West Ham United vs Arsenal - Upton Park, London - Sunday 5th November 2006

There can't have been much police leave allowed in London today. Spurs played Chelsea, but before that, Arsenal travelled to the salubrious surroundings of Newham, to play against the market traders and jellied eel merchants of West Ham. Every time I go there, I am reminded that shitholes are not just the preserve of northern away games - we have them in London too! See also: Tottenham.

On the back of a frustrating couple of games, with dogged opposition defending and wasteful Arsenal finishing on show, there was a sense of optimism that we would put things right in this game. If only because West Ham had spent most of the previous 2 months losing to anybody they could find to lose to. With blinding lunchtime sunlight hampering our view, the game kicked off.

Unfortunately, though, this was a classic example of sod's law. Arsenal just didn't really turn up for the game. I don't know who was wearing out number 4 and 14 shirts, but they didn't look anything like Cesc Fabregas or Thierry Henry, judging by the performances. Arsenal spent the entire game huffing and puffing - not really doing very much at all - not really attacking, not really creating chances, just having their midfield play broken down by very determined West Ham players.

After about an hour, West Ham chucked 2 strikers on, clearly sensing that all was not well with Arsenal. Shame that one was Teddy Sheringham, because a sense of dread came over the away section, as if it was obvious that he would score against us. As it turned out, he didn't - he just set up the winner, a classic sucker punch with about 3 minutes left on the clock.

Nobody really deserved to win the game I thought (especially as Arsenal had a stonewall penalty turned down), but our insipid play was just asking for a late winner like that. Rosicky looked OK in parts, Toure gave 100% as usual, but as a team, we just weren't at the races today.

In fact, the only result of the day was that Fabregas punched Teddy Sheringham in the stomach, just after the final whistle. The boy is doing everything right to become an Arsenal legend - played badly today, but punched our most hated player of the last decade. Well done Cesc.