Arsenal. It was now time for Damian Martinez. I was desperately trying to get the second half going but my mind went on another direction. When I awoke in my ill and somewhat dazed state, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t over the Norwich display. Mikel Arteta’s comments post match left me feeling a little confused also.

I have this virus thing that is going around. Well, in truth a) I do not know that it is a virus and b) who knows if it is going around but I definitely feel like utter turd today. So much so that after having woken up and tried to get on with my day, I went back to bed this morning and ended up dreaming in a matter of minutes.

Hang on in there, this beginning is actually relevant.

During my morning dream, I dreamt that it was match day, it was a Champions League game, no idea who this was against. I assume I had Schalke on the brain. I do not remember any of the details of the game apart from two. Vito Mannone palmed two shots onto his face and into his own goal. On the second goal I jumped up and screamed ‘Now that’s two off your face!’

At half time I tweeted directly to Arsene Wenger that Mannone’s time was over, it wasn’t his fault but he wasn’t good enough to play for Arsenal. It was now time for Damian Martinez. I was desperately trying to get the second half going but my mind went on another direction.

When I awoke in my ill and somewhat dazed state, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t over the Norwich display. Mikel Arteta’s comments post match left me feeling a little confused also.

“We’re really down because we expected to win the game”

Maybe that was part of the problem. If everyone expected to win the game then perhaps that explains the dire performance. I guess we would need context that is not available to us though.

Did we expect to beat Southampton at the Emirates, did we think that we just needed to turn up yet still put in a performance that justified such confidence? I guess it is easy to look back after games where we do not perform and put it down to complacency. It certainly looked that way but was our mind set any different to our much better performances this season? Who knows. Oh to be a fly on the Arsenal dressing room wall.

Another comment of Arteta’s that left me scratching my head a little was..

“For the amount of ball we had in the game, we should have done more and created more goal situations. We need more patience sometimes.”

The first part of that sentence I absolutely agree, I cannot imagine any Arsenal fan would disagree with that. But how much more patience can the players have? I might be missing the point but popping it around our back four, into midfield and then back to our defenders for large parts of the game is pretty damn patient in my book. I would rather the word patience was replaced with urgency especially after it became obvious that we were not creating many chances the way we were playing.

Anyway, let it go, let it go.

A quick point on our league position and points total to date. It has been a big talking point already this season, including from our manager. I think it is far too early to be talking about gaps. What we need to be focusing on is our performances and finding consistency in our application. 8 games have been played so there are 90 points to play for from now until the season is over with. Manchester United have lost twice already this season, have probably played easier games than us and are only 5 points ahead. I don’t see anyone writing them off.

But one thing is certain, if we continue to pull stunts like we did at the weekend then we will have wasted a season because we have players good enough to compete with the top, many will disagree but I am sticking to that from what I have seen against Manchester City, Liverpool and Stoke away. We have the tools, it is just a case of using those tools the right way every week and not thinking we can use these tools with our eyes closed.

I said, let it go!

Jack Wilshere, Bacary Sagna and Emmanuel Frimpong are all in action right now, or possibly already played by the time I post this. But it is the German Thomas Eisfeld that has stolen the headlines. Eisfeld who we already know has a nose for goal fired in his second (after a Jack assist) to put us 2-1 up. He nearly completed his hat trick after his 25 yard screamer hit the crossbar. He is certainly one of the players to look out for in the near future.

Unlike Serge Gnabry, he needs to work on his physique as he has quite a slim frame but as we already know, he has a number of players in midfield ahead of him all fighting for a couple of places at the most. Being able to score goals gives him a nice little advantage though, especially if he can transfer that to a higher level.

Ok, that is about that for today. I promise to leave Norr-witch alone from now on. Consign it to the unhappy bin but seal the lid and look forward to erm a team that have just beaten the German champions at their own place. *Gulp*

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts!

Until tomorrow.