Congratulations to the Youth’s on their victory at Anfield, fitting that Steve Bould should once more win silverware at Anfield. The hard work that has been put in not just this season but in those previously, in building an Academy that can produce players to go on to the first team is paying dividends. It is a good sign for the club that the team has won, the taste of success will hopefully make those players hungry for more as they progress through the ranks.

In itself, winning the FA Youth Cup is but one marker for the Academy. More telling in the value of the work will be those that make the grade at the club. At the moment, all that can be said is that there appears to be more potential for this current batch of youngsters to achieve that aim than perhaps there has been in the past. Crucially for the players, they know that if they fail to do so at Arsenal, there is a better than average chance of it happening in the game as a whole. If you look around the divisions, the number of players at other clubs who started their careers at Arsenal but were released by Arsenal seems to be higher than normal. When Wenger is castigated in the media for a lack of English players in his first XI, those elsewhere seem to be conveniently overlooked. That none of them are setting the world of fire is not his fault. David Bentley is a prime example of having unfulfilled talent. Despite no shortage of publicly stated belief in himself, he seems likely to be offloaded by Spurs this window.

The English game is not helping itself. Theo Walcott is one of the brightest young talents around yet the national team is intent on burning him out before he reaches 21 summers old. It is frankly ludicrous that he is picked for the full and Under-21 England squads, requiring him to play potentially until a week before Arsenal resume pre-season training. Every time that there is an international schedule, the usual concerns arise about player fitness and how the football calendar does little to assist the clubs and for that matter, the national teams.

This time though, the situation is simply too stupid for words. Well, not quite but seemingly intelligent men are making crass decisions. There is no logic and personally I believe the Football Association has to take action. There has to be an intervention on their part and Stuart Pearce told that he cannot have Walcott. Failing that, the player should realise that rest is required before next season. I do not hold out any hope of commonsense prevailing. It never does in football.

Walcott though turned his attention to what is required in order to challenge for the title next season:

Man United only won one game out of their matches against the top four, so it just shows how important every game is in the Premier League. The so-called littler clubs, away and at home, they are the points you have to make up. We have to do the dirty work, like we have learned from this year, and take that into next season.

That has always been the crucial aspect but it overlooks one important thing. United win their home games. For the past two seasons, their record at Old Trafford has been outstanding. This season, they dropped seven points, last season even less. By comparison, Arsenal do not stand very well and this needs to be rectified. To highlight that, United only picked up six more points on the road than Arsenal meaning that they collected twelve more at home. This has to be addressed as much as turning defeats on travels into draws and draws into victories. It is not often that a team wins the title in equal measure at home and away. Most of the time it is achieved through being outstanding in one or the other.

Elsewhere, Adebayor is staying and believes that Wenger and Cesc are as well whilst Robert Pires thinks it would be a mistake to let him go. Brede Hangeland is the subject of all speculation emanating from these shores about whom Arsene is going, sorry not going, to sign. Oh, what the hell. Nobody knows and since it is not going to happen immediately, should we be bothered? Anyway, the player got a rave review from Roy Hodgson over the weekend. Whilst Hangeland reckons he is not leaving Fulham, his manager thinks they won’t be able to stop him. Confused? You will be.

’til Tomorrow.