caught the charity shield match on tv last night. sad to say both arsenal and manure did not field their best team and so it was not easy to gauge the strenght of the teams. one thing that took me by surprise was manure's defense. their defense was slow, nervous and shaky and jose antonio reyes tore them apart. interesting... well, perhaps rio ferdinand and henize will beef up the defense but we shall wait and see.

on the other hand, arsenal's turbo is still going strong. but somehow they lack the flow in passing. and it was obvious veira's absent has made its midfield weaker and less able to hold possesions. their young players - fabergas, pennant, reyes, v.persie look good and they adapt v well into the team. imho, in yrs to come arsenal will grow stronger whilst manure, like wat kewell has mentioned, will be a team in decline lol