When Giroud raced through you thought he was in on goal but the defender got back, luckily Theo had left his wide spot to nip in and tap into an empty net. I really like Giroud, a great team player, hard worker and strong in the air but as I said in the days when we had an injury prone Dutch chap up front, we really missed a player who can show the defender a clean pair of heals when balls are

I am in the rather unusual position of writing about a match I barely watched last night. My stream was acting the fool and this was due to my funky internet connection that wasn’t so funky previously, so I spent most of the game on the phone to Sky trying to fix a problem that couldn’t be fixed their and then. Oh the joy.

Missing Arsenal matches puts me in a bad mood and having lost a two goal lead I expected to be frothing at the mouth, I wasn’t. Which is quite the surprise I must say.

I had it fixed in my mind before kick off that we would be beaten by Schalke, not because they are a better team, I actually think we are but because we were playing with almost zero confidence in our game right now. It was quite the surprise then, when we raced into a two goal lead. We had only mustered a handful of clear cut chances in our last four games or so, so I wasn’t feeling very confident about the whole creating chances thing.

When Giroud raced through you thought he was in on goal but the defender got back, luckily Theo had left his wide spot to nip in and tap into an empty net. I really like Giroud, a great team player, hard worker and strong in the air but as I said in the days when we had an injury prone Dutch chap up front, we really missed a player who can show the defender a clean pair of heals when balls are slipped into their path. One player that does have that is Theo and his impressive goals to minutes ratio continues.

I have been moaning endlessly about Podolski not using the best of his talents so far this season and while he didn’t get into many scoring positions himself, he found himself in and around the opposition penalty area on a few occasions. This is very much welcomed. His cross to Giroud was quality, not for the first time this season and Giroud stooped to head in.

This is where we need to see Podolski. Forcing his way into the penalty area and smashing in shots or firing in crosses for Giroud, Cazorla and Walcott to attack and not just playing short passes at the half way line.

We conceded at the worst possible time. Santi Cazorla slipped in the middle of the pitch and lost the ball, a few quick passes and one of their players flicked the ball wonderfully into the path of Huntelaar who let the ball roll across his body before producing a deadly accurate left footed shot into the far corner. The guy is deadly in front of goal. He may not have the most complete all round game but a player with that type of finishing at the end of his contract, well I would be more than happy for us to bring him in at a cut price to join our strike force.

Going into half time at 2-0 it could have well been a different result but with that goal lifting the home side a come back was always on as long as we did not score the third goal.

I haven’t seen the replay of their equaliser so it is hard to know where the fault lies but I did wonder why Farfan had so much time to take a long ball down, steady himself and fire in his goal via captain currently not very fantastic Vermaelen. Interesting that Arsene replaced Santos with Vermaelen at left full back. I am assuming that it is due to Farfan’s pace down that side of the pitch. What will be interesting to see is what happens at center back if Laurent Koscielny returns to his form of last season. Who would then drop out the side? Thomas Vermaelen was not at his best once more but he is the Arsenal captain.

I guess that is a decision that the manager can make further down the line but I am certainly of the belief that Koscielny and Mertesacker is our best combination at the heart of our defence at this moment in time.

Jack will now be missing for three matches so Arsene will have to look for a solution, especially if Aaron Ramsey is not ready to return to the team.

On the final result, I would have taken the draw before kick off, no doubt about it so I am not going to thump the floor this time. I am hoping that this game can be the beginning of our team finding their game back again.