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.