Back to it.

Good morning.

It's been too long without The Arsenal. As all seven of you will know, I've been bored. The ukulele playing has coming on to such an extent that I now know about half of two songs, which in real terms makes one whole song, although somewhat disjointed, discordant and a bit shit. The bathroom that for so long remained unpainted due to my slump in now finished. Sort of.

Thanks to the cunts at BT, my fully planned David Rocastle tribute blog turned into a snatched measly effort done at Simon Amstell Hair's house whilst trying to cook bits of Hairy Biker chicken. So apologies if you were expecting a profound epistle, I was planning on posting it anyway after the event, but it simply wouldn't have had the same resonance if I had. 

 All the other blogs that I read wrote some beautiful, moving stuff, and the world of twitter was a very sad place on Wednesday. Bizarrely, I found it more upsetting than the day Rocky passed away, maybe because I was reading tweets all day from not only supporters of Arsenal, but Leeds, Chelsea, Man City and even that lot up the road, as opposed to chatting with the same mates about it in The Bailey that awful day in 2001. I don't know. Whatever, it was an amazing reaction from a legion of Gooners and the football world, remembering and celebrating a special talent, a gentleman and an Arsenal man through and through. I remarked to Uncle Jay (Gooner in exile No.2) that with a few more like him in our team we may well have had the Premiership title sown up already. RIP, Rocky, loved and never forgotten.

A special mention goes to Tim Stillman (@LittleDutchVA) for his blog. I just thought it summed up everything we all thought about the man and more. Good work, young man. I say young - he's pushing thirty, but as a forty year old he seems young to me - I'm old now, but not as old as my old man who's eighty, so in Dad's eyes he's a baby. Good work, baby.

Back to the ukulele football today, and our match against Blackburn. Amazingly, most of our players on international duty have come back unscathed, and those that were scathed are ok. Van Persie's in the squad after a clout on the knee, the ankle of Nicklas Bendtner has self-healed due to the ego-fluid coursing through his veins, and the usual injury suspects Cesc, Song, Diaby and Walcott all return. The only one missing is Aaron Ramsey out with a groin strain. After being thrust into the limelight as Captain of Wales last weekend and seeing the game pretty much pass him by (surprise, surprise), groin strain or no groin strain, he could do with a few days off.

It's yet another massive game, and we're beginning to run out of them. I literally can't emphasise enough how important this game is. Goalkeeper and first choice centre halves apart, we've got the first team back, and we can not, dare not, drop points tomorrow. I've said before we're going to have to outscore teams to beat them, because we sure as fuck can't depend on us not conceding, but with the attacking players available there should be no excuses.

Phil Dowd is the referee today, and why not, after his brilliant performance at St James' Park which saw us throw away a four goal lead (on the day of my 40th birthday, thank you), with just a touch of a helping hand from his good self. Untold Arsenal have a good piece casting an ugly shadow over him and today's game which can be found here. Well worth a read, I just hope to God they're wrong, or we're all fucked.

Man Utd travel to Scott Parker in a game they should win, Chelsea take on Stoke with Fernando Torres on fire, and Man City will no doubt bore everyone to death with a tight win over Sunderland, enlivened only by some Balotelli antics, (which is probably why they bought him in the first place) and S****s go to Wigan. Let's presume that they all win, which is quite probable, and our position in the table, should we drop points, will be seriously under threat. So, focus, please.

Welcome back, Johnny 'Faxe' Jensen, Arsenal goal-scoring legend with the strange thin moustache and hair of pubes and now assistant manager at Blackburn that bought me a beer in a shady nightclub way back in 1994 in Copenhagen. I hope today is miserable for you, but thanks for the drink, and this -

Right oh. Good luck to everyone in The Arsenal Family involved in 'Rocky Remembered' at The Rocket today. Hope it all goes well, everyone leaves legless, and you raise a ton of money for Great Ormond Street Hospital. A sterling effort for a great cause. If you want to donate, and you should, go here.

Hopefully there'll be no more problems with the Internet at Northern Gooner Mansions, but I can't promise anything. If there's no new posts for the next week or so, I suggest you call 0800 800 150 and take it up with them. The pricks.

Come on you Reds.