What the past few weeks have taught us…

I was - and remain - determined that this blog won’t be a match-report blog. I also refuse to do one of those cliché-ridden ‘half year reports’, laden with lazy school-related puns about how a team ‘could do better’ or gets ten-out-of-ten for effort but five for achievement. Chelsea’s season alone is evidence that those are worthless. Their first ten weeks of the season told us nothing about the next ten, just as a mid-season analysis will tell us nothing about what’s to come between now and the end of May.

Having said all that, the past few weeks have taught us quite a lot - about what we’ve got… and what we’re missing.

Good wins against Chelsea and away at Wolves and West Ham showed we have the ability and determination to stay in this title race longer than our usual March collapse, and we are fast becoming a team that plays as well away from home as it does at the Emirates.

We also learned from the game against Man City, where we peppered them with more shots than a gunman standing on Gianni Versace’s doorstep, that money can’t buy you everything. While the likes of Man City, for all their spending, are still happy to stifle games for a draw, I’m proud that you never see us go out for a 0-0. It may be our undoing on occasion. But at £40 a game I’d rather watch us try to win every time we take to the field.

Another thing we learned was that Wenger is now pretty certain of his first 11: Usual back line. Song holding, Fabregas and Wilshere creating for Nasri, van Persie and Arshavin/Walcott up ahead. For Chamakh, it seems, van Persie’s return may signal the chance for a few more US holidays, if you get my drift.

We haven’t just found out good things, of course.

Not managing to score against Man City gave every pundit in the world the chance to say we can’t break teams down. Not battering Leeds and Ipswich further fuelled their claims that we’re not creative enough in the final third. The problem is, that’s like saying John Terry is now a dedicated husband and loyal mate because he didn’t nail a team-mate’s wife three nights in a row. Or that James Corden isn’t fat anymore because he didn’t eat a cake for three successive hours.

The Ipswich game also saw us, according to ITV, on the receiving end of “the biggest shock you will see this season, if not for many seasons” - despite Premier League Newcastle losing to non-league Stevenage three days before. But that’s a different story.

Other not-so-good things we learned included that Arshavin is having a disaster this season, that Fabregas has dipped a bit, that Wilshere looks tired and Nasri can’t do everything on his own. Oh, and if I read one more “Arsenal in for the new Walcott” story I’m going to go mental. I’m still waiting for the first one to turn up regularly.

Of course, everyone knows it’s not up front that we really have concerns. Clichy and Sagna have lost the ability to defend, which is pretty bad news as they are both, well, defenders. We still seem incapable of defending resolutely or seeing out a slender lead - Wigan away was a prime example of that – and I am never more nervous in games that when we are 2-0 up.

Johan Djourou and Thomas Vermaelen playing together could well be the answer to these defensive problems – but this is still some way off happening, if it ever does. These two players have a combined time at Arsenal of nine years – two years together - but are still yet to play in the same side. Vermaelen’s pending surgery means it won’t be happening any time soon, either.

So the past few weeks have taught us we’re in a pretty good position, and that a centreback signing in this window could be crucial. Wenger has said he’s likely to buy. So that’s good. But for once I agree with Stan Collymore (can’t believe I just typed those words), who said at the weekend that if we sign big and we sign well, we can win this league and maybe some other stuff this year too. If we recruit badly, or not at all, we will probably concede too many goals to win anything of worth.

What I hope the most is that we don’t sign another stop-gap defender – someone who is a bit older and quite cheap, but who will do for short time. We already did that – his name was Squillaci and it hasn’t quite worked.

For once I can see real merit in going out and spending real money. What I can’t see merit in is signing someone like Matthew Upson – far too slow, way too easy to turn, who left Arsenal because he wasn’t good enough, has found his level in teams like Birmingham and West Ham, and remains not good enough.

Signing him – or similar – would be a step backwards, when what we need right now is a genuinely talented player to sure up a defence that’s leakier that an Australian side street.