So 2010 is behind us, a year of few highs and a lot of lows, especially for Arsenal and England fans, and by way of a send off I think it proper to dish out some awards to the heroes and villains of the past year in what I like to call 'The Arshies'.

Best Arshavin: A hotly contested award, but there was one candidate who stood head and shoulders above the rest. Take a bow, Andrey.

Worst Arshavin: His lackadaisical performances on the pitch this season, as well as almost running over my feet in his car outside the Emirates that one time mean that Andrey runs out clear winner.

Most Improved Player: This one will need to be split in two, à la King Solomon, and half given to Gareth Bale and half to Samir Nasri. Both have looked pretty phenomenal this season.

Biggest Wanker: Lot of names to choose from for this award, but giving it collectively to everyone at FIFA seems fair (more on them later). Honourable mentions go to Phil Brown, Mark Hughes and Tony Pulis.

Best Signing: Slim pickings for this category: no one player has seemed like great business. Chamakh looks like a decent striker, but has struggled with form of late; David Silva looks like a good buy, but has hardly set the league alight. Sadly this award can only really go to Tottenham talisman Rafael van der Vaart.

Stupidest thing that Wayne Rooney did award: Hmmm, sleep with a prostitute, or prostitute himself to Man City to drive up his salary at Utd? He seems to have gotten away with both, so fair play to the lad.

Sorest losers: Barcelona, Champions League semi final, second leg. Mourinho prancing around the pitch looking super smug is enough to rile up even the most docile fan, but turning the sprinklers on them? Pretty crass Barca.

Best Supporting Actor: Chelsea's assistant manager Ray Wilkins picks up this award, as apparently, without his support Carlo Ancelotti and the rest of the cast of the Chelsea soap opera can't function properly.

Enough of that, and more on Arsenal, who despite having lost 5 games already this season are still within touching distance of the Premier League summit, thanks in part to the indifferent and downright pisspoor form of Man Utd and Chelsea respectively. Consequently this season is, at least at the moment, pretty exciting. Of course when Utd eventually and inevitably limp to the title unopposed everyone will tut and say: "Well who didn't see that one coming?" and they will decry the predictability and lack of competitiveness at the top end of the league. Well to those people I say shut up and remember that it could be worse: Spurs could have won the title. And then they will choke on their glass of merlot and think that maybe third place isn't so bad after all, as long as those brash upstarts from up the road don't finish above us.

Arsenal could win the title, they really could, and should they beat Manchester City tomorrow, then maybe we can start to believe again. The pessimist in me says that they probably won't do either of those things though. Second place is up for grabs however, as long as the Ray Wilkins-less Chelsea continue to struggle against teams like Villa, whose own troubles this season are of course well documented.

Alarmingly for the optimists among us, Man Utd are top, unbeaten, and have done all this playing pretty poorly. Rather ominously they have just recently started playing well, and look as if, like Chelsea last season, they will win the league almost by default. Plus ça change, right?

Meanwhile there has of course been the farcical proceedings over at FIFA headquarters where, as everyone knows, the delegates opted to hand over the World Cups of 2018 and 2022 to Russia and Qatar. There's been plenty said, most of it through gritted teeth and with clenched fists, and all of it reeking of sour grapes, but to my mind, far and away the most shocking aspect of the whole debacle was that people were even surprised. Surely anyone who knew anything about Blatter and his cronies could have foreseen what would happen? FIFA is a who's who of some of the richest, vilest most corruptible men in football, but apparantly everyone involved in the bids that wasn't from Russia and Qatar had no idea. Erm, hello? The writing's been on the wall from day one, and it said 'give us money'.

At the end of the day, when the dust has settled and all's said and done etc. Russia may be corrupt as hell and run by mafiosos, but it's still a big big country, and one that's dead keen on football, so I don't mind too much about them getting it. It's the decision to go with Qatar that's truly despicable. Does Qatar have a proud footballing heritage? No, the team has never even qualified for a World Cup. Is it a large country, or a well populated one? No and no, it's smaller than Wales and has a population of 1.6 million. Is it one which would allow daytime matches during the summer? Erm, no again, with temperatures soaring to a balmy 41 degress Celcius during June. Is Qatar a country where homosexuality is legal? Oh my no. So what is it that could have attracted FIFA to this incredibly wealthy country? Answers on a postcard please.

Man City tomorrow, fingers crossed for that one. News in is that Silva and super sulk, er super sub Mario Balotelli will both be out injured. Maybe Arsenal vanquished some demons against Chelsea which will allow them to play well against the big teams. Or maybe not. Probably the latter.