Arsene Knows

Like the next man I like to see a lot of goals in a televised Sunday afternoon Premier League match but as Man United continued to humiliate Arsenal this afternoon I just ended up feeling embarrassed. It was like a FA Cup 3rd match, David v Goliath when you just know that the big team can score at will, and you wonder if eventually they will take their foot of the opposition's throat and allow them to reclaim a bit of pride.

There was too much joy on the faces Man U's players for them to let up, particularly that of Ryan Giggs, him with a long memory on the football pitch, but not as good of it. Well, he probably hasn't had this much of a good time for a while. Sir Alex Ferguson also looked embarrassed and said afterwards "I did not want them to score any more." I am sure that made Arsenal fans feel heaps better!

Arsene Wenger cut a sad solitary figure slumped in an oversized red leather seat. I'm not sure how he will ever recover from this and the Emirates on Saturday when the Gunners are at home to Swansea will be an anxious place, especially if the Frenchman doesn't sign the 8 players the experts in the press think he needs.

It was Arsenal's heaviest defeat since 1896, when Loughborough Town inflicted a 8-0 loss on the then Woolwich based side. They were so short of quality today and as each games passes that fictional shopping list that everyone writes for Wenger grows, mind you Szczesny was the Gunners' man of the match.

I like Wenger, I like his bloodymindedness and I have nothing but admiration for way he gets his teams to play the game of football. I have often said that Arsenal are the only other English team I would pay to see and I guess that is why I and I imagine many others this afternoon cringed at the sadness of it all.

Earlier, Spurs and Harry Redknapp, probably the next English manager if he can stay out of prison, was humbled by Man City. Manager Roberto Mancini finally finding the right blend of cash and football player.

I was a little excited this season thinking that the Premiership title could be a five or six team race, after 3 weeks it is obvious to everyone that it will be a two-horse race, even I think Chelsea will make up the numbers for a Champions League place.

As for Arsenal, tellingly when Wenger puts such an emphasis on youth, United's team today was younger than Arsenal's. Ferguson is on his 4th rebuild, yet Wenger looks like one of those starry-eyed pensioners who has just one the lottery.

As for Carl Jenkinson, the fact that he is playing underlines Arsenal's issues and Wenger's stubborness. When Jenkinson got that phone call earlier in the year from his agent saying that Arsene Wenger had been on the phone, the 19-year old must have thought he'd died and gone to heaven. After all it was only just before Christmas last year that he was playing for Eastbourne Borough in a four-game winless spell.

In fact I was going to write a few weeks ago how lucky he was to be playing and how I wondered Jonjo Shelvey felt about it now he has been pushed back down the pecking order at Anfield. Well, maybe it's the two managers we should compare and not the players.

Carl Jenkinson is so out of his depth it is not funny and when he took that long walk to the Old Trafford tunnel today after he was sent off, I think it was hell he was heading not heaven.