'GIVE us an 'A'!' scream a party of children in voices so shrill that the fillings in my teeth rattle.

'Give us an 'R',' they scream, 'give us an 'S', give us a - ,' and off they go through the remainder of 'Arsenal', oblivious to the fact that no-one is joining in.

Me? I cower beneath my seat, thankful only that I'm not here to watch Borussia Monchengladbach.

Pre-season friendlies, with their free-for-all ticketing policy, attract a funny sort of crowd.

The families who usually find themselves priced out of the regular fixtures snap these seats up, mixing freely with the die-hard fanatics who would turn up if this was a 2am kick-off against a non-league side.

There's polite applause for our aperitif, Valencia against Inter Milan, but it's clear that the vast majority in the stadium are only there for one reason - to watch Arsenal.

Valencia, to their eternal credit, immediately set out to win hearts and minds.

Pinging the ball around the pitch in a manner not that far removed from Arsene Wenger's young side, the boys from the Mestalla took the Italian side by the scruff of the neck and ran rings around them.

The Arsenal fans were quick to applaud the fluent movement, in particular from David Villa and David Silva.

Inter were sluggish, slow to every loose ball and erratic in their passing.

It didn't help that their towering centre-back Marco Materazzi was roundly booed by the entire stadium every time he touched the ball.

In a straight choice between a hard, effective side and a swashbuckling, free-flowing team, Arsenal fans were only ever going to swing one way.

Two smashing first-half goals from the Spaniards effectively killed the game before the break and the second half was drab, lifeless and played out to the sound of 40,000 people chatting about the weather.

But then, finally, the main event.

Those who have criticised Arsenal fans for their lack of volume and goaded them with taunts about the 'Highbury Library' would have hung their heads in shame at the noise that greeted the Gunners as they made their way onto the pitch.

A near capacity crowd rose to its feet and roared their approval for a patchy line-up with an average age of about 13.

The Emirates Stadium is a fearsome lair when the crowd are riled and today, as if angered by the ludicrously wet British summer or by the pitiful cricket score or perhaps just out of boredom, the Arsenal faithful almost lifted the roof from its fixings.

The fans I spoke to outside the stadium earlier that day had made light of the departure of Thierry Henry to Barcelona.

With talent like Nicklas Bendtner and Theo Walcott coming through the ranks, they scoffed, who needed Thierry?

But the first half saw little in the way of penetration, chances or action, something you could rarely say when Henry was in the side.

LACK OF BALANCE

Only the addition of Emmanuel Eboue in the second half seemed to galvanise them.

There's a limit on how much you can read into a pre-season friendly, but there was a definite lack of balance and composure with Arsenal that will need to be rectified before the season begins.

A well-taken goal before half-time from Matieu Flamini and a deserved place on the scoresheet for Bendtner left the home side two goals to the good as the clock wore on.

With heavy substitutions tearing the life out of the game, the crowd gave the universal symbol of boredom by relentlessly hurling Mexican Waves around the stadium.

Parents saw their chance to escape the traffic, picked up their children, still obstinately singing, 'give us an 'A',' and headed for the exits.

As if spurred on by this mass impetuosity, both teams combined to serve up a thrilling final 10 minutes, with a PSG goal and a missed Bendtner penalty causing a log-jam of disappointed parents and livid children to stand open-mouthed, clogging up the exits.

Still, Arsene Wenger seemed happy enough in the press conference afterwards.

Warmer and more jocular in the flesh than he seems on television, he pointed out that PSG were closer to the start of their season than Arsenal, that the side was experimental and that lots of players were out injured.

In fact, he radiated so much confidence that even the hardened Fleet Street hacks allowed themselves to be distracted by transfer tittle-tattle.

So Arsene's confident, the press are happy and the young players are looking good.

Altogether now? Give us an A!