The midfield set up was very interesting, the Flamini and Arteta duo has come under a bit of scrutiny in the past. Arteta has often played as the deepest player as he is better suited to receive the ball from the centre backs and distribute the ball, Flamini has been used to make tackles further up the pitch. Trouble is, this has caused issues with our offensive game, especially if Arteta is stopped from controlling the game from deep. On Saturday Arteta seemed to play as the traditional number 8 as is displayed on his shirt. It looked like the Arteta that forged such a good partnership with Alex Song when he first joined. He may not have the mobility or athleticism of some of his midfield partners but he looked as if he enjoyed himself. With Jack Wilshere missing for the next six weeks and Aaron Ramsey in need of time to get back to his best, we may just see Arteta get a little run in this position.

I was at the Stoke game and my overriding feeling was one of the players not being up for the fight. They bottled challenges and, with the exception of Ox when he came on, didn't try and take the game to Stoke. We looked scared and didn't like the robustness of Stoke's tackles (although, having said that, Stoke were at their thuggish best and were lucky to keep 11 men on the pitch. Scumbags.) The Everton game was a complete change. The player were well up for it from the first whistle and took the game to Everton. The selection of Ox was a great call. He just makes stuff happen, he frightens defenders, forces them into mistakes and even when he plays a stray pass he busts a gut to get back and atone for his error. This effort spurred on the other players,

The Stoke City defeat was difficult to take for so many because we were very much in the title race and with such difficult games coming up you kinda expected more from our team in our last performance. This has lead to a sudden wave of Wenger out, Just leave Wenger or my current favourite using the words of the utterly disgusting Mourinho and then repeating them at the doorstep

We did have one very good chance in the first half and those who call for us to stop messing around with the ball and just shoot will be pleased to see Santi Cazorla hit the ball straight down the keeper when he had Lukas Podolski in a far better position in front of him. Positions like that are personally the only reason why he should starting games for Arsenal and little else, so I was vocally frustrated at my favourite little Spaniard for thinking of glory rather than the good of the team. It was a day to forgot about for the pair of them in truth. Santi kept twisting and turning into red and white stripped shirts while Lukas Podolski jogged around playing short passes and little else.

One of the players in the current squad one might argue isn't likely to be overawed by a so-called 'tough' game is Mattheu Flamini. Since his return, the tenacious Frenchman has been lauded for adding that much sought after 'steel' and toughness to Arsenal's midfield and in the eyes of most, would have been tailor-made for the battle at the Britannia. Inexplicably however, Flamini was left out. It's easy in hindsight to look at the team selection and criticise the manager's decisions after the event but leaving out the Midfielder, as well as Oxlade-Chamberlain and Ozil, was odd before the game and in light of the result, looked borderline absurd. Ok, the team he picked may have been mostly the same as that which comprehensively dispatched of Sunderland a week prior, but if

Arsenal suffer a 1-0 defeat at the hands of the new enemy, we have some post match reaction from four fantastic follows on Twitter. Sorry that you are not answering fun questions but thank you for taking the time out to give us your views. Here they are....

Anyway fast forward a few years and the poor Stoke supporters are very angry and upset that Ramsey didn't like having his leg broken by an out of control idiot. How very dare he? After being subjected to abuse from the Stoke fans ever since that day he put his finger to his lips when he scored against them this season this has upset a very sensitive support who can dish it out but cannot take a fraction of it back. A tiny, tiny fraction I may add. They want to sing anti Ramsey songs today without taking into consideration that he will not be in the squad today. Probably not even at the ground so good luck with that.

Fortunately, we have a realistic chance of winning a trophy, even if our Premier League challenge has fallen by the wayside. Should we win the FA Cup, it would end nine years of pain. It might also give younger fans something positive to remember, as our string of fourth-place finishes will often fade

I have been tempted to suggest that Mertesacker's transfer from Werder Bremen is the most symbolic of the Emirates era. Just like Dennis Bergkamp's arrival served as precursor to the champagne football of the last decade at Highbury, Mertesacker's was the first in a seismic shift. One of the reasons given for Arsenal's regression has been that the French league had gotten progressively weaker. When Arsene Wenger first came to England, he had the knowledge of an unheralded market and he took advantage of this. Jamie Carragher, the ex Liverpool stalwart speaks of how he effectively wrote off any signings from the French league by Liverpool on the basis that "If they were any good, Wenger would have bought them." As Wenger had to devise a plan to save Arsenal from the havoc brought by the departures of Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas, Mertesacker's arrival foreshadowed a more Teutonic outlook. The next year, Lukas Podolski would join. The year after, Mesut Ozil. Wenger, a man born in Alsace, a town that borders

There is a huge irony here – that the same people who never stop banging on about the importance of ‘marquee’ signings where Arsenal are concerned seem oddly unwilling to accept how far twenty marquee signings each might take Manchester City and Chelsea beyond our reach. And have you noticed how they have found all sorts of ways to keep criticising whilst carefully avoiding any real mention of this elephant in the room? One of their favourites is to compare our budget to the teams just below us instead, to show how we ‘under-achieve’. ‘We only just came above Spurs, and look how tiny their wage bill is compared to us’. Well, firstly, Spurs are showing right now just how difficult it is to maintain that kind of form for more than a season. Secondly, if they ever made the