What that actually means is ‘we have only watched them on highlights and only know where they have come from and haven’t the foggiest about their strengths and weaknesses. This is the problem really, many pundits are often talking from a season behind reality. Fabianski to them is the keeper who came in cold, low on confidence and made blunder after blunder. Hopefully by next season he will be the actual keeper that we see today. I find it hilarious that we actually get so much more knowledge from blogs from in fact Joe Blogs who write down their views in their spare time rather than x player who is being paid a shed load of cash to

I am sat in bed with a box of tissues (for my nose.. behave!) feeling somewhat under the weather today and reading around the Arsenal news is not really picking me up that’s for sure. I think listening to the Sunday Supplement and various other sources has given me this virus.

Luckily I have actually taken a look at the league table for myself otherwise I would be having nightmares about our ongoing relegation fight that we are currently in, or so I am led to believe.

Whilst Fabianski may not be totally faultless, like the rest of the keepers in the division he actually has the second best shots to save ratio in the league behind Petr Cech. I would say that he has been directly at fault for one goal this season (Newcastle United at home) and has certainly saved us many more points this season.

Yet I have heard time after time this weekend that we will struggle to remain at the top without a new keeper. Any keeper, I suppose just not our goalkeeper.

I have also been able to decode the saying ‘The jury is still out on the new central defenders’

What that actually means is ‘we have only watched them on highlights and only know what club they have come from and haven’t the foggiest about their strengths and weaknesses. This is the problem really, many pundits are often talking from a season behind reality. Fabianski to them is the keeper who came in cold, low on confidence and made blunder after blunder. Hopefully by next season he will be the actual keeper that we see today.

I find it hilarious that we actually get so much more knowledge and information from blogs from in fact Joe Blogs who write down their views in their spare time rather than x player who is being paid a shed load of cash to give an ‘expert’ view.

Plenty has been said about Alex Song’s new found freedom this season and Wenger has confirmed that he wants Song to push on a little this season. So hopefully all the Song thinks he is Messi comments can be put aside finally, one hopes.

I personally feel that more has been made of this than need be. It is not as if Wilshere and for example Cesc are bursting into the box and Song has left his defensive duties and has ambled into the box leaving no midfielders ahead of our defence.

Wilshere has already spoken about the communication his team mates have about which players sit and which players join the attack. We rotate our midfield and all players are doing all the different jobs that the midfield position requires.

How many times have we been exposed through the midfield like we were against Manchester United last season? I am struggling to think of many, let alone any goals conceded because of it.

Another point is that we have most of the ball in most of our games, our offensive is quite often our defence, this is how we are, this is how Barcelona are. This is our system. Most of the teams we play against are happy to walk off the pitch against us after 90 minutes with a point in the bag. This happens home or away. We are not, we play to win games and to win games we need to score goals.

We need to put the opposition under pressure in their half, we need to create chances when the opposition are putting ten players behind the ball, we have had to come up with new ways to pull teams around. We are no longer playing 4-3-3, where one player is holding and the rest are attacking, the 4-2-3-1 now means that one of our two is now required to join our attacking players.

Let us not pretend that the Alex Song of Saturday has been the Alex Song of the whole season so far. He has been better than that, he has not only scored vital goals but has made assists or key passes (especially to wide players darting down the right) to players who have created goals.

We are often in a situation, especially at the Emirates where our back four are standing against one striker and the rest of their team are behind the ball. We do not need 6 or seven players back just in case they break on us. If the opposition had 5 or 6 players in our half then I would fully expect Alex Song to fulfil his role as chief protector of the Arsenal defence, how often are we in that situation?

Another position reason as to why Alex Song is often in the opposition half is because he is one of the best players we have in terms of putting pressure on the ball. He wins so many tackles high up the pitch thus giving our attacking players more opportunities to create chances.

I think we defend at our best when the whole team is closing down the opposition and stopping them from picking out passes. It doesn’t matter if it is build up play from the back or counter attack, when Nasri and Arshavin close down the full backs and Chamakh puts pressure on the center half before he can lift his head and think about his next move, that is when we defend at our best.

The defensive responsibility does not fall on the shoulders of our back four and Song, we defend as a team, as a unit. We have made individual mistakes this season which has cost us goals that we could have done without.

The Mancs are unbeaten this season and they have the rock like Vidic and the experienced Rio along with the destroyer Fletcher in the middle of the park. Not to mention the experienced Van der Sar in goal, who wouldn’t want to have him in their team?

Yet they have conceded two less goals than us and almost certainly we have had the more difficult fixtures so far.

If they are so strong and we are so bad, why oh why in the middle of December are we almost equal with Manchester United’s goals against column?

Answers to: Arsenal Vision,
1 Top of the league road,
Cesc soon back street
just off, Vermaelen still to play road
PO Box AFC

But hey, not everything is rosy. Tommy V is out until the new year (next month) which isn’t actually so bad if he makes it back then. The bad news is that Koscielny will be out until the end of December which leaves no room for injury or suspension. However it does give Johan Djourou the run that he deserves after some very impressive displays.

We could do with a Sol Campbell sitting on the bench right about now. Allowing Djourou the chance to rest his bones if needed. Wenger is clearly worried about over playing him after such a length of time out of the game.

It is amazing how opinions change, when he played against Manchester City and in his earlier games he was obviously rusty and lacking the match sharpness needed, yet he was written off as not good enough and a liability, nowadays he is the only good center back we have.

Djourou have Squillaci have developed a good understanding together so hopefully they can continue that good work in the absence of the Cobra and the sledge hammer (Vermaelen, for those who have forgotten about his powerful shooting)

Robin Van Persie is hoping to prove his doubters wrong this season and sustain a title challenge right to the end. He also spoke of the team missing a few chances earlier in the season which then set us back in certain games and that is my one complaint to date rather than our goals conceded.

We have so much of the ball and get into so many good areas yet we do not seem to reward ourselves with the required day light between us and our opponents. Fulham should have been put to sleep way before Kamara equalised. It happens all too often.

I wondered about our goal conversion rate this season so I asked good old Mr stats man Orbinho who you should follow on Twitter and he told me that we were actually third behind Manchester United first (19.8%) and Newcastle (16.3%) second. We currently have a conversion rate of 16% and that is actually much better than I thought. The problem may well be that we do not always end up making the goalkeeper work when we are in good positions.

One example from Saturday was Wilshere and Chamakh failing to work the keeper when both in the penalty area and this happens far too often.

I am not one of those who screams shoot or wants our players to strike the ball whenever we are within sight of goal. Nothing more frustrating than watching a player blast over the bar when three Arsenal players are in good positions, I would much rather we continue to work the best situations, just when we do get into those positions be more clinical, take more responsibility.

This is part of the reason why I want Van Persie back in our starting eleven on a regular basis. He is not one for shying away from taking goalscoring responsibility. He will get goals in this team and will create even more for others as we witnessed for Nasri’s fabulous second on Saturday.

I might have to change the name of the blog to NasriVision such is the amount of times I have spoken about him over the last week or so. A reader has written his views on our mercurial Frenchman, which you can read here: Your Vision – The magic called Samir Nasri

Right, sorry for late blog but I needed rest and now I have finished I shall go back to my rest. A nice cuppa hot blackcurrant and some Sky Sports news me thinks.

Back tomorrow.

PS – Newcastle are mugs, thank god we have our board in place. Arsenal till I die.