Arsenal vs Stoke City - Emirates Stadium, London - Sunday 24th May 2009

This was the last game of a season that has been frustrating for the most part, but with a few signs of encouragement along the way. We were playing catchup for most of the season, having lost to Fulham, Hull, Stoke, Villa and Man City by the end of November. The last 3 of those defeats came in November, truly an awful month for Arsenal fans, which also saw William Gallas stripped of the captaincy, and the media loving all of our troubles.

After that, we went 20 or so games unbeaten, but with far too many 0-0 draws in a frustrating 6 or 7 game spell in January and February. Then Andrei Arshavin came along, some injured players came back, and we all got excited again. Two very disappointing semi final defeats, and a 4-1 capitulation to Chelsea in the League, and we were all down in the dumps again.

In reality, we probably overachieved in a lot of respects this season. With the inexperience of our squad, and some of the injuries we had, we actually did pretty well. But the squad strength is ultimately the cause of our problems - they may be a world beating group of players in a few years, but they have weaknesses at the moment. I like many Arsenal fans fear that the "promised land" will never arrive - that the players won't improve, or that other clubs will keep picking players off during transfer windows, so that we are forever running to stay in the same place. But, I guess we need to keep the faith.

So, last game of the season, in the sunshine, and with nothing to play for. In those circumstances, Arsenal may just be the best team in the world, so we strolled to an easy 4-1 victory, which was all wrapped up by half time. The Guardian report tells the full story, but it was a decent day for Robin Van Persie, who scored 2 goals. So, another season over, and we "look forward" to a long summer of boringness. Thank God we have the Ashes to distract us, but it will still be a long 6 weeks until that all starts.

Arsenal Youth vs Liverpool Youth - Emirates Stadium, London - Friday 22nd May 2009

Everybody knows that Arsenal have some great young players. So, it shouldn't really be a surprise to see the Arsenal Under 18s team in the FA Youth Cup Final. What is probably more surprising is why they haven't been there over the previous years - this being their first final since the early part of the decade. In any case, it was a good opportunity to see some promising kids play, all for £3 admission too. As expected, there were plenty of fans there who were a fair bit younger than the players, and a good few local kids there too - always a good thing to see.

I had the unmissable opportunity to watch this game from the Diamond Club - the very exclusive area in executive box level, which is home to under 100 members, who each pay £25,000 a year for the privilege of watching their games from there. It has a Raymond Blanc restaurant (at a price!), and a "free" bar - not free of course for those paying £25k a season, but free for us for the evening. It isn't often that Arsenal buy you a beer, so I took as much advantage as possible.

About half an hour before kick off, Lukasz Fabianski walked into the bar where we were waiting for the game. A few started to bombard him with autograph requests, and I just stood and gawped, not really too interested in his autograph. A few minutes later, though, Cesc Fabregas arrived, and for him, I was interested. After fighting through a few kids, I managed to get a photo with the man himself - something decent to remember from an otherwise disappointing season!

So to the match. The view was obviously fantastic - the best view I've ever had at a football match. We looked down onto the Directors Box, with Arsene Wenger, Pat Rice, Liam Brady and a host of others there. The view for me was like watching on a huge widescreen TV, it was a TV perfect angle, right on the half way line. Very much like watching on telly, except you had the added bonus of being there. The roof of the executive tier comes surprisingly far down, so it feels quite cosy in there, almost like you are in a room with one open wall, if that makes any sense.

The game itself was full of good news - Arsenal won 4-1, and looked by far the better team throughout. Knowing him from the first team, I was keeping an eye on Jack Wilshere, and he was fantastic - setting up 2 goals, and drilling in a penalty himself. Watching the kids is always a bit weird in that they play exactly like the first team - it seems that the layout and style of play is exactly the same in every Arsenal team, just the players are different. So, it was like any Arsenal game where the team are on song, the play is fluent, and the result is the right one. A pleasure to watch, and we should be able to finish the job next week in the second leg.

The Guardian, to their immense credit, sent a reporter to cover the game (although, being based in Kings Cross, and living in Highbury they probably didn't have to travel too far!), so we can at least read a vaguely professional match report - not one that is more interested in the view from Diamond Club. As for Diamond Club, you could really get used to watching games from there - but the £25k a year required to do so may be a little hard to find!

Work trip to Valencia, Spain - 12th to 16th May 2009

Over the past 4 years, I've been doing a lot of travelling for work. In fact, until very recently, I'd barely gone a month without leaving the country at some point. Then my daughter came along, along with a recession induced travel clampdown, and I have been in London for the last 3 months. After constant use of the passport for a few years, I have to admit I've been going a but stir crazy. So, a sneaky work trip to Valencia for a conference was most welcome - especially as it was Valencia, which is obviously a great city.

The trouble with recessions is that everybody scales back their travelling. Which means that airlines scale back their flight. Which means that travelling gets harder. There are 3 direct flights a day from London to Valencia - 2 on Ryanair, and one on EasyJet. None were at the time I needed to go, so I found myself going on Iberia, changing planes in Madrid. One advantage of this was that I got to see the fantastic new airport terminal there, with a nice executive lounge, which enabled some early sampling of some Spanish ham.

Eventually in Valencia, it was scorching hot (and still only lunchtime). Our venue for the week was the Palacio de Congresos, a modern venue with lots of glass on the outside - which meant you could easily enjoy the Valencia sunshine from inside the building. Of course, during the week, we also got some time out in the sun, which was a welcome change from windy London. Wearing a suit in 30 degree heat was not a huge amount of fun - but its always a nice problem to have!

The congress centre was a block or two away from the New Mestalla, the football stadium that is being built for Valencia CF. Construction has slowed down recently, because of Valencia's money troubles, but what is built so far looked really impressive indeed - almost like a flower shape. On my taxi ride between conference centre and hotel, we spent much quality time stuck in traffic, looking at the new stadium. Looking forward to going there before too long.

My hotel was in a completely different part of town, in the City of Arts & Sciences. So, good views to be had, and it was an easy stroll to get out into the riverbed, to look at some of the fantastic architecture. There seem to be new buildings still springing up there too, as they develop the whole area from the city centre to the sea. One one evening, we had a tour of the Formula 1 circuit, the pits, and the Americas Cup area. There has been a ton of development in Valencia over the last 10 years, but I was struck by how empty much of it is - the tourists are not here (although of course this is still only May), and you wonder how many white elephants the city will be left with in a few years time.

Arsenal vs Chelsea - Emirates Stadium, London - Sunday 10th May 2009

After the extreme disappointment of the Manchester United game on Tuesday, there was at least something to cheer Arsenal fans up the following night. Chelsea's last minute exit to Barcelona, after having had 25,000 penalty claims turned down, was highly amusing. The intensity, bitterness and sheer sour grapes of their complaints, just underlined for many people how pleased they were to see them go out of Europe. Some of the dissent at the end of their game was just symptomatic of their "win at all costs" mentality, instilled in them by Jose Mourinho - his shadow still looms large over them.

So, we had the opportunity to laugh at Chelsea. Looking at their team sheet for this game, it was amazing just how many detestable players they have - Cole, Drogba, Anelka, Terry, Mikel, etc. Frank Lampard isn't that likeable, but came a poor sixth in the hate stakes - and would have been seventh if Michael Ballack had made the starting XI. Incredible. By contrast, the Arsenal team wasn't all that hateable - Adebayor being left on the bench saw to that. Fabianski bizarrely came in to face Chelsea after screwing up against them last time, and Arshavin again missed out, with a virus this time.

Arsenal started off OK, lots of possession, a few decent chances, the best of which fell to Theo Walcott to miss. Overall, the first half hour or so was a tale of much Arsenal possession, but relatively little to show for it. Against teams like Chelsea, that is always something that makes you nervous you might get punished. And, before too long, punished we were - Alex getting up relatively unopposed for a header, and the ball bouncing in off the underside of the bar. Again a soft centre in defence, and the keeper may have done better, but it was 1-0 to Chelsea, against the run of play.

Before half time, it became 2-0, a decent Anelka shot from outside the box, which swerved a bit, but was still nowhere near enough to the corner for the keeper to have missed it. It was a fair shot, but should really have been saved, and I think it needs to go down as a(nother) keeper error. Not good, and you have to question Fabianski's future at Arsenal now.

Just after half time, it was 3-0, an own goal from Toure. A good header from Nicklas Bendtner pulled one back with about 20 minutes to go, but Arsenal were never likely to get themselves back into the game. A late Malouda goal made it 4-1, for Arsenal's heaviest home League defeat for over 30 years, and what was something of a hammering all in all. The Arsenal players didn't really seem to show up - players like Van Persie and Nasri were rather anonymous, Walcott missed everything that came his way, Diaby was absolutely useless - and the few that did seem to be up for the game were always going to struggle against that background. It was pretty much the same starting team that had beaten Chelsea earlier in the season, and it just underlined the size of the gap between Arsenal on form, and Arsenal on a bad day. That gap is too big, and needs some experience to bolster our "bad day" performances so that we can get results from those games.

So, a depressing game. Despite the season being over, it could get a whole lot more depressing next week, as Manchester United could win the League against us - a grim possibility. It was all looking so hopeful about a month ago, but this will turn out to be a frustrating season for Arsenal fans. Thank God there is a long summer with no football, I am just about sick of it for now.

Arsenal vs Manchester United - Emirates Stadium, London - Tuesday 5th May 2009

Without a doubt, the biggest game at Emirates Stadium so far. More than likely, Arsenal's biggest home game since Anderlecht in 1970, a game which I (like many) wasn't alive for, and which even fewer Arsenal fans actually remember. Having lost the first leg at Old Trafford, Arsenal knew they needed either to win this game by 2 goals, or get a 1-0 win, which would of course involve stopping Rooney, Ronaldo and co from scoring. Tough stuff.

As requested, the fans were in the stadium early, building up the singing to the point where the ground was rocking when the teams came out. The flags, one on every Arsenal fan's seat, looked good, and the whistles made it an uncomfortable place for Man United to have the ball. The game kicked off, and Arsenal started taking the game to United - looking generally pretty positive for the first 5 to 10 minutes.

Then, after about 10 minutes, Kieron Gibbs slipped over in the box (as defenders do from time to time), and gifted an easy ball to Park Ji Sung to finish. 2-0 on aggregate, an away goal, and Arsenal needed three goals to go through. That completely burst the bubble of enthusiasm and confidence for both the team and the fans. Three minutes later, Ronaldo scored one of those free kicks that is really pretty hard for a keeper to do much about, to make it 2-0 on the night, 3-0 on aggregate, and the tie practically finished. So much anticipation, nervousness, and so many hopes for what Arsenal might do in the game - and the entire game plan had gone out of the window inside 10 minutes.

After that, the rest of the game was a complete let down from an Arsenal fans perspective. We huffed and puffed, didn't create a whole lot, and looked vulnerable whenever United broke at pace into our half. The third United goal came in the second half, one of those breakaway goals that Arsenal used to score when we had Pires and Henry. But, to be fair, it was the kind of goal you concede when you are busy chasing four goals at the other end. Arsenal didn't necessarily set themselves up wrong, or approach the game wrong, it was more that the whole plan had gone wrong before the game was even 15 minutes old. It is always going to be very difficult to recover from something like that.

Still, every cloud has a silver lining - Arsenal did score one goal, a penalty, for which Darren Fletcher received a very harsh red card, which will keep him out of the final. Obviously, it would have been much more fun had it been Rooney, Ronaldo, Ferdinand or one of the more odious Mancs, but there we go. All in all, a disappointing tie for Arsenal - we didn't really create very much across both legs; United defended far too well for the likes of Walcott and Adebayor to get any change at all out of them; and given the number of chances they created, they deserved to go through. For Arsenal, there's always next year, hopefully with more experience, and better luck.