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Tonight hasn't gone according to plan at all. Firstly Southampton outplay us in the first half for us to race into an early second half lead, only then to concede a silly goal to make it 2-2. Then we find out that Aaron Ramsey has had an injury set back on his thigh which has ruled him out for a further 6 weeks. Oh and Flamini also thought he would add to the fun by getting himself sent off with a two footed 'tackle' so that is three games out for him. But Arsene has sprinkled some magic Arsene dust over the gloom and has given Gooners hope that some transfer action may be done by the end of play on Friday.

Put another way, they have won only once at home in the league since the end of November. A 1-0 victory over West Brom, so that form along with all the off pitch issues has risen the expectancy levels up somewhat. The good news for Arsenal is that they are missing a very key component in the heart of their central defence. Centre back Dejan Lovren is out through injury so is Gaston Ramirez. Dani Osvaldo has been suspended for headbutting his team mate in training which is very kind of him but they do have Victor Wanyama coming back into the squad for the first time in weeks as he overcomes an injury of his own. Victor was allowed to kick as many Arsenal players as humanly possible in that first game so I'm interested to see how the referee handles him this time round.

Well I wonder if we are already trying to deal with those fixtures today. For weeks now we have raced into leads and then took our feet off the accelerator instead turning to our defensive organisation to see out games. Think back to the Coventry City game where we went into half time 2-0 up. With the quality we have we could have gone for their throats, pushed and pushed for more goals but we

Coventry City had a good go in the second half and should be proud of themselves in the way they passed the ball around at times. Even if we cranked up the handbrake in the first half of the second period, the League one side did very well to put pressure on us at times. If I was to compare another team that have been comparable I would say Tottenham in the FA Cup victory a few weeks ago. In fact I think Coventry were more threatening yesterday so they should feel proud of themselves, especially when you consider the amount of money our neighbours spent last summer.

After Arsenal predictably dominated the opening exchanges, chances of on a upset looked less and less likely with each passing moment and the match was over as a contest as quickly as the half hour mark as the Gunners were soon two goals to the good thanks to Lukas Podolski's brace. His first came as he latched on to a delightful Mesut Ozil pass before taking the ball around Joe Murphy in the Coventry goal and sliding home with his left foot. The German made it two after stealing in at the far post to head in from close range following Per Mertesacker's flicked header from a corner kick. 'Poldi' could have even had a third soon after but his right-footed effort from the edge of the box went skyward, denying him what would have been a 'perfect Hat trick'.

Wojciech Szczesny and Mertesacker can lay claim by holding the highest number of clean sheets in the league. Ramsey has grown to a master of universality to channel the words of statistics blogger, Michael Cox. Assist champion, Mesut Ozil is 2nd on the assists chart and could also be featured. These are all marks of improvement that Arsenal fans can take joy from. Moreover, when one compares them to the teams they are competing against, it appears a greater achievement for them to still be in the conversation. Taking one approach propagated by the sports economist, Stefan Szymanski the most accurate predictor of a team's league position is its wage bill. His finding stemming from studying data between 1978 and 2010. As at, April 2013, Arsenal had the 4th highest wage bill in the league. This would suggest that last season, they finished where they should

Gedion Zelalem missed the League cup run due to injury and is said to feature at some point tonight. There was an awful lot of hype on him during the pre season. I certainly put my two cents in. But his injury has made him practically disappear off the radar. Not a bad thing I guess given his

He doesn't play as a centre forward for Schalke obviously but he has appeared as a number 10, in some instances he is pushed higher up the pitch and you can get a sneaky peak at what he might be able to offer for the short but most probably long term. He is 6ft2in and technically fantastic. Look at this clip. He has so many players around him and finds his man. He gets the ball back and is charged down by four players but has the technique to turn them and still have the vision to slip in one of his players. It is hard to gage how much stronger he will get but his game is based on superb technique. That short snippet really reminds me of Robin van Persie.

Inevitably I expect The Arsenal to fall short of the title this year. I am not certain of it, however, I begrudgingly expect it. Whether this is our fault for not spending enough or the oil clubs for spending so much it’s uncompetitive, is not important. That is an argument Gooners have been having since Cesc left for Barca. All I know is if we do fall short Arsene will be questioned by the experts of the game Savage, Shearer, Owen et al for his ‘fear of spending on international superstars’. And how happy will MOTD be? The two Alans will be very proud of themselves. The brave decision made at the start of the season picking two of Europe’s most expensive squads, to win the most squad dependant competition in the country, will prove just how much they understand the modern game.

Going back to some of my examples above and the perception of those players. Per Mertesacker was too slow, too lumbering and not Gary Cahill enough for Arsenal football club. A few seasons later and he is right up there for the Arsenal player of the season. I need not tell you about the ridiculous stick that young Aaron Ramsey had to endure, this season he was the star man in a team that included Mesut Özil, Santi Cazorla as well as others. What was the biggest contributory factor to these players improving so much? Playing football