It's true to say that the FA Cup may have lost some of its appeal to the bigger clubs over the last few years - now ranked 3rd in their priorities behind the Premiership and Champions League - but to everyone else it still remains the best knock-out competition in the world.

Every dog has its day as they say, as Exeter proved against the Mancs. Stoke's visit to Highbury was a potential banana skin for us and the only losers would have been the home team as at the end of the day no one expected them to win. We owe a lot to Stoke as they provided us with 50% of our famous back four in Dixon and Bould and their older fans have never really forgiven us for a last gasp penalty in the 1971 FA Cup final on the way to our first double.

Stoke came into this game with an absolutely abysmal record recently but that meant nothing as they set about us as if this was a cup final, which for them it was. Former North London boy and life long Arsenal fan Ade Akinbiyi gave our centre backs an afternoon they will not forget about in a hurry. He ran them ragged and it made a mockery of the label he once had as the worst centre forward in the Premiership whilst with Leicester. He had a perfectly good goal disallowed and from where I was sitting I could not see any infringement. He set up another chance after steamrollering Toure by the by-line and it was his header which Lehmann could only parry that lead to their goal scored by Thomas who, along with Taggart must be the fattest pair of centre backs I have ever seen.

We had a few chances in the first half, the most notable falling to Van Persil who must improve on his shots to target ratios: he had 4 chances but missed the target with all of them. This will come with experience as he will learn not to take snapshots and compose himself more when under pressure. There's no doubt we knew we were in a game and we came out in the second half more determined but again Akinbiyi never gave up and he had a thunderbolt of a chance from just outside the box, which cannoned off the crossbar with Lehmann well beaten. Some good goalkeeping by Simonsen had kept them in the game but our goal finally came after some relentless pressure. After some good work by Toure, cutting the ball back following a corner, it fell to Reyes to smash the ball home right-footed.

We pushed for the second and it eventually arrived from a right-wing cross by Pennant and a backwards flick-come-pirouette by Van Persil. The second goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of Stoke but full credit must be given to both the team and their 9,000-strong set of supporters who took the whole of the Clock-End and never stopped singing, most notably a rendition of Tom Jones' classic 'Delilah' - for what reason I am not sure.

Of our players, Eboue looked impressive for his first start but will need some work in the gym to beef up a bit, Senderos looks to be getting stronger and more confident with every game, Reyes looked sharp on his return and Pennant ran around a lot. Lehmann on the other hand looked a lost soul and I
think his time with us is all but over, which is a shame for the man who was an important part in our 49-game run and Premiership title last season.

So, it's onto the next round and a home tie with Wolves later on this month. Roll on Cardiff!

Man Shity
This game was one too many for us over Christmas and it took its toll on the youngsters in the side. It was a little bit too much to ask for from a group of kids to play so many games in such a short period of time and this is when our depth of squad was finally found out. We went into this game without Bergkamp, Reyes, Gilberto, Campbell, Lauren, Edu, Cygan, Flamini and Aliadiere; that's a total of 9 first team players unavailable to us and I say that there is no team in the land who could cope with that sort of injury list, not even Cheskavich. The talk before the game was all about when we last had so many debutants in one season and, to be honest, no one could remember, not even my good mate Andy.K who is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to Arsenal.

Our cause was not helped when, on top of the number of injuries we had, both Vieira and Henry also decided they wanted to go missing leaving the kids like Senderos and Hoyte over exposed. There were too many stray passes in the first half especially from our captain, one of them leading to an excellent goal from the SWP, how can a person so short be such a brilliant player? I have never seen Ash given the run around as much as he was that night. The kids looked nervous especially Hoyte and he was not helped by the barracking from the crowd, especially from some prat a few rows behind me who knows as much about football as Jason K. I heard him scream at Van Persil to "move his lazy arse" and for us to sub Hoyte. One of these days I will find out who this idiot is and give him some lip to see if he likes it.

In the second half we set about their goal like there was no tomorrow but the longer the game went on the more you felt a draw was going to be the only outcome, but we definitely had enough chances to win this game. It makes you wonder, if they had fallen to someone with the experience of Bergkamp whether the result could have been different? Arsene said in his post match interview that "in our build-up game we were a little bit not sharp enough". I think maybe our squad is a little bit over stretched enough.

I Heard It Through The Grape Vine
Ian Wright told AW about SWP when he was at Forest and before he went to City but they both agreed it would be too much pressure on him to follow in his step-Dad's footsteps at Highbury and that it would be best if he tried to make it elsewhere. Nice move gentlemen.

Life After Arsenal
Siggi Jonsson was signed by George Graham from Sheffield Wednesday, but only played a handful of games before he broke a leg playing for Iceland against Scotland. He now runs a football academy in Iceland with former Sp*rs player Gudni Burgsson.

Spotted out and about.
Jeremie Aliadiere in 'Andy's Barbers' Southgate having his hair cut, what else.

Players We Have Been Linked With This Week
Samuel Kuffour (Bayern Munich) Big, strong and well-hard defender
Mathieu Bodmer (Lille) French midfielder
Abdoulaye Meite (Marseille) Ivory Coast defender
Michael Essien (Lyon) Ghanaian midfielder
Fernando Torres (Athletico Madrid) Absolutely brilliant forward, who we have no chance of getting.
Nicolas Anelka (Man Shity) The original horse face himself. I do hope his brothers are still in toe (not!)

Useless Arsenal Trivia
Sol Campbell's middle name is Jeremiah.

Celebrity Gooner
Ronnie O'Sullivan - world snooker champion.

This weeks 'Totally Irrelevant' link to Arsenal
Kolo Toure comes from the Ivory Coast but, although the country is named that, it does not have a coast that is made out of real ivory.

All the best,
Teabag