Andre Santos was culpable for the Blackburn Rovers equaliser, playing Yakubu onside when his defensive team mates had pushed up. The impressive Hoilett flicked a pass into the path of Yakubu who nudged the ball very early past the advancing Szczesny. Holliet will play for a bigger club in a few

*Sigh*

Is it even possible to analyse Arsenal anymore? You just do not know what you are going to get and once you do is it always possible to explain it?

Blackburn Rovers are struggling at the bottom end of the league, they had already lost at home to Wolves and Everton this season. Arsenal had reached rock bottom before victory against Swansea and then a very good draw against German champions Borussia Dortmund.

This was supposed to be the run of fixtures that would see us get ourselves firmly back on track. What makes it worse is that everything was going according to plan. Andre Santos started ahead of Kieran Gibbs for his first start of the season, Arshavin had started ahead of Theo Walcott and the fit Aaron Ramsey had replaced Yossi Benayoun.

We looked sharp and smooth in possession, we had moved the ball around well and our combination passing had improved dramatically from displays against Swansea and Dortmund.

Alex Song, Mikel Arteta and Aaron Ramsey were dominating the midfield and because of that, we were very much on the front foot. Gervinho opened the scoring after a great threaded pass from Alex Song, Gervinho’s low early shot rolled into the bottom corner from the right side of the penalty box.

Andre Santos was culpable for the Blackburn Rovers equaliser, playing Yakubu onside when his defensive team mates had pushed up. The impressive Hoilett flicked a pass into the path of Yakubu who nudged the ball very early past the advancing Szczesny.

Hoilett will play for a bigger club in a few years, quick, skilful and can pass the ball well. He was Blackburn’s best player and we found it difficult to control him, especially in the second half.

At 1-1 it wasn’t a big problem, although you would want the defence to be more in sync with another but it is understandable given the fact that Santos hadn’t started a game for Arsenal until Saturday afternoon. The Arsenal players still looked dominant and scoring again was very possible if we just kept it tight defensively.

Alex Song released Ramsey down the right and the young Welshman who had a very good first half had the composure and vision to pick out Arteta who had strode into the box to side foot high past Robinson.

On the 45th minute perhaps came the turning point. Gervinho obviously buoyed by his earlier goal, wriggled his way through towards the edge of the penalty area, van Persie had spun into space and was gesturing for the pass and I am sure screaming for the ball also but Gervinho instead chose the shot with his weaker foot which was blocked. van Persie’s glare at Gervinho was very reminiscent of Thierry Henry at Jose Reyes all those years ago.

Arsene’s philosophy has always been for his players to make the pass if a team mate is in a better goal scoring position. Wenger’s last trophy winning team did that better than anyone.

What grates more than anything is that the first half display at Ewood park was our best of the season. Four days earlier the team put in a remarkable defensive showing against the German champions. So much so that it took a wonder strike to bring the home team level.

You would expect pretty much the same defence to be able to hold out against Blackburn Rovers but this Arsenal team is schizophrenic. We can change personality every three days regardless of which personnel we have on the pitch.

The second half defending was disastrous. It is amazing how a team can look rock solid on a Tuesday and then look like they have never seen each other before on Saturday lunchtime.

Last season man marking from set pieces became an issue, we were letting players run off us and win headers, this season we have reverted to zonal marking. For the most part we have seen an improvement. Szczesny has been commanding and Koscielny has a remarkable percentage of aerial duels well everything unraveled yesterday, especially when Bacary Sagna had to come off through injury. Johan Djourou is in terrible form right now and playing out of position at right back certainly did not help him regain any confidence.

Two set pieces undone our good first half work, Firstly Song deflected in a Blackburn set piece and then Yakubu scored his second nine minutes later after we failed to clear our lines at the back post. Yakubu might have been marginally offside but it was a very difficult call for the assistant to make.

3-2 down after dominating Blackburn in every stat apart from the one that counts, the score line.

Those two goals had meant that we had to push forward and commit players forward and we were punished. Djourou went to ground and missed the skipping Olsson who continued his run past Alex Song, his cross was turned in by Laurent Koscielny. Two own goals and a poorly defended set piece. Offensively we played well enough to have beaten Blackburn 9 times out of 10 home or away, but not with defending like that.

Chamakh came on and gave attacking left back Andre Santos something to aim for. Chamakh scored his first goal since February from a delightful whipped cross from van Persie. Mertesacker and Chamakh could have equalised at the death but it just was not to be.

Conclusion

We seem to be a Jekyll and Hyde team. Two new defenders in our back line must have contributed to the disarray at the back and it cannot be ignored that having these players during pre season may have solved these teething problems. Especially defensive players who need to develop understandings and partnerships. Yet having said all this, it was pretty much this team that worked so well as a unit in midweek against a much better team.

Personnel has changed throughout the squad, experience has been added yet problems remain. Our run of results since the Carling Cup final have been of relegation standard. We have the quality of player to be challenging for the title but right now we are witnessing the very opposite.

Man of the match: Aaron Ramsey