Morning Gooners

Not the headline you were expecting, after all I’m a passionate Arsenal supporter, but I’m also a proud Englishman and I feel that England deserve better than what is going on at the moment.

At this moment in time, the country I support is being managed by an interim boss who has expressed a desire to take the full-time position, albeit recently Stuart Pearce has suggested it’s a bit too much for him, but what he will do is perform his duties to the best he can and with pride for his country.

However, the FA seem to be after one man to take the job and that is Dirty Arry, the current Tottenham boss and it does rather appear that he will be appointed as and when Harry feels he is ready to leave his club.

The England Managers job is not part-time position, it can only be all or nothing – it’s a prestigious post and one which many Managers would bite your hand off for.  It is a position that affords one of the best salaries in world football, a one in a lifetime chance, but Redknapp is still managing Tottenham Hotspur and I want to know why!

We have the Euro’s coming up in a couple of months and the country I support needs to be preparing, the manager should already be in place planning for that tournament now! He should be attending matches, watching all of the players who he feels should be representing England.

If Tottenham Hotspur are more important to Redknapp than England then he is the wrong man for the job!

It’s common knowledge that our own Arsene Wenger has been approached by the FA i in relation to the England Jon the past,  but Wenger has immediately declined the offer,making it clear that his priorities are Arsenal, thanks for the offer but no thank you.

Stuart Pearce has been involved with England for many years, he has and still is managing the under 21’s side and he’s also been a part of Capello’s set-up,  so he’s no newcomer.

The FA have no doubt spoken to Pearce, maybe they have told him that he’s pencilled in to take over one day, who knows.

Pearce said after the defeat to Holland that he is not experienced enough, was that just said so Redknapp can pick and choose when it suits him to pick up the reigns.

Not good enough in my eyes, either Redknapp wants the job or not, take it now and get my country ready for the Euro’s or just let someone else take the job, some who does care!

Now that I have got that out of my system we have our last game against Newcastle to mull over, a touch and go finish but we  secured the important 3 points needed to move us closer to those above, especially the noisy neighbours.

They will now be looking over their shoulders  and as Theo pointed out in his post match interview, we must keep pressing and we must make them all feel uncomfortable. Many supporters doubted that Arsenal could secure a top four position and although it is not in the bag we have definitely moved closer to securing a Champions League spot than we were a few weeks ago.

I never doubted we could catch some of the sides ahead of us a few months ago, not for one minute and I never doubted we could pass some of them and I still don’t now!

We have shown that other teams misfortunes can be capitalised on by us, we all know that all teams have lean spells but the secret is to not be one of them.

Arsenal have done well to hang in there and although at times we have ridden our luck,  we have never given up and that is the most important thing, belief can do the strangest things at times and the strangest thing is you don’t ever know how far belief will take you.

Arsene Wenger has instilled that belief into our squad, we now have more players returning from injury but I believe we should not make wholesale changes, feed the  returning players in slowly as this current group who have dragged us back in contention should not cast aside as we push on in the final stage of this season.

Good substitutions at the right time will keep the continuity and that’s just what we need, every player in our squad is important and they need to keep giving their all to the last game.

The belief we have can take us all the way as who knows what other sides will do, but  what we have to do is carry on believing, and target those above us.

Who knows, a bad season could turn into a great one if we just carry on having that belief!!

Written by Steve Palmer

Two little bits to add, both Santos and Diaby, yes Diaby should be fit enough to be in the squad that travel to Goodison Park next Wednesday to face Everton. Santos is set to feature for the reserves tonight as could Diaby. Mind you, if the latter does, he’ll probably get injured again!