Emmanuel Frimpong has quite frightening potential. A fighter, fully of commitment and a physical freak of nature. As Arsene said, he needs to control his enthusiasm. His second yellow card was fully justified. Mistimed and reckless. His first yellow card was laughable. A Liverpool player played a pass and Sagna slid in attempting to cut the pass out. The ball went out of play and it was not clear if a touch was

One away draw and one home loss isn’t the best way to start a league season, especially given the way we fell apart at the end of last campaign. Our former captain is playing in another shirt while other squad members have been moved on also. We are looking very thin and have had to shoulder some of the burden onto younger players such as Carl Jenkinson and Emmanuel Frimpong, both I have to say did not look out of place in the slightest.

Cries for Arsene to spend the money has increased, especially as Laurent Koscielny fell to the floor unchallenged with back problems and had to be replaced by Spanish reserve captain Ignasi Miquel who also put in a very good shift.

While I am a fully paid up member of the need to spend fan club, let us not neglect the fact that we were missing eight players through either suspension or injury.

Suspended

Song
Gervinho

Injury

Wilshere
Djourou
Gibbs
Diaby
Rosicky
Traore

Eight players is three off a full team of players. Four of those players are certain starters (Song, Wilshere, Gibbs and Gervinho) I suspect that most teams would struggle to produce their best football in those circumstances.

That being said, the need for added creativity is looking clearer and clearer with every passing minute we play. Ramsey failed to stamp his authority on the game as Liverpool’s midfield started to dominate the game. It is currently a big ask for Ramsey to make the difference in the final third. Apart from Ramsey’s wonderful curling pass through to Theo Walcott in one of our games in Asia, I struggle to count more than a handful of successful splitting passes since that game.

Emmanuel Frimpong has quite frightening potential. A fighter, full of commitment and a physical freak of nature. As Arsene said, he needs to curb his enthusiasm. His second yellow card was fully justified. Mistimed and reckless. His first yellow card was laughable. A Liverpool player played a pass and Sagna slid in an attempt to cut the pass out. The ball went out of play and it was not clear if a touch was made by Sagna or not. Frimpong went to take the ball from Henderson and the two squared up. Handbags at the most and Frimpong received a yellow card.

The referee glanced up and rolled that into Frimpong’s path. Set him up nicely for red card. Well done referee.

Thomas Vermaelen was head and shoulders the best player on the pitch. I had actually forgotten how good he is until I watched him completely dominate Andy Carroll on the ground and in the air.

This Thomas Vermaelen would have made a huge difference last season in so many ways. Leadership, power, aggression, goals and organisation. It is vitally important that he stays fit for as many games as possible.

Vermaelen was not the only rock in our defence, the man behind him was equally impressive. Wojciech Szczesny looks far more aggressive this season from crosses and dominated his area superbly. Work still needs doing on his kicking but the need for a new keeper looks very much like a distant memory.

Defensively the team shape looked decent, especially considering the long list of missing players on top of the players we expect to be heading into the club. Offensively it was a different story.

We currently look very short on ideas, too many players in the attacking third of the pitch are out of sorts and it shows. Robin Van Persie looks a very lonely figure playing as the Arsenal spearhead. He is not being supported enough consistently by our midfield. When Cesc was in the side he often pushed himself up the pitch, almost creating a 4-4-2 at times. Without Gervinho in the side we didn’t have any players close enough to Van Persie to combine with him.

Theo Walcott stuck to the right and often found himself running in straight lines into trouble. I don’t know if it was a tactical ploy by Arsene Wenger or if Theo Walcott just didn’t make enough diagonal runs. Whatever the reason, it didn’t work and his contribution to the game was minimal. Walcott is at his best when he is running behind the opposition defence allowing his team mates to thread passes through. That didn’t happen enough.

Andrey Arshavin’s inconsistency concerns me. He looks in better shape this season but his hot and cold moments are all to frequent. Much of the pre match focus was on Samir Nasri, his attitude and how he would be received by the fans and I have to say that both the attitude of the player and fans was spot on.

It actually left me feeling a little sad as to what it could have been. Whilst Samir Nasri cannot make a defence splitting pass to save his life, his driving dribbles with the ball at his feet are breathtaking. One run from deep in his own half ended up with a dragged shot just wide, it would have been one of the goals of the season.

Forget about central defenders, or left backs. The priority for Wenger must be to replace the missing creativity from the team. The return of Jack Wilshere will help but missing Cesc is bad enough without the goals, flair and drive of Nasri.

Even with so many missing players, it took an Arsenal red card, an offside and unfortunate bad luck for Liverpool to take the lead. Miquel clearing the ball into the face of Ramsey before looping over Szczesny.

Liverpool were in control after that and the second goal was down to some good football and some tired Arsenal legs.

Work has to be done in the transfer market but probably more importantly we need to get our players off the treatment table and onto the pitch.

Wednesday’s match against Udinese is the most important game for many years. A result in Italy and I predict that the corner will turn in our favour. I don’t even want to entertain what a defeat will do for our short term future.

Arsenal man of the match: Thomas Vermaelen