The mixing tin

Let's get one thing clear from the off here; I do not, in any way, think that Cesc Fabregas is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He doesn't have the same initials for a start.

I hope we can move on now.

Speaking to Arsenal TV this week, the celestially auraed one has said that he never asks to be rested, because he loves playing football. I have said before that I think Cesc is as committed as anyone to this football club and I think his comments on the Burnley game, saying that he "didn't want to leave the pitch until we scored" demonstrate not only that commitment but the level of responsibility he takes on the pitch.

Speaking of the mysteries of his hamstring, he sounds very frustrated at what appears to be a repetitive problem without solution, but he also recognises that there are those within the first team squad who have suffered worse blows this season. He said: "The Aaron thing, Robin, Gibbs, Johan Djourou, they made us more united. We haven't seen Robin for four months, we don't know anything about him but Gibbsy and Johan we see them all the time and they would love to be in our position, so that is making us more united as a team.

"Hopefully we can do it for the club, for the fans and also for them."

It's interesting that Robin has been away from the club for so long, I wonder why he has felt the need to do his recuperating in Holland and, more pertinently I think, why the club have been happy to allow that. It would be nice to hear something from Robin about how he's getting on, I think. However, I can completely understand him wanting to focus on his rehabilitation 100% and then doing his talking on the pitch once more.

It really is a tribute to the squad that we have managed to stay in the title race despite not having a recognised centre forward for three months, more than that if Nicklas Bendtner's ability is still to be questioned. It is also a tribute to the manager and abilities that we perhaps take for granted now.

If Real Madrid's exit from the Champions League on Wednesday night, preparing the way for Manuel Pellegrini to be fired, drew irrelevant questions for the boss on the nature of Real Madrid's approach to him last summer, it also gave Mr Wenger the opportunity to bang one of his favourite drums. He said;

"£240m doesn't buy you the Champions League necessarily. If you can spend it every year, you will get there but it is the first year of Pérez back and you have to give him time. He only has to invest again next year, so I think they will be a force again. But at the moment it's difficult to take for them.

"In the last five years we have been in the [Champions League] final, the semi-final, two times the quarter-final. It is the consistency that is the most difficult to achieve at the top level because you have so many teams that want to be in there. When you just turn up regularly, in England, we don't rate that any more because we are used to it. But it's not easy."

As Liverpool are finding out to their cost. It's no coincidence, for me at least, that an upturn in our European fortunes have coincided with downswing in our home ambitions over the last five years. Not just because of the size of the squad, but because we replaced a physical, Premier League type player in Patrick Vieira with the subtler, more insidious skills of a very young Cesc Fabregas and as a result have played a more continental game ever since.

However, Cesc's maturation, a process mentioned by the boss a few weeks ago now see a side that can play football with the best of them also growing in the ability to mix it with the toughest. I'm not suggesting we're there yet, but we are getting stronger and the brighter outlook on the Premier League front is evidence of this.

As this side grows in strength and confidence, Harry Redknapp's insistence that the gap is closing between Tottenham and Arsenal - why does he have to keep comparing them to us, is this really what Spurs fans want to hear? - begins to look ever so slightly silly. Oh, I know they are only one place and twelve points behind us with a game in hand now. Let's see where they are once they've played us, Chelsea and United and then, maybe, we can talk.

If that's, in true Redknapp stylee, getting ahead of ourselves ever so slightly, then more immediately we have the visit to Hull to, um, "look forward to". Now, it wouldn't have surprised me if their manager, or one of their playing staff, Stephen Hunt perhaps, had taken the opportunity this week to suggest that Cesc's hamstring injury is just a ruse to protect our captain. To protect him from what, you ask? The ferocity of the "welcome" he would no doubt have been afforded on the banks of the Humber, or wherever the hell it is Hull play, I answer.

But perhaps they're not as daft as I thought, after all, the last thing Hull City will want tomorrow evening is a team full of Gunners all fired up and ready to blow. I suspect, with the league table looking as it does, that it may be what they get anyway. At least, I hope so. I also hope that we see Cesc on the pitch at the final whistle, in his offensive clothes (you'd have thought that the manager of Hull City would be used to scruffy looking young men by now) and celebrating another six points in the race for glory.

Come on you Gunners!

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