"I'm Theo"

This evening my son fired a shot past me in the back garden. As I dived haplessly to my left the ball broke the net. It wasn't the velocity of the shot as much as the age of the net that broke it but my son exclaimed, "I'm Theo" as the ball didn't nestle but hit the shed. Theo Walcott - 4 goals in two games, a recall to the England squad and my son wants to be you. Quite a week. I was always Frank Stapleton as I broke my homemade goal. Then I was Charlie Nicholas when I was old enough to know better. Now my goalscoring is done in my head I can be Bergkamp, Henry or Wright and nobody can stop me.

I watched the whole game yesterday on an iPhone so all the players were 3mm tall or smaller. Eyes hurt at the end but it was worth it. That was a fantastic away win at a horrible place. Their antifootball manager tried to stop us playing but failed. That's a victory in itself. We could've won by more but let's not complain. We dealt with their long balls and we didn't let them scare our keeper at corners. That was a massive step up from last year's horror show up there. It's very satisfying to beat teams managed by that chewing boring man. Imagine having a season ticket to watch that every week. Not many do and that's not just due to the economy. Boring, defensive, long ball antifootball and the boys dealt with it. Proud of them.

OK, there was that horrible bit of defending that led to their goal. Awful but we got away with it. Last season that would've cost us points. One man who hasn't cost us points so far this season is Almunia. He's done OK especially with all the stuff about replacing him flying around. However, he needs replacing. He's a good keeper as is Flappyhandski. You can't get to their level without being good but we need better. We need great not good. Greats I remember - Jennings, Seaman, Lukic, Lehmann. Good - Just about everyone else. Good keepers are back up. Greats are first choice. We have good, we need a great.

A new keeper would give the whole team a new confidence. Every time the ball goes near Almunia I hold my breath. He feels like a mistake waiting to happen. For the sake of my health I hope we get a new man by Tuesday.

So a splendid away win to take us into the interlull. No Arsenal next weekend which has led some fans to set up Non-League day. They are urging fans of league clubs to go and see their local non-league team on Saturday. I'll be taking my son to see Cambridge City and hope they can repeat their 5-0 thrashing of Tiverton. A fantastic idea and I'll try to do a short post about it later in the week.

Right, I'm off to bed to dream of being Jack Wilshire breaking up a fight between bigger boys.