YOUR CESC IS ON FIRE

Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas has been in the best form I have ever seen him this season. The Spaniard has been around for years and it's easy to forget the the Gunners captain is still just 22 years old.

So far this season he has managed to triple his goal tally for the whole of last season and is currently just four away from his career best total for a season to date - 13.

The little midfield maestro has looked in fine form this season, despite personal problems at home, and he hasn't let this affect his attitude on the pitch.

In his last 3 games alone, he has scored 4 goals, including that superb solo-effort against North London rivals Spurs, and it seems that Cesc has turned goal scorer rather than the assistant we are used to.

The good news for Arsenal is that, whereas in past seasons they may have needed Fabregas as one of their only options to provide a killer pass, they now have an abundance of wonderfully gifted players like Andrei Arshavin, Samir Nasri, Tomas Rosicky and Robin van Persie who can now provide those passes for him.

With the injury to van Persie last weekend, the game against Sunderland this weekend will go some way to providing proof of Arsenal's strength-in-depth and their title credentials. Last year, given the injury list they have at the moment, they would no-doubt have completely flopped and ended up out of the Champions League spots.

This time it's different; Arsene Wenger has instilled a huge amount of confidence, along with a bit more of that "steeliness" they have been missing away from home in the last few years with the signing of Thomas Vermaelen, and the emergence of Alex Song as the new midfield general.

With the former also amongst the goals this season alongside his defensive partner William Gallas, it seems that Arsenal can't stop scoring. Wenger's men have notched up 55 goals already with 17 different goalscorers in all competitions.

If Fabregas can continue his fine streak then I have no doubts that he can fire the Gunners straight to the top of the Premier League in the next few weeks with a home game against Chelsea and a game in hand to come.

These are exciting times to be an Gooner!

Sport today

Firstly I would like to say sorry for not posting for six months, but I have been busy with my GCSEs and currently AS levels.

I suppose the main issue in sport at the moment is the Indian cricket racism row. It’s all very complicated, Harbhajan Singh has been accused of calling Andrew Symonds a "monkey" and now Singh has accused Brad Hogg of racial abuse. They have both been banned pending appeals. Quite frankly, Harbhajan Singh has been in trouble for this sort of thing before after an incident with Ricky Ponting, and if he did make another comment, the ICC should quite literally "throw the book at him". There is no room for this type of unsporting behaviour in any sport and anyone found guilty of it should be banned for life.
What followed this should bring the whole of the Indian cricketing game to shame. First, they accuse Umpire Steve Bucknor of giving a number of decisions to the Australians and demand that the ICC replace him. Then upon hearing that Singh had been banned, they decided to suspend their tour until the ICC withdrew the ban. This sort of action should be severely reprimanded, and is highly irresponsible of the Indian Cricket Association. What example does this set to up and coming athletes? If decisions don't go your way, use blackmail to get what you want? It's ridiculous. This could be an under-hand move to try to over-shadow the race row, and it if is, for me, it has worked. In all honesty, if the Indian Cricket Association is going to behave like this, then we don't need them in the game, and they should be banned from competing until they learn to accept punishments and to play by the rules.
Anyway, that’s the end of my cricket rant. On a lighter note, it is nice to see the English teams away from any negative press for a change. In tennis, Andy Murray has won his fourth ATP Tour title at the 2008 Qatar ExxonMobil Open, moving him up to 9th in the World rankings. It’s good to see a Brit finally doing well in, well anything really. No that’s not fair, I mean, Paula Radcliffe’s not bad is she?
Away from tennis, Fabio Capello has started his new job as England football team manager as of Monday. His first job is to travel to the Croatian capital of Zagreb to organise the fixtures for the 2010 World Cup Qualifiers on the 31st January. He has already been spotted on scouting missions at Aston Villa v Man United and Luton Town v Liverpool. It’s good to see he has taken by Sven Goran Eriksson’s example by attending matches and making public appearances regularly.
I hope to attend Charlton v Blackpool this weekend and I will hopefully have a report by the end of this Sunday.

Welcome

Hello, Welcome to my blogging page. My name is James Warner and i would like to hope i can become a Sports journalist in the future, this is kind of why i have decided to set this up now. I have already written one match report which i will post on here in 1 or 2 days time for everyone to have a look at. My mum works for the PA (Press Association) which may help me to add various contacts and it was suggested to me that i have a go at blogging, so i thought, why not?

A bit more about me, i live in Ramsgate kent but am from nearer south London and i spend most of or a lot of my free time at football matches. I have to admit that i probrably should cut back a bit but why? I enjoy it.

The weekend just gone was another football packed few days, starting with my first visist to manchester and the City of Manchester Stadium or what is now known as Eastlands. Of course this was to see Charlton play, a game which had nil-nil written all over it and i knew it, nearly everyone knew it but we were all determined not to show it. We had some belief, not much mind you. Of course, it did disappoint, with the highlight of the game coming when a Manchester City fan had to be woken up after the final whistle, which just about summed up the whole day, boring tiresome and not really worth it. The only other time i was smiling was when a steward kept repeatedly saying "could you take your seats pleeeeease?" in a highly amusing Manc accent, only for Charlton fans to reply "stand up if you love Charlton" or "if your staying up", or "yeh o'corse mate, where'd you wan' it takin'?"

The next day was not a very succesfull but eventfull day. Being woken by my phone and a friend on the other end asking me if i wanted to go and invade the pitch at Dagenham and Redbridge, and so being the hooligan that i am i of course obliged and we made our way up to Dagenham. We worked out that we would be around 20mins late after kick off but this was not the case, due to unforseen train hiccups (bloody London transport) and an unlicenced taxi driver trying his hardest to charge us 20 quid for a 10 minute drive, we turned up at the ground 15 minutes before the end, then we discover that the game was a sell out, well who would have thought it, the first time Dagenham are going to get promoted to the football league, a sell out??? NEVER!!! I could have killed my mate. We found a side gate and slipped in but nothing much happened until the final whistle. Then i found myself covered in champaigne and being bundled left, right and centre as we invaded the pitch. Good fun it was.

Monday and another football match, a good game, Charlton v Reading, but obviously after the weekend i'd had i could have put my house (if i had one) on it being nil-nil! How could i not see it?? Oh well. There's always next time, as they say. The highlight has got to be after the game when i ran into Alex Song, and Souleymane Diawara! Got their autographs and then saw the Reading team bus leave, minus Steve Coppel who left on his own in his Bentley.

Match report of this game will follow shortly...