For scoring tonight against the Gunners when Harry really needed you.

For keeping your head down when the media vultures pulled you apart, highlighting the unfortunate coincidence between your appearances and Premier League failure.

Having the best left foot at Tottenham Hotspur football club.

Not going on loan to a crap team.

....what a superb evening for the lily whites - unlucky Wenger's boys - great derby tonight.

Arsenal 2 West Ham 0 20th March 2010 Premier League

Arsenal looked to set this latest Premier League weekend's pace with a 2-0 win over London rivals West Ham United, putting them top for at least the next 20 hours or so.

For the first 30 minutes, the Gunners showed us their dominance up front. It took less than 5 minutes for the home team to take the lead with Denilson strike from just outside the area. The was not a great deal more excitement for the majority of the first half except for perhaps Diamanti and Campbell going in the book, but in the 44th minute the visitors had plenty to shout about when Vermaelen was controversially sent off for a challenge on Guillermo Franco in the box. However despite scoring in the previous 2 encounters between the London rivals, Almunia denied Diamanti his third time lucky. Gooners would say it was a great save, Hammers would point to the fact Almunia was a long way off his line. 1:0 to the home team at half time.

In the second half the Hammers tried their best to make their extra man work for them, but to no avail. Just after 80 minutes a hand ball by ex gunner Matthew Upson handed a penalty to the Arsenal, which Fabregas converted with ease. This galvanised the Wenger boys, who threatened a third for the remainder of the match. However going after 90 minutes top of the premiership is surely result enough for the Gooners. But will they able to play this convincingly against Barcelona??

Premier League 20th March 2010 latest fixtures and lunchtime result

Lunchtime match 20th March 2010 (12:45pm)
Aston Villa 2 Wolverhampton 2 PREMIER LEAGUE RESULT

3 o'clockers
Everton v Bolton, Goodison Park 3pm
Portsmouth v Hull, Fratton Park 3pm
Stoke v Tottenham, Brittania Stadium 3pm
Sunderland v Birmingham, Stadium of Light 2pm
Wigan v Burnley, JJB Stadium 15:00

Evening match
Arsenal v West Ham, Emirates Stadium 5.30pm

13/03/2010 Spurs 3 Blackburn Rovers 1 Barclays Premiership result

Today's lunchtime Premier League match was at White Hart Lane as Big Sam's Blackburn Rovers took on Harry Redknapp's Spurs who are battling fiercely for that fourth position in the league. OK so as a keen Football Blogger I do self indulge content wise - Spurs are my team. However this was a game with lots of goal mouth incident, tough refereeing calls for Howard Webb to make and 4 goals - it could have so easily been more.

Blackburn Rovers, captained by Chris Samba set a defensive stall out but unfortunately lost ex Tottenham Hotspur 'keeper Paul Robinson after the first 15 mins with a calf injury.

Blackburn remained resilient and managed a handful of attacking breaks, namely David Dunn who clashed with Corluka after a great run - this was a tough call for the ref but without my Spurs scarf on, I think that he did get this one correct - I think Dunn fouled Corluka.

On the stroke of half time, Jermaine Defoe poached a goal in typical goal scorer fashion, tapping in from close range as Corluka Had headed the Modric corner goal wards.

Roman Pavlyuchenko scored the other 2, sandwiching a late goal from captain Chris Samba.

"It's a great win for us," said Harry Redknapp on the Tottenham Hotspur website. "You get a feelings about games and driving to the stadium this morning, I just felt it was going to be difficult day for us against Blackburn because they are so strong.

"We watched re-runs of their match against Liverpool and they gave them a lot of problems so to pick up the three points was great for us.

Chelsea 2 Man City 4 Premier League result 28/02/2010

Manchester City took 3 points away from Stamford Bridge today in over 17 years, with a riveting 6 goal match taking Man City into fourth position.

It was unfortunate that this exciting game had an element of tension with the well publicised John Terry and Wayne Brudge friendship bust up. In the team meeting prior to the match kick off, Wayne Bridge did no shake John Terry's outstretched hand which then led to the Chelsea fans booing Bridge for the entire match. All typical pantomime stuff really - Wayne Bridge was a perfect professional about the whole occasion and showed that he has match sharpness after his knee injury. England calls, Mr Bridge - we need you!

At the end of the match, Sky Sports congratulated Carlos Tevez and Craig Bellamy on their goal scoring and away victory. Inevitably they asked about how things had been in the Man City in relation to the Wayne Bridge - John Terry bust up. "You guys (the media) make a lot more of it you know (the fall-out between Terry and Bridge). I know what JT is like and nothing surprises me about it, so I'm not going to comment on that. I think everybody in football knows what the guy is like, but that's off the field. "On it he's an outstanding player. He's a great captain for Chelsea. It's always going to be difficult when you play him and his team."

The last bit of friction was Tevez and John Terry squaring up chest to chest with the referee jumping promptly in to prevent any unsavoury scenes.

The first 40 minutes of this match was dominated by Chelsea, Manchester City had Carlos Tevez back in a lone striker role with a defensive travelling strategy under new boss Roberto Mancini. To be honest, the play was dull so when Frank Lampard took his chance with international class written all over it the neutral football fan benefited almost instantly.

Manchester City managed to equalise with a pivotal moment in the game with Tevez battling on his own against Terry and Carvalho, then managing somehow to scrape a shot past Petr Cech's understudy Henrique Hilario just before half time. Hilario will be criticised for this goal and his performance in general today.

In the second half, Man City had more possession and better quality attacking moves. It was Craig Bellamy that got City's second with a sprint down the left hand flank, dribbling directly at the Chelsea full back and then shooting across Hilario who seemed to get his angles a bit wrong.

Chelsea had Ballack sent off after Carlos Tevez had converted a spot kick where Belleti fouled Gareth Barry from behind clumsily in the penalty box. This period of time killed it for the home team.

Wright-Philips came on towards the end, hit Chelsea on the break to square to Bellamy to make it 1-4. Chelsea lost a second player to a red card late on, finishing the last 5 minutes off with 9 men. Chelsea got a penalty late on which Frank Lampard converted but this was Team Bridge's day, pushing Man City into a Champions League spot in the Barclays Premier League.

As for England, we really need Wayne Bridge - hopefully the emotional hurt that he has heals a little before the World Cup because I want to see this lad play...he's brilliant! John Terry has definitely had a dip in form, looks like he might have lost concentration (understandably) and perhaps a yard of pace. Poor old Capello!

For those of you living in a cave, it was revealed this weekend that John Terry has been bonking the ex girflriend of Wayne Bridge, who is also the mother of Wayne's child. Some are saying that this act of betrayal will so undermine respect for John Terry within the England squad, Terry has to surrender his captaincy. Others argue that this is a private matter, which has absolutely no bearing on Terry's professional life. It is certainly a topic that will run and run in the countdown to South Africa.

My view is that although Wayne Bridge can be none too pleased at the revelations, if as reported his relationshop with his ex was well and truly over before her affair with Terry kicked off, Terry's acts, although a betrayal of his wife (for which she deservedly should red card him if she sees fit) but not a betrayal of his team mate. Bridge's concerns for his son are understandable, but Terry did do his best to gag the media. I do not want to see England lose a captain because of Wayne Bridge's hurt pride. If every footballer who had an affair was demoted, the conference would be full of world class talent.

As Spurs have their UEFA Champions League dream this season, Fulham also look to push themselves into this hunting pack between 4th and 6th in the Premier League.

Both London sides started brightly with Zamora taking up good positions against the Spurs back four and Modric dictating alot of the Tottenham possession. If anything though it was the home team that looked dangerous, with Damien Duff making things difficult for Corluka down the left flank. Zamora had a big chance but fluffed it; a big moment in the 1st half for the former Spur who had passed a late fitness test after recovering from a broken collarbone.

Un the 27th minute Peter Crouch used his height to open the scoring, nodding a left footed David Bentley cross from the right hand side as he cut inside. A neat header but a possible lack of judgement from Fulham 'keeper Schwarzer as he came some length for the cross. Then Modric battled to get the original looping header back to Crouch who poked the ball into the net. A good 45 minutes for ex-Blackburn Rovers player David Bentley who was deputising for the pacey Aaron Lennon. Bentley seemed to enjoy alot of space in the first half and looked pretty neat for the home side.

In the 45th minute Luca Modric had a great chance within the penalty area after some neat dribbling but blasted his shot just over the cross bar.

In the second half Tottenham Hotspur played smooth, attacking football, piling on the pressure to build on thier 1-0 lead. The goal came eventually with a deflected free kick from David Bentley. Unlucky for the away side but Spurs were definitely good for it, with the industry of Huddlestone/Palacios and Modric's wizardry in midfield.

For Tottenham, it was good to see the confidence gradually trickle back into both David Bentley and Gareth Bale. Dawson failed to get a header on target from a great Bentley cross and Bale tirelessly bombed up and down the left flank, looking every bit a Premier League quality wing back.

Fulham took Zamora off and he would have been dissapointed to get his goal at White Hart Lane. Fulham had some nice attacking moves in the last ten minutes and Redknapp took the decision to put on the athletic Robbie Keane in order to counter balance this possession.

The home side killed it to win 2-0 to get a great 3 points to fight off Liverpool from muscling the 4th position off them.

FA Cup Result 24/01/10 Stoke 3: Arsenal 1

While most of Arsenal's first team were rested to concentrate on the league, Wenger's second choice selection of young talent plus former legend Sol Campbell crashed out of the FA cup at the Britannia Stadium yesterday. Although at 67 minutes and at 1:1 Wenger brought on the big guns of Arshavin and Eduardo plus the talented youngster Aaron Ramsey, this triple change was too little, too late. Ironically Stoke, who played well throughout and deserved their win, played even better after Wenger's change. The Arsenal manager had wanted to avoid a replay but got his wish granted somewhat differently than he had hoped when Fuller whacked in a second goal for the home team and Etherington got the third.

Many Gooners are bemoaning Wenger's team choice as they saw the cup competition as Arsenal's best chance of winning silverware this year. However as I wrote last week, I believe Arsenal do still have a reasonable chance of winning the league this year if they can continue their unbeaten run through their next few fixtures. In the next couple of weeks Arsenal are playing Villa, Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool and understandably Wenger did not want to add to his injury list for this challenging run in. These tough choices around team selection are unfortunately the reality for clubs who don't have owners with deep deep pockets.

Plus although the FA Cup is a great competition, winning the Premiership is a far superior prize. It was only 2 years ago that Portsmouth won the cup but have been pretty much in freefall since. This year Man United and Liverpool are already missing from the competition, which in my view would devalue the win somewhat (unless of course you are a Leeds fan)! So in my view Wenger did the right thing by resting his first team, although I am not convinced that Sol Campbell is the answer to Arsenal's defensive problems!

Who wants to be a millionaire? Who wants to be a millionaire whose vocation in life is being a Premier League footballer for either Manchester United or Manchester City?

ALL OF US!

Carlos Tevez and Gary Neville have lacked class and taste with their recent spate of name calling in the media. In my 2nd favourite sport, cricket, you would not win any friends from such vocal behaviour and indeed would compromise your position long term.

I would love football to have more honour and respect in it - both on the field and off of the pitch. Surely the two are intrinsically linked. As football has become progressively non-contact, I think the pent-up anger in the stands has got worse in some ways. As a spectacle football is ahead of both cricket and rugby in terms of popularity but lots of parents that look to take their kids to sporting events will shy away from subjecting them to a barrage of swearing and friction between opposing fans and assault slinging towards prima donnas like Tevez and Neville.

Do footballers take their positions seriously enough? Their actions have a huge influence on millions of football enthusiast youngsters.

Grow up chaps.