By Boris Mellor
February 20 2011

The lead paragraph follows below due to technical reasons beyond the publisher.

 “With a ladder and some glasses, you could see to Hackney Marshes, if it wasn't for the tower blocks in between”.  So goes the old cockney number, except it was houses in the original, not tower blocks. I bet if anyone tried to watch Arsenal from a tower block the directors would send in the riot police. Indeed you don’t need to see the marshes as they had transplanted one of the 88 pitches from the marshes.  But, I digress.

Ah the romance of the cup, plucky little Os get a replay in a game that takes place a stone’s throw from Hackney Marshes; a place where pub teams playing Sunday League can be observed for free, and the players expect no reward. But the mighty Arsenal Arsenal players get mighty wages, but remember unlike pub team players they make sacrifices, did you know Bendtner had to give up skiing?

How that explains him stinking the place out I don’t know, and I don’t care what Chamakh gave up, he also stank the place out. The match was turgid, plucky Orient didn’t try and score until Arsenal did. Wenger got this one wrong; as soon as his team scored they needed more guns. The Os had been timid all match, now they had nothing to lose and so they stepped up a gear at once. So it was all very predictable.

The only thing I didn’t predict was that Rosicky would score, and even more incredibly that it would be a header. On the bright side Miquel looked ok, not that the defence was tested that much. Arshavin, Song and Rosicky worked hard, the rest looked pedestrian. It only confirmed what we already knew, the B team is no B very good. Strongest squad ever, oh gawd Mr Wenger you are a caution.

Move along now, there really isn’t anything to see here.