Arsenal, Sunday round-up

Arsenal 0-3 Chelsea read the full time at Ashburton Grove last night, although by the time the whistle went there weren't many left in the place. The game then, Arsenal started brightly with some decent ball retention and we got in behind Chelsea once or twice, but then it all proceeded to go very very wrong. A super ball in from Ashley Cole was brilliantly taken by Drogba to give Chelsea the lead, and then 3 minutes later Vermaelan decided to try and make a carbon copy of the first and stuck the ball in his own net. There was clearly some kind of miscommunication, Almunia had come out and was waiting to collect quite comfortably but Vermaelan could probably hear Drogba breathing down his neck and tried to deal with it. Deal with it he didn't. Second half and another decent Arsenal start lead to what we all thought was a goal back for the hosts, Arshavin finishing off a bit of a scramble in the box, but the ref ruled it out because of a foul by Eduardo. Firstly Cech didn't have the ball in his hands yet so it couldn't have been given for that, secondly Ivanovic got clumsily in front of Cech to make things difficult for him, and thirdly when the Chelsea players were desperately trying to block the ball on the line you could see that even they didn't think it was a foul. If it was given for high foot then sorry, I can't buy that, there is high feet going on all over the place and little Eduardo was never in danger of getting near Cech's head and for me the goal should have stood. Anyway we move on and some more decent play resulted in nothing and Chelsea still looked dangerous on the break, and with a freekick late on Drogba put the icing on the cake. I thought Chelsea were excellent yesterday and are probably right now the best team in Europe. Arsenal demonstrated once again their inability to deal with Chelsea's size, power, experience, tactics and fucking Drogba. A man whom we all admire as a beast of a footballer, but one we all hate with every fibre in our bodies, he just loves playing us. 11 points is now the gap between the 2 teams and even if they win the game in hand 8 is still a mountain to climb. It's still November so there is a lot of football to go and so yes I think it's still possible to get back into the reckoning, but with our lack of consistency I don't think we'll do it.

Looking at some of the wider questions from this game, Arsenal just aren't built to win the league at the moment. The game has moved on in the short years since 2004 invincibles and the doubles in 2002 and 1998, and the manager has failed to move his team in the right direction. All the aforementioned assets that Chelsea have are ones we are desperately lacking in. Of course we know that Arsenal came beat anyone in the world on their day and if that goal had stood yesterday, who knows what would have happened, and if Van Persie, Bendtner, Clichy, Gibbs and Diaby had been fit, it might have gone the other way but at the moment we're miles from winning the league. That's why it's frustrating to hear the boss say after the game that the Carling Cup 'is not one of our priorities' and so almost accepting defeat to Man City on Wednesday. That's not acceptable for me, of course we'd all love to be champions again and the Champions League is still a very real possibility but I'm frankly sick of that 'haven't won anything in 3/4/5 years' tag now. If we could win either of the cups this season then it would give the group some collective confidence - not the confidence you get from scoring a few goals, the confidence you get from knowing that you and your teammates are winners, and that you can dig in hard in those tough games and pinch results. At the moment we don't really have that and certainly don't have it for 38 games in a season. Having said all that, if you look at what we are and what the club is doing then it's really no surprise that we aren't genuine title contenders. We spent £10million this summer on 1 player and sold 2 mainstays of the first team for £25million and £16million, so how can we be any better than last year? The 2007/8 season where we led for as long as we did then Birmingham happened, and it all went sadly wrong, we had a typical team of Lehman, Eboue Gallas Toure Clichy, Rosicky Fabregas Flamini Hleb, Adebayor Van Persie. That summer we sold Hleb and failed to tie Flamini down to a contract, and replaced them with practically a youth player in Ramsey and an unproven and injury prone Nasri. So if almost winning the league in 2008 was practically as good as we could do, how can we sell 2 first teamers, not really replace them, and expect to do the same or better the next year? Since then Nasri has done pretty well and Ramsey has come on leaps and bounds but our competitors are buying proven experienced internationals like Berbatov, Anelka, Torres, Deco, Vidic etc, and teams like Spurs and Man City are shelling out eye watering figures to try and break into the top 4. My point is that we're a talented side who are probably continually punching above their weight and the fans shouldn't be surprised to see us getting beat by Chelsea 3-0 at home, most other teams do aswell! Whether it's the managers stubbornness or the financial repercussions of the new stadium (or likely both) that hamper our movement in the transfer market, they and we must understand that we'll never live with Chelsea and Utd in the league if things don't move on. I love Arsene Wenger and I would never suggest he has to go, he can stay until the day he dies as far as I'm concerned, but he is as intelligent as frustrating at times and you feel that his glory days with this club might be behind him. There is still that elusive Champions League crown which he'll continue to pursue until the day he gets his hands on it, and it's a competition that as many people say suits us a lot more than the league. We've strolled through an admittedly easy group stage and as I said earlier we can beat anyone on our day. Liverpool are already out and we can't face Utd or Chelsea until at least the quarters, and staying clear of the 2 English boys will be massive for us.

Man I hope I haven't been too negative there, I'm trying to be as honest as I can. Yesterday we looked bereft of attacking options - one small skillful player for another was the Eduardo/Vela change - and I genuinely can't wait for Bendtner to get back in the team. It's a big season now for the ambitious Dane and I'm one of his most patient fans so I hope he can get us back on our feet. Arshavin is a magician at times but in between those times he's plain lazy. It was he that let Ashley Cole go for the first goal and probably should have been present when Cole put the cross in for the 2nd. As previously stated, Wednesday night against Man City is a big game now because we want a trophy to hold up at the end of the season. It might be the shittest of the lot but it's still something and a medal round your neck is gonna be more satisfying that another disappointing Champions League semi exit. Not to mention all the nonsense up at Eastlands in August, it would be nice to put one over Adebayor and Hughes. Come on the Arsenal.

Phew, Liverpool beat Everton, Birmingham beat Wolves and Barca beat Madrid. Enough of a round up? Take her easy.