By Myles Palmer

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LAST SEASON Arsenal stuffed Everton 4-1 and 7-0, so tonight's scoreline should give us an indication of where Arsenal are right now.

And, perhaps, what kind of season they will have.

Already people are saying, "Well, if Arsenal have a duff season, it's not the end of the world."

You may ask : How do we define a duff season?

Last Thursday Everton played Dinamo in Bucharest and it was one of those rare nights where the bookies were giving you money.

Dinamo had won their previous game 6-0, but on the Asian Line Handicap, if Dinamo drew, you got your money back.

The first half was dull, I didn't see the second half, I don't know what happened, but Everton crashed 5-1 and David Moyes said it was his worst night in football.

From what I saw, Tim Cahill is not doing it.

Sharp and productive last season, Cahill has done nothing so far.He is unrecognisable and Everton are unrecognisable, having lost six of their seven games.

With Henry out for six weeks, every Arsenal player has to score a goal to compensate for his absence.

Fabregas is the only man to score against Chelsea so far, Gilberto got a header against Thun, and it will soon be time for Hleb, Cole and Campbell to chip in with a goal or two.

Tonight's game is a chance for Arsenal to start building a sequence. Football, as you know, is a game of sequences.

ON SATURDAY, Essien looked good for Chelsea, who won 2-0 at Charlton.

He provided the cross for Crespo to head the first goal and Robben fired in the second with a shot that was as good as Nedved at his best.

Chelsea are accurate where their opponents are approximate, hit-and-miss.

They score goals from organisation, from flair, from mistakes caused by pressing.

Mourinho's 67th game in charge of Chelski was his 50th win.

He has taken the fun out of football because he has built a team that has eliminated mistakes.

If Chelsea played Barcelona now, they would win. If they played AC Milan now, they would win.

If they played Juventus now, it would be interesting.

ON SUNDAY MORNING, when I would normally read the papers and watch Liverpool v Man United, I didn't buy any papers because it was Open House London.

One weekend each year the public have free access to hundreds of buildings, so we went to the Foreign Office.

It's nice to see inside a fortress of government, to see the grandeur that's there to impress foreign visitors : the Grand Staircase, the huge murals, the history of the India Office, the stunning portrait of Warren Hastings (Governor General of Bengal 1774-1785), the sumptuously refurbished Locarno Suite on the first floor with its huge chandeliers and gold & rusty pink decor, the Gurkha statue, the vast Main Quadrangle, where we had coffee and carrotcake afterwards.

The most interesting thing, to me, were the statues of the generals.

Some of them do not wear their own military uniforms.

On one wall there are four great soldiers : Wellington, Wellesley, Eyre-Coote and Cornwallis - and Cornwallis is sculpted wearing a short-skirted centurion's uniform.

He is holding a short, chunky broadsword in his left hand : I am a Roman emperor !

I was gobsmacked by that. But Jan just said,"It was Victorian times, they looked backwards. They wanted to be seen as great generals like the Romans."

As we wandered over what was once Hungerford Bridge we could hear swing - In the Mood by the Glenn Miller Band -and we discovered the Thames Festival : boats big and small, stalls selling ethnic food, jewellery, artifacts, an amazing sand sculpture with little kids joining in, a girl in 40s garb playing an upright piano by the river wall, a left-handed black dude playing a battered guitar under a green parasol and singing Natural Mystic and Lively Up Yourself, saw an eightpiece polka band in a fancy modern tent, and some groovy Observer photographs of food, and strolled up to Waterloo and got the tube home, where Michael said, "It was nil-nil and the dullest game I've ever watched."

After dinner I saw the Espanyol-Real Madrid game.

Madrid miss Zidane terribly and Baptista, playing in midfield, is taking time to settle. He's huge, like The Fridge, that NFL star.

He was sent off in the 94th minute for a shocking tackle which could have broken three metatarsals in sub Soriano's foot. So Madrid finished with nine men.

Raul is a has-been and Ronaldo does not run - he waits and walks.

Real Madrid have no shape, no solidity, no width, no defence, even before new stopper Ramos was sent off.

The goal came in a truly bizarre fashion when the ref blew for a penalty, Jarque headed in a diagonal cross from the right, and the ref then..... gave a goal ! Have we ever seen that before?

After decades of being backed by the government, the banks, the King and the refs, Real Madrid can't get a break.

They have lost their last three games and, frankly, they don't deserve a break because they are a shambles, a side with no work ethic, no leader, and no good Spanish player apart from Casillas.

Their best player last night, by far, was David Beckham, who grafted up front, grafted in the middle, made tackles at centrehalf in the last ten minutes.

Perez, Luxemburgo and Sacchi should all resign.

BARCELONA lost 2-1 at Atletico Madrid, all the goals coming from strikers: Eto'o, Fernando Torres, Kezman.

The big clubs often dip before and after Champions League games.

Liverpool and United played a bore-draw, Milan lost 2-1 at Sampdoria.

Only Juventus sustained their week's work, beating Ascoli 2-1 with the forgotten man, Del Piero, scoring both.

Chelsea and Juventus both play tight, organised football. One of them will win the cup with big ears in Paris in May.

September 19th 2005.

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