-Philips brought it forward and the frankly shit Silvestre just backed off and off and off and let Shaun smash the ball in. Great hit but terrible defending. While we're on him, Silvestre's performance was genuinely awful. He failed to deal with long balls (one he turned his back on and it hit him on the head then the back), cynically brought down their forwards on at least one occasion (because he'd got himself in a terrible position) and in the first half let 4ft6 SWPhilips nudge him over in the build up to a guilt edge chance for Bellamy. I actually don't think he played as badly as a lot of Gooners think he did last season and he got a lot of unfair stick for being a Utd player - not something I hold against him at all, footballers careers are short and they have to play somewhere - but last night was a shocker from our 'captain.' The third goal came from Weiss but was made by a persistent Bellamy, who decided to defy the laws of science and sneak through a gap of 2 of our players to make them look almighty stupid. The bottom line is that despite their recent draws Man City are a good side with really good individuals and so with the team we put out we've got no right to go up there and beat them. We all admire the boss' persistence with these young players and he's sticking to his guns but as I said earlier in the week, we're desperate to lose that tag of 'haven't won a trophy in 4,5,6,7...years,' and we won't until we start to treat these games with respect. It's fine when you're playing a Championship side at home but to not even have 1 first team name on the bench away to Man City is just asking for a 3-0 pasting. Finally, there were some constant niggles between Wenger and Hughes throughout the game and it ended with Arsene walking down the tunnel and not shaking Sparky's hand. Ok, we know it's not a mandatory thing, we know you can 'shake hands with whom ever I want,' but Arsene, just shake the bloke's hand for christ sake. Bad losers, ungracious and rude are all things that have been said about him/us and then it reflects badly on the whole club and even the fans. Petty mate.

Chelsea were the victims of a Blackburn penalty shootout win in the other game last night. From what I saw Blackburn played pretty well and should have won the game in normal time but Kalou missed a few good chances as well. Ancelotti decided to make 3 changes at half time which might have cost him in the end as Chelsea were forced to play extra time and the last 15 of normal time without Kalou who was injured. Anyway, Villa got Blackburn and the authorities will be delighted to have 2 evening Manchester derbies to deal with.

As I reported yesterday England were named in the top seed pot for tomorrow's World Cup draw. Good news for us but we're still in for a nervous wait with the likes of France, Portugal, Ivory Coast, Mexico and USA all possibilities. It's hard to speculate any further on the combinations because there are a million of them but this is the big time, the World Cup, *cliche alert* there's no easy games here. I'm not really worried about who we get because I think we're strong enough to get through to the last 16 whatever the outcome. Last time we got Paraguay, Trinidad and Sweden which is pretty kind you have to admit, so maybe we're due someone like Portugal. Take her easy.