The L word has been banned around the Emirates. Arsene Wenger, understandably exasperated by events over the past ten days, has refused to talk about it. He has even suggested that he doesn't believe in it. Yes, as far as Arsenal are concerned, leadership is up there with Santa and the Tooth Fairy: it's all a bit of a myth.

Wenger's point - clearly formulated to lessen the sense of crisis gripping his club - is that leadership is an over-rated virtue. What is more important, he said this weekend, was the ability to pass a football properly. No point gritting teeth and clenching fists if the

At the end of his first year in charge, Fabio Capello has done many things for the England football team. He has organised them well, given them purpose and direction, won a few World Cup qualifiers. He has managed to give a semblance of order to an outfit that before his appointment looked rudderless and hopeless. Naturally, this has encouraged those who always get a little over-excited the moment England win a game or two into making extravagant claims once again about the possibility of South Africa. Capello though has remained level-headed and refused to stoke up the wild expectations. He

Emboldened by a prediction I made for a Manchester local television station ahead of the Champions League final ("It'll go to penalties, after being 1-1 after extra time," I said. "And you know Edwin Van der Sar has saved penalties against Chelsea before") I am going to make one for the Euro 2008: Spain are going to win it.

Mind, the thing about the Champions League one was I didn't really believe it. I was pretty certain Chelsea were going to do it, but just said that because it was a Manchester television station and I didn't want to upset their viewers. Unfortunately I barely remembered

Well, what a game that was. Any fears we might have had that the adventurous spirit at Euro 2008 would be dissipated the closer we got to the final were blown away in Basle. Germany and Turkey produced a semi-final of such endeavour, such excitement, such sustained drama it will live long in the memory. Whether the right team won it in the end, however, is a different matter.

Claire Young, the runner up in the recent television series The Apprentice has just landed a job at Birmingham City. It is better paid, more interesting and promises a much higher profile than the job with Suralan that

Henry Winter - by a margin the finest writer on football in British newspapers - had this to say in this morning's Daily Telegraph:

"The single most important event in the English sporting calendar takes place this evening. As epic as they have been, no Champions League final, cycle pursuit, rowing race nor cricket Test can rival the significance of the 90 nervous minutes awaiting in the Maksimir Stadium. Staring into the abyss, knowing the country is ready to turn on them, England's players dare not lose to Croatia."

Winter's belief is that nothing matters as much as the fortunes of the

Unless Coco the Clown (or, as he is known in the Newcastle area, Mike Ashley) succeeds Brian Barwick as the FA's Chief Executive, it is unlikely that football officialdom will manage to produce as much comedy all season as it did at Watford on Saturday.

For those who missed what is surely destined to become one of the most played clips on YouTube, it went roughly like this. Reading were attacking and the ball bounced around within the Watford penalty area. There was a shot at goal, which took a deflection and was ballooning out of play, missing the Watford's right hand post by about three

In the whirligig of transfers this week, one really caught the eye. Not Ronaldinho's move to Milan. That was so obviously going to happen only a die-hard Manchester City fan living in sky-blue cuckoo land could have believed otherwise.

No, this one concerned Gilberto who has left Arsenal and joined Panathanaikos in Athens. In many ways it was not that surprising. Now 31, the Brazilian was reaching the end of his effectiveness at a club where youthful vigour is highly prized. He was a big earner and £1 million is not a bad fee for a man of his vintage. But for Arsenal fans it was significant.

It is a strange old time,
the transfer window. What with planes being
delayed by the weather, Russians getting stranded at the airport and Portuguese
wingers turning up at Chelsea
when everyone expected them to go to Spurs: anything can happen. Even a transfer
that - as recently as last Friday - both parties insisted would never take
place.

Back then, Rafael
Benitez used his weekly press conference to complain publicly about Harry
Redknapp's covetous noises in a
press conference about Robbie Keane. This seemed a little harsh on Redknapp who
has been known to make covetous noises about