Morning all.

Well who would have thought that eh?

Having beaten Man City last season in the final of the FA Cup, Wigan only went and did it again yesterday in the semi-final.

I have to say they thoroughly deserved it too, at 2-0 they were cruising and despite City clawing one back through a Nasri goal which on another day could easily been disallowed, they defended like their lives depended on it and secured the victory.

Incredible…..

As a result, it’s us who they face next at Wembley in the semi-final and it’ll be a tough old fixture if Wigan turn up and play the same as they did yesterday. Especially if Arsene Wenger and the players think it will be easy because rest assured, it won’t be!

The Bookies have suddenly made us favourites but as we all know, we have a Carling Cup final to look back on to confirm that Bookies get it wrong all too often…

That semi-final is a weeks away though, between now and then we have Bayern Munich tomorrow night and plenty of PL fixtures to face and try to stay in the chase for title….

Our performance against Everton has certainly lifted the spirits somewhat, well it certainly has mine and that’s the level we at least need to be at if we are to go on a good run from now until the end of the season. The return or Aaron Ramsey and maybe even a fit Kim Kallstrom could take our play up another notch.

Olivier Giroud ( No Jamie Carragher, you don’t pronounce the ‘d’) has been talking about his little mishap:

There was some things which were true, some others were false. But that’s the past.

What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. I’m convinced that everything happened to me will make me stronger.

That’s all I need to do: focus on the pitch with my club and take care of my family.

It’s been a difficult period. You have to be strong in your head. I used football as an outlet.Β The contribution of the coach Arsene Wenger was very important.Β I could talk with him.

Now I just want to forget about it, move on to something else and make a new start.

Well credit where it’s due, he certainly helped make a difference when he came off the bench on Saturday and he took both his goals well so hopefully that’s a sign that he really is over his issues and he’s ready to start scoring again (on the pitch) because we need him to be. He started the season really well and his early form needs to be found again.

Arsene Wenger believes Mesut Ozil is over his problems too:

[The missed penalty against Bayern] affected him mentally too much. It was not only physical, it was mental. He had the feeling he let the team down at a very important moment. That affected his performance very much.

Psychologically sometimes the wound is like a physical one. You can talk and talk and talk, but it takes time. You just have to leave it to time. I think he is over it. He has a good opportunity to show on Tuesday night how good he is.

He showed on Saturday just how good he can be but as has been said so often before, he needs players alongside him with pace and movement and that’s just what we and he had on Saturday and we looked so so much better going forward than we have done for a while.

Play like that tomorrow night and who knows, we may just spring a surprise in Germany…..

That’s it for today, have a good one…..