Hello there, welcome to a brand new ARSBLOG ARSCAST, right here on ARSBLOG.com.

I hope you're well. I've been sitting here for the last little while wondering how exactly it is you start an ARSCAST like this one after the week we've had.

We were all hoping to be here, waving imaginary carling cups above our head, going yay! No longer can the media go on with it's been 5 years, 8 months, 7 days, 12 hours, 16 seconds, it's Arsenal last one at Trophy.

And now they can. And as well as that they can say, you know they go to the final and they lost a Birmingham too, I mean, which is understandable I suppose.

But I was hoping it would be more like when you went to the cinema as a kid and we could be sitting here today and you know when you came out of the cinema and you saw film and you were going, what's your favorite bit?

Oh, my favorite bit was this. I mean, what's your favorite bit? Oh, remember when that guy did that? Well, that was my favorite bit. No, my mind was in it.

I remember going to see Rocky 3, I think it was in the greens, center of my hair in Dublin. And we came out of the cinema and I was, oh, what's your favorite bit?

And one guy goes, oh, do you remember that bit? And he turned around face first into a big concrete lamppost, which was quite hilarious, especially as it was his birthday.

And his nose was gushing blood and all that kind of stuff. On reflection, I should have probably laughed more than I did at the time. I showed some concern as you do on a guy's birthday, but it really was very, very funny.

But we don't have the chance to do that. What was your favorite bit? Because you don't really have a favorite bit when you lose a cup final, especially when you lose a cup final in the way that we lost it.

Winning cup finals in the final minute is absolutely fantastic. Thank you, Andy Linnigan, losing them in the last minute is particularly painful.

You all know about name. And now we can add 48-year-old Oberfemi Martins to the list of players who have caused us great distress.

On the day, what can you say? We didn't really play our football. We didn't really get going. The absence of SESC was a factor, I think. The absence of wall caught a factor as well.

The fact that Van Persie clobbered himself, scoring the goal and had to go off and take those three out of any team and, you know, they'll struggle. But I think we could have done better overall.

And despite the pain of it, and I know that it was very painful for everybody, it really was just a freakish cock-up between defender and goalkeeper, which caused us the game.

I know they hit the pose, but Foster had a lot of saves to make. We didn't necessarily dominate the game, but it's a cup final. Anything can happen. Fortunately, anything did.

Kassielmi and Shesney, well, you'd have to say the communication probably wasn't as good as it should have been.

My own thoughts on that particular goal are that when the defenders in that position, you ignore the goalkeeper, and you just boot it clear.

And afterwards, if the goalkeeper is giving out to you, well, that's fine. But when the ball is in the stand, it can't trickle into the path of an elderly gentleman who can just tap it home to win a cup final for a team

who really did put the ming in Burham. Lee Bowyer, Ferguson, whatever his name is, Finn Barr or something.

And Alex McLeish, who looks more and more like Hans Mollman, every day, sort of sinking into himself and scrunching up like a big peanut left out in the sun.

But what can you do? The good times and the bad times. That's what football is all about.

...