We’ve bagged another kid – this one is a Brit, his name is Tarum Dawkins and he’s a 16 year old winger from Luton.

Now if that doesn’t get you all excited, nothing will! 😉 To be fair, many English clubs wanted to sign him but yet again, the boy realised where he’ll get the best footballing chance and he’s taken it….

Talking of the best football – Sunday’s 5-2 over Tottenham against a very average, yet top three side, is still fresh in our minds and it will be for a long time…

It wasn’t just a win though was it, it was more like a destruction of a team many pundits thought could challenge for top spot. We did to them what Manchester United did to us at the beginning of the season, long before we had added our summer signings.

We out-played them, we out manoeuvred them and we outclassed them, in other words we annihilated them.

There was no show-boating, no belittling, just pure professionalism – something we need to see again today.

However, and to little surprise the media and the press saw that game differently, they didn’t see the deliberate cheating dive by Gareth Bale which resulted in the referee Mike Dean awarding them a penalty.

Was Mike Dean fully committed to his decision or did he think that the penalty was justification or was he just trying to give Tottenham a helping hand in one of the fiercest fixtures in a Premier League season.

No matter how many times the replays have been shown on the television, not once has this strange decision been questioned?

Any football supporter, regardless of who they support would have surely seen that incident and expect for the ‘offending player’ to be at least booked, or Bale sent off for taking a dive?

The whole incident was hardly discussed during or after the match which makes me believe more than ever that there are measures to help some teams more than others.

Many times I have watched one of the top clubs in the league play against one of the lower positioned sides as a neutral, and I know that a penalty should be awarded but the referee has chosen not give it  – the commentator explains how the refs position was not the best angle, or it would have been a hard decision to give, or the old cliché, ‘I have seen them given for less’.

People have often said that after a defeat you are a bad loser if you complain about a decision that has been awarded against you, but when you have annihilated an opponent like we did on Sunday against Tottenham, why were questions not asked about Deans decision?

Biased refereeing has to be stamped out and honest ones be allowed to take over, we have to push for it as the football authorities will not – not unless they are forced to.

Today we are up against Liverpool, Kenny Dalglish is a media favourite, Steven Gerrard is another, as is Jamie Carragher, Pepe Reina, Andy Carroll, the list goes on and the referees usually refer to them during a game by their christian name, but with us, it’s usually by number!

All a bit cosy and friendly, yes!

The official today is Mark Halsey, an interesting choice by the FA as he was born in Welwyn Garden City, Herts.

Wonder who he supported as a kid growing up. let’s just hope it wasn’t the team we battered 5-2, otherwise he could be one of a long list of referee’s who has, or have tried to have an influence on the outcome of our fixtures.

I hope that we talk about the game at the end and not another ambiguous decision made by yet another ref and certainly not one that ‘cost us’!

Another game, another three points badly needed but we have doubts over the fitness of Thomas Vermaelen and Robin van Persie if we believe reports however yesterday both were involved in training so I wouldn’t bet against both turning out at lunchtime.

We all know how this side can perform, we saw it last weekend, we need that kind of courage and determination today!

Nothing else will be good enough, and nothing other than that kind of performance will bring three points back to London. From the manager down, we need to treat this game as we did the NLD last weekend, play with the same purpose, the same passion, the same desire and with the same pride we saw in the players.

Do that and none of us will complain, regardless of the result!

Finally, Wenger picked up the manager of the month award for the first time in a long while!!

I hope he gets it for March too, as we all know what that would mean……

Written by Steve Palmer