It might be that now, just maybe… we are off the hook with the Football Gods for Eduardo’s dive. We’ll see.

Do you still not believe? When Eduardo dived against Celtic, I warned you that it meant a spell of bad luck would be upon us. Did I not? And you can be damn certain that’s what we got. Let’s review, shall we?

• Eduardo dives, we win against Celtic
• Cesc gets his hamstring done and misses the trip to Manchester United
• Eduardo to face charges for diving
• Eboue dives at Old Trafford Nevermind that happens all the time
• We had Red Devils on the ropes in Old Trafford, but it all went suddenly to shit
• We lose Arshavin for three matches
• We lose Djourou for the season
• We get tossed in Man City by none other than Emmanuel Adebayor
• We go down 2-0 to Standard Liege in the opening 5 minutes of the match

And then… you could just hear it on the wind… the Football Gods whispered… “Had enough?” With their thumb held above us, ready to crush us again if we were to give the wrong answer. We appropriately folded our tails between our legs and averted our eyes, and the Football Gods vanished… allowing us to get on with it.

And we did. And it was good. Not great, but good. Just before the half, Niklas Bendtner knocked us one in to which the announcer started yelling “It’s an equalizer! Arsenal have now equalized!” To which his producer whispered in his ear, “It’s 2-1 you fucking knob.” But luck was with us, as Thomas Vermaelen then managed to toe-tap one after it caromed off Song’s arm. His arm was out, so I think it probably shouldn’t have counted. But who the fuck am I to question the Football Gods who are now snugly entrenched in our camp? Then, as if to punctuate everything I’m trying to say, they rolled the ball in front of the man who started this whole bad mojo episode… and Eduardo put us ahead with less than ten minutes to go. We played kickball for the remainder and took home the points. Mission accomplished, and back in the good graces of the Gods of Football. Let us not piss them off again. Ever. Do you hear me Eboue? Stay on your feet.

So, as a first test… we’ll see what happens when we get Wigan at the weekend. They’re basically on the same record as us, two slots back, but without deity intervention. So, we should have this in the bag. But, you never know. I’m calling this one 3-1 for the Arsenal.

Live blogging this one as I watch the recorded game.

We’ve been pretty ineffectual thus far. I can’t decide if it’s down to our lack of effort or City’s ability to keep us out of the box. The clock reads 53:00, we’re down 1-0, but TR7 has just arrived on the scene and it seems like there could be a turn in the tide.

RvP! @ 63′ slides one on by Given after nearly getting clattered to the the pitch. So deserved, he’s been struggling to get into goal scoring ways. Lovely right-footed touch.

Shay Given gets what appeared to be a pretty painful sitting upon by Cesc and a City defender. They use this delay to cool our attack. A few minutes later, Adebaysnore pretends to get an elbow from Gallas and sucks up a bit more time. What a twat.

71′ RvP is on the deck getting treatment. Not good… Ah, now I see, that prick Adebayor stomped on his fingers. You can see in the replay it was deliberate. Just goes to prove, he was never Arsenal. Good fucking riddance.

UPDATE: I didn’t see it last night, but now watching the replays it’s clear that he raked his studs down the side of Robin’s face. The FA is looking into it. I hope he gets punished severely.

74′ we just got fucking worked by Richards and Bellamy. 2-1.

We seemed on the path to pull one back and get the lead, but it just evaporated. You can’t say it’s not an interesting match though, hell no. I just wish the score were reversed.

77′ Eduardo & Eboue arrive on the scene to replace Song & Sagna.

Adebayor just simply eviscerated our defense, but nothing came of it, luckily. Make no mistake, we’re most certainly on the back foot again.

Fuck… Adebayor scores and runs to the Away fans to celebrate in front of them. 3-1. Did I say something earlier about this twat having never been Arsenal? Well, if you didn’t believe it before, now you can. It was nice seeing him get pelted with debris from the away fans, at least. There’s a positively thick yellow line of police coats surrounding the Arsenal fans now.

Shaun Wright Phillps has just put this one out of reach after an excellent run by Craig Bellamy. Words I thought I’d never write. But, it just happened. We’ve been entirely outclassed on all ends of the pitch. 4-1.

88′ Tomas Rosicky just scored, which is nice to see or him. 4-2. But I think it’s just too little too late. Still, good to see that he’s back on track.

Full time… Adebayor is named as man of the match, which is fitting, I hate to admit. His goal was good, but his defensive efforts, oddly enough, were even better. He was up for the match more than any of our lot, pains me as it does to admit.

I’m certainly disappointed with the result, but not entirely disappointed with the performance. If we had played the whole 90 minutes like we did the last 30, we would have won the match. But alas… we awoke too late. Next time, Arsenal. Next time.