Last season after frustrating home draws with Villa, Newcastle, Portsmouth etc. there were excuses. This time Wenger criticised his players in public

I’m not surprised, but I am pleased about the Arsenal reaction to the weekend draw with Birmingham. In all honesty it’s the sort of result we’ve seen far too often over the past couple of seasons, but Arsene was scathing: “The crowd were good, we were bad…You can never afford to be poor”.

Last season after frustrating home draws with Villa, Newcastle, Portsmouth etc. there were excuses. This time Wenger criticised his players in public; something he rarely does.

The difference, of course, is that Arsenal are in the thick of a title fight, well over halfway through the season, and that hasn’t been the case recently; Chelsea’s pursuit of the first of their 2 recent title triumphs, in 2004-5, was so relentless that a good Arsenal team (possibly a very good one) were left trailing in their wake, and never really looked like catching up after December. The past 2 seasons have seen Arsenal painfully off the pace.

After the draw at Portsmouth on Boxing Day saw Arsenal displaced from the top of the league for the first time since they took up residence there in September, I watched our next fixture at Everton in the pub with a good friend. A Bolton supporter as it happens. At half time I said to him that if we won, we’d win the title. I added that I couldn’t see us winning.

The excruciating thing about the draw with Birmingham is that Arsenal have lost the lead; a lead which they so brilliantly… so emphatically reclaimed at Goodison. And they lost it cheaply.