Things are not all they seem

Having endured my own mini mid-winter break from watching the Arsenal, you can imagine my joy on returning to see things have been plodding along according to plan – closed the gap on Chelsea, still just two points off the top, and set to progress to the knock-out stages of the Champions League next week. Things, it seems, have been quieter than ‘Arry Redknapp at a tax inspectors’ convention.

Oh, hang on a minute… what? Oh. Things are not quite as they seem.

Don’t get me wrong: if, at the start of the season, we’d been offered the current state of play come the end of November – when traditionally our season has fallen apart – there’s little doubt most of us would have taken it. But only on paper. The problem is that underneath that paper, there are some pretty serious cracks at the Home of Football:

• As boring as it is to hear commentators keep banging on about it, we really can’t play a game of football without conceding at least two goals… and we really are at our most vulnerable when we are two-nil up. I don’t know how to fix this. But that’s because it’s not my job. Wenger has to give this some serious attention… before it’s too late.

• You will know from this blog, if you didn’t know anyway, that I am about as pro-Wenger as you will find. However, Wenger has some serious questions to answer if we don’t qualify for the next stage of the Champions League. In all of our CL away games this season he has tinkered with the side to the extent of almost putting out a second string team. The result is two terrible results in games we would undoubtedly have won with our A-team out. I get why he does it… win your home games and you don’t need much away from home to get through. But when you play at home last, you don’t leave yourself much room for error. Wouldn’t it have been better to nail the points and then rest players?

• Wenger might be to blame for the state of our Champions League campaign, but I put the blame for the defeat against Tottenham mainly at the door of Cesc Fabregas. Aside from the penalty, when your opponents - two-nil down and with nothing to lose - come out 4-4-2 and set about attacking you, it’s the captain’s job to respond. It’s his job to say to Song, the holding midfielder, that he has no need to pass the halfway line for the rest of the afternoon. It’s his job to organise some structure and introduce some calm. It’s his job to lead by example. As far as I can see, and I admit I’ve not exactly been racing to watch the highlights/read the papers on this game, Fabregas failed to step up. He also had a complete disaster against Newcastle at home and, having watched the Villa game, we are seriously starting to look a better team when Fabregas doesn’t play.

The ultra-positive types will say this is a bit pessimistic after a weekend when Chelsea dropped points and we won away from home, with what was a very good attacking performance. Even Andy Gray, who showed his allegiance to Villa by proclaiming our opening goal ‘a disaster’, admitted we played fantastic, controlled football for the most part of the game. And as one of you pointed out by text: if you'd have been told at the age 21 that you'd have to wait until you were 38 to see Spurs win at Arsenal, you'd have taken it.

But while we have stayed in touch with the leaders despite a terrible run of form and inconsistency, we may well wish we’d really cashed in on the failings of the other big teams and got ourselves ahead – especially if we suffer our usual capitulation when we come up against Man U and Chelsea soon.

Only time will tell, I guess.

Bendtner: either cocky or naive. But definitely stupid.

Most footballers are stupid. I think that's pretty much agreed. Yet it still surprises me when they come out and say things like Bendtner did this week.

I've always wanted Bendtner to do well for Arsenal. But he's never been much more than a fringe player for Arsenal. He played quite a lot last year because van Persie was injured for a long time and, although he scored a few goals, he was far from prolific. In fact, I think Arsene Wenger has shown more faith than most managers would have in a player who scored just 13 goals during a whole season in the Championship and quite often misses easy chances.

What's more, it's been a pretty good few days for The Arsenal - repairing the damage of the defeat to Newcastle with a hard-fought win at Wolves, then winning at Everton while Chelsea fell apart at home to Sunderland, means we still have hope that the game against the Geordies will be to this team what the Blackburn home defeat was to 1998's title winners.

So the faith Wenger has shown in Bendnter, and the need to keep spirits up in the dressing room, make it particularly disappointing that he should say this week:

"I am incredibly disappointed at the lack of playing time. I feel I have done everything right during the rehabilitation phase and is in my life shape. I feel better than before the injury, so it is no longer. When I'm at 100 percent, I can not accept to sit on the bench."

These things are often twisted by the media, and if that's the case then Bendtner should know better than to say anything. If you're paid £50+ a week, why do you need to mouth off in the media at all?

If he did say those things, then he can always fuck off and try his luck elsewhere. If he does, he should be prepared to eat his words. After all, plenty have left to make the point they're good enough. Not many have achieved it. Anyone know what Aliadiere is up to these days?



You'll never believe this...

There’s something in journalism called “the fuck-off factor”. In short, if you’ve got a story that you think would make the front page of The Sun, imagine yourself telling it to your mate down the pub. If his reaction is to say “fuck off, I don’t believe it”, then it’s probably good enough.

This weekend was a “fuck off” weekend. The early indications were fine. Spurs had found out just how hard it is to play a Premier League away game following a Champions League match; the Mancs were being held by Wolves with five minutes to go at Old Trafford; and, with us at home to Newcastle and Chelsea away the following day, I was already turning my thoughts to a perfect weekend.

So if, at 4.30pm on Saturday, you walked into my front room and said: “The Mancs will be the only team in the top four to win this weekend; Arsenal will put in one of their worst home performances for five years in losing to Newcastle; Torres will use the game against Champions and top-of-the-league Chelsea to remember how to score goals; and man of principles and honesty Arsene Wenger will be exposed for having a two-year fling with a part-time rapper” - I’d have told you to fuck off.

The worst thing about our result was that we didn’t even have the usual dominance and peppering of the opposition’s goal to keep our hopes alive. After about an hour it was blatantly obvious that we could still be playing now and probably won’t have scored. Of course, we couldn’t still be playing now because Arsene had to get home by 6pm to do some explaining, but you get my point.

Our forward line couldn’t control the ball or stay on side, the midfield couldn’t make a pass, the centrebacks now seem unable to header a football and we still have a goalkeeper who can’t punch. So yet again we’re counting our chickens that a Chelsea defeat means we’re “still only five points behind”, rather than celebrating the fact we’ve closed the gap at the top.

People keep telling me the good news is that if we’d beaten West Brom and Newcastle at home we’d be top by now. The bad news, of course, is that we can’t beat West Brom and Newcastle at home… and if you can’t do that, you’ll win nothing. In fact, if you can’t do that, you might just as well give up and fuck off.