The positives from the game was our back 4 and Frimpong. Vermaelen was gold on the day, Caroll didn’t get a sniff. Vermaelen won everything on ground and in the air, its a real shame we didn’t get to keep a clean sheet on that kind of performance.  Miquel was very impressive and he was very unlucky that his clearance hit Ramsey and went in to give Liverpool the lead. Jenkinson was impressive too

Third game of the new season and we come out with a defeat. A 2-0 defeat wasn’t what the doctor ordered but still we lost all 3 points at The Emirates. Last season our home games were poor to say the least and we have started in similar fashion with a poor result.

We started very slowly, Liverpool dominated, their double pivot of Charlie Adam and Lucas Levia over shadowed our midfield early on. We grew in confidence as the game wore on but we still lacked that cutting edge in midfield which eventually isolated our attack.

A lot of factors in my opinion led to our lack of creativity in the middle of the pack.

1. Wenger didn’t get the balance right in midfield. A Frimpong, Nasri and Ramsey would never work. Apart from Frimpong we were left with no other ball winner – Nasri and Ramsey are far from ball winners or even defensively sound leading to us being over run and reducing our creativity because we couldn’t win the ball on time but on the other hand we played with what we had. In my last write-up I said a 4-4-1-1 formation would work and with Nasri playing, it would have pushed Arshavin who was poor to the bench. Bendtner or Chamakh should have started which would have given RVP license to roam and increase our numbers in midfield.

2. RVP failed to drop off there by increasing our numbers in midfield, dragging opposition defenders out of position and freeing up space for Arshavin and Walcott to exploit. Also the lack of movement from RVP also restricted in field movement of Walcott. Walcott is never at his best when he is crowded on the bye-line. Enrique, Downing and Adam doubled up on him all game.

3. The pace of passing looks very laboured. We tend to dwell on the ball for long instead of making a quick pass and running into a freed up space.

4. We still aren’t closing down our opposition and against Liverpool we failed to do that. We allowed Liverpool have so much time on the ball which led to them dictating the tempo of the game.

We played into Liverpool’s hands. Flanagan and Enrique were largely untroubled, Carraghar and Aggar dominated RVP from start to finish. Our only source of inspiration going forward was from the departing Nasri. His skills and nifty foot work created openings for him but still it wasn’t  enough for him and the team

Frimpong’s red card was a deserved sending off, his inexperience showed  which in turn gifted Liverpool all 3 points. Before the red card, we started seeing more of the ball, I was hoping we would see the introduction of Ryo for the ineffective Arshavin. Arshavin for me has gone backwards, really do not know what has happened to him. His first 6months in the Arsenal jersey was nothing short of awesome but seeing his footballing play yesterday was depressing.

The positives from the game was our back four and Frimpong. Vermaelen was gold on the day, Caroll didn’t get a sniff. Vermaelen won everything on ground and in the air, its a real shame we didn’t get to keep a clean sheet on that kind of performance.  Miquel was very impressive and he was very unlucky that his clearance hit Ramsey and went in to give Liverpool the lead. Jenkinson was impressive too while Sagna was Sagna. Frimpong was very sound, he started nervously but grew into  game has the game wore on. The only downer was the red card, hopefully he learns from it like Wilshere did when he was red carded against Bolton at home last season.

All in all, we must move on, we have Udinese on Wednesday and we must come out of it with a result, then we go to Old Trafford on Sunday.

We go into the UTD game without a Defensive Midfielder in sight. Song and Frimpong suspended, Denilson on loan hopefully Wenger gets one before Friday. M’Vila is being talked about in the media and on Saturdays reports were flying around that Rennes rejected a €20m bid from us. Question now is are we going increase our offer or is M’Vila going to force a move out of the club. Only time would tell and as it stands we don’t have time on our hands.