Worrying signs...

Well I was fortunately at a festival this weekend so missed the so called 'abysmal' performance we displayed on Saturday at Craven Cottage. From what I have read we lacked creativity, lacked drive, and our normally consistent players put in a poor show.

I am not going to try and analyse the game because I did not watch it live, and I am not sure I can force myself to watch my recorded copy of MOTD, I have read enough about the game to know it is poor viewing, for that reason I just can't bring myself to do it...

The result has struck a lot of panic amongst Gooners, it was unexpected, even with a weakened team, and it is a worrying sign considering that Hull beat Fulham the week before. Also looking at it in the sense of us only scoring one goal in total against West Brom and Fulham it would appear not to just be defensive issues. This makes me wonder whether Alonso would in fact be a great signing for us, he is a passmaster, and we cannot always rely on the fitness of Cesc, and with Alonso in the team he would be a very useful creative spark in the centre of midfield. Looking at our squad at the moment it doesn't really look like we have a creative back up to Cesc, and at the same time we don't really have a defensive rock either, we have a lot of in betweens. Having said that I was a little surprised that Wenger didn't play Song against Fulham, he is fairly good defensively, even if he has had little experience in this position at Arsenal, I just don't understand playing players like Eboue out of position when Song could have fitted in. Wenger does puzzle us at times...

We only lost 3 matches last season and we have lost 1 only 2 games in, is this concerning?... Well I think that we drew too many games last season, you got more points from a win and a loss than you do from 2 draws. We can afford more losses if we can turn more draws into victories, that is a fact. Whether or not we can do that remains to be seen, especially when we tend to concede the first goal and are normally chasing the game, this leads to far too many of our draws, and this needs sorting out.

Silvestre has come in, and our defence is still looking poor. We knew Toure and Gallas were not a great partnership, Senderos has now joined AC Milan on loan for the season, and they have an option to turn this into a permanent deal at the end of the season. Senderos never really won me over but I am a little surprised Wenger has done this. We have stuck with Senderos for a long time now so it seems a little strange that we offload him at an age he will start to iron out the creases of his game, and Senderos seemed very much like one of the plans that Wenger would not drop, he really seemed determined to stick with him.

Now Djourou and Song might be better options than Senderos at CB, but we have not seen enough of either of those 2 at CB at Arsenal. Djourou had a spell before but this was not when we were competing for the title, and we have not seen Song there on a regular basis yet, but he has looked good there. I do like the determination shown by Djourou when he plays, this may lead to a lot of cards but he is there to win the ball. Song also looks like he will be strong enough to compete as a CB in the Premier League, we just need to see if he has the awareness and positioning.
Which leads me on to Silvestre... he is out until at least September 13 now! Just what we need huh, another inury prone player! I don't like to doubt Arsene but he is making the squad smaller and smaller and he is apparently no closer to signing a CM just yet, it is somewhat worrying.

As always you have to give Wenger until the very end of the transfer market until making a judgement over his summer transfer activity because he does like the late purchase, and looking at our squad at the moment I can really seeing him bringing in 2/3 players in January. The only thing is that Wenger has known since May that we needed to bring in a CM to partner Cesc and to step straight into the first team, and according to him, he is no closer to this!!! Please make us happy Arsene!