It was yet another afternoon where the opposition goalkeeper was handed the post match bottle of champers at the Emirates, I was beginning to think it was coincidence but after reading a recent interview from Dennis Bergkamp about finding corners  of the net, I wonder if our players are

I still find myself shaking my head and slamming my hands down on the table from time to time. Disappointment has become a little too familiar in recent weeks.

Where have I seen this before? The latter stage of the season, Arsenal in a good position and then come the mass injuries followed by the almost weekly appalling refereeing decisions.

History is repeating itself once again as referee Anthony Taylor and his assistants failed to see a push in Andrey Arshavin’s back when he was about to strike the ball in the penalty area. Titus Bramble was also the last man and would have been dismissed, well that is assuming that the rules would have been applied correctly and I guess that is a 50-50 chance of that happening.

I have said many times this season that if we are to win trophies then we have to play good enough to beat the opposition and refereeing decisions. We might have just been good enough to beat Sunderland 1-0 or 2-0 but we need to be better than that to guarantee the points against other influences.

Clearly the side lacked the cutting edge of our strongest possible side, every side would. We miss Theo Van Fabregas and that makes it more difficult to break down the opposition but I felt we lacked the intensity in the early stages of the game. We moved the ball too slowly, there was not enough movement off the ball to open up spaces.

It was yet another afternoon where the opposition goalkeeper was handed the post match bottle of champers at the Emirates, I was beginning to think it was coincidence but after reading a recent interview from Dennis Bergkamp about finding corners  of the net, I wonder if our players are sometimes just ok with hitting the target.

Nasri, Bendtner and Arshavin were all guilty of snatching at chances instead of being clinical at vital moments.

I have been looking forward to watching Jack Wilshere playing in the advanced midfield role and he did ok but when you are in that position you need movement. Without Van Persie’s spinning runs away from markers and Theo’s electric diagonal bursts, Wilshere’s options were quite often limited and even more so as Nasri kept drifting into central midfield and not running beyond his full back.

It was the same for Arshavin, didn’t make enough diagonal runs and when he did he managed to round the goalkeeper and put the ball away even though trigger happy assistant didn’t do his job correctly.

Chamakh heading against the crossbar pretty much said it all, it just wasn’t going to be our day especially when decisions continuously go against you.

Conclusion

Whilst I find myself banging my head against my hands due to the referee and his assistants, I am not happy that the team left it until the last twenty minutes before they started to turn the screw. We have been over this as a team. We have learnt that to win any game we have to start quickly and intensely regardless of which personnel are on the pitch.

In the end it should have been a game where we spoke of a champions display, winning when not playing well but we were denied. It is a big set back for the team who have no time to feel sorry for themselves, we cannot go into the game at Camp Nou feeling anything but confidence which will be difficult after recent disappointments.

Our captain Cesc Fabregas is back and hopefully his reintroduction into the team can lift the spirits and add to the quality on the pitch.

Szczesny (7)
Sagna (7)
Djourou (8)
Koscielny (7.5)
Clichy (7)
Denilson (6)
Diaby (6)
Wilshere (6.5)
Nasri (7)
Bendtner (6)
Arshavin (6)

Please note that ratings are only my interpretations of the game and that others will have differing opinions