Arsene Wenger said he'd feel guilty if we missed out on top spot in our Champions League group but team selection and the squad that travelled showed he was thinking more about the league game against Boro on Saturday than winning the group.

It was, by any standards, a very poor Arsenal performance. Yes, we had a lot of players missing but that does nothing to excuse it, it merely reinforces the fact that we need to strengthen in January. We started ok but once Porto got hold of the game we never looked like scoring and given the chances they had we were somewhat fortunate not to get a real pasting.

We conceded soft goals, as is our wont this season. The first came from a corner, Abou Diaby's defending was pure schoolboy and Bruno Alves powered his header home. The second saw Sylvester way out of position, Lopez was put through with ease and his finish into the top corner left Almunia with no chance.

At the other end we did little of note, Ramsey's left footed shot the only threat I can remember. The strikers weren't exactly given great service by a midfield from which only Aaron Ramsey can take any credit. The others just weren't at the races and it was odd to see the young Welshman taken off when he could have been moved into the middle and the completely ineffective Song withdrawn. Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs came on for Ramsey and Diaby and both of them had their moments, Wilshere's bravery and willingness to work and get stuck in so refreshing compared to others. That a 16 year old is putting more experienced 'professionals' to shame says a lot about where we are at the moment.

But when your strikers lack service you should at least expect them to do the simple things right. Nicklas Bendtner had another night to forget. He gave the ball away far too easily and all the confidence he has in himself seems misplaced. Eduardo can't come back soon enough to give us a different option up front when we go beyond Adebayor and van Persie.

Arsene said afterwards:

Porto were stronger than us. In the last 20 minutes, they were dangerous every time we lost the ball and we were not effective enough. At 2-0 down the belief was not there, we weren't strong enough to come back.

While captain for the night Manuel Almunia was pulling no punches when he said:

When we lose we have to think about what we did badly and what we have to do to improve, whether it is the first team or not.

Everyone that is wearing an Arsenal shirt has to give 100 per cent and that was not apparent tonight.

That's not the first time we've heard that from an Arsenal player this season and it's worrying that we still have that problem. Perhaps someone like Gallas is not motivated to play in a game like this, essentially a dead rubber, after all that's happened to him, but for some of these players it's a great showcase for them to show what they can do. What's really worrying is that maybe that's the best some of them have got.

Arsene Wenger is constantly telling the world how much he believes in these players, how much quality they have. It's a nice idea but it seems like it's gone to their heads and they feel they don't have to put in the effort to make it in the game. When you raise kids it's all well and good to fill them with confidence and self-belief but unless there's a bit of tough love in there too you breed arrogance and complacency and that's what we got last night. Arsenal's players are the closeted, exclusive boarding school boys finding out that the real world isn't beneath them and will gobble them up and spit them out unless they change their ways.

Ultimately though it showed, that even with players rested and out injured, that there's a distinct lack of quality in the squad and that must be addressed in January. How many more times do we need evidence of it?

So, the defeat is made more disappointing by the manner of it. It was another lacklustre performance with certain players seeming entirely indifferent to whether we won or lost. Not many can come out with any credit and serious, serious questions need to be asked about some of them. Gallas, Diaby, Bendtner and Song in particular. We already know Sylvester is a nothing player.

However, let's try and look at the positives. Erm. Well, we've qualified for the knock-out stages. As we've finished second we can draw one of: Roma, Panathanaikos, Barcelona, Bayern Munich or Juventus. Some very difficult games in there, I have a feeling in my waters it'll be Barcelona, which would be a lovely trip, if terrifying from a football point of view at this moment in time.

If we had managed to finish top our potential opponents would have been: Inter, Sporting Lisbon, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Villarreal, Lyon. Difficult games there too so it's hard to say whether top would be an advantage or not, bar playing the second leg at home. The draw takes place next Friday.

Now it's time to regroup and get ourselves ready for the trip to Boro early on Saturday morning. It hasn't been a happy place for us to visit in recent times. We haven't won there since a Robert Pires goal gave us a 1-0 in the 2004-5 season and we've lost two of the last three at the Riverside. Obviously we'll have some of the players who missed Porto back and that will make a big difference. A fuller preview with more team news etc tomorrow and Saturday.

For today that's your lot though.

It's a fairly makeshift squad that has travelled to Portugal for tonight's game. You can't necessarily say it's 'all-important' but it would be nice to top the group.

Back in come Diaby (who I had completely forgotten about - no doubt he'll play, get subbed then we'll discover that he's pulled his tongue and will be out for four weeks), and William Gallas. On the injured list are Cesc (knee), Clichy (hamstring), Sagna (flu), Kolo (calf), Adebayor (rested) and Robin van Persie (leptospirosis). They join Nasri who looks like he's going to spend another little spell on the sidelines as the stop-start start to his Arsenal career continues.

Some of them are precautionary, I'm sure. With qualification assured and a trip to Boro for an early kick-off on Saturday then it seems Arsene is taking no chances. So we're aiming for top spot nonetheless although with Inter, Sporting Lisbon and Atletico Madrid finishing second in their group finishing top could provide as tricky a draw as coming second. Tonight's other matches will give us the full picture of the first knock-out stage and we could see the second place teams added to by either Madrid or Juventus, Villarreal and Bayern Munich or Lyon. So plenty of quality to face whatever happens tonight.

Emmanuel Eboue is set to start, you would imagine on the right hand side of midfield, and the manager says he's in the right frame of mind despite the reaction to his substitution against Wigan. As East Lower says he has to play his part to put it all behind him while Arsene suggests that it doesn't matter how much money a player is paid he will still make mistakes. I don't think it ever had anything to do with money but the debate is water under the bridge at this stage. If Eboue puts in the effort tonight, even if he doesn't play well, he'll be on the right road again. 

As for tonight it could be a good game. Up front you have to think Bendnter and Vela will get a chance to show their early Carling Cup form. For the big Dane in particular it's a chance at redemption after what was a very frustrating performance against Burnley. The midfield would worry you though, without Cesc and Nasri we lack that bit of craft and Porto is never an easy place to go at the best of times.

Lots of talk over who'll captain the side. I suspect it will be Almunia as I'm told Gallas made it clear he didn't want to be considered again when he was replaced by Cesc. 

Other than that not a lot to talk about really. Theo Walcott has been awarded the BBC London Young Footballer of the Year award. I think Cesc has won this before so well done to Theo, the hat-trick against Croatia clinched that for him no doubt.

So, hopefully a decent match and a good performance tonight. There are some Arsebloggers out there, have fun chaps, don't get into too much trouble.

Till tomorrow. 

Well we wanted a response to the disappointment of last Saturday and we got one with a 4-0 thumping of FC Porto at the Grove last night.

After all his talk of making changes the manager's axe turned out to be not so much an axe as a teeny-tiny meat cleaver taken from an Action Man Kitchen Adventure set. The only change was Nasri in for Eboue and that's one you would always expect when Nasri is fit anyway.

And there were a few moments of real danger before we opened the scoring. You need a bit of luck on your side and we had that when Rodriguez's header bounced up and just about over the bar. Then I remember Almunia making a very good save and from the resulting corner Gael Clichy clearing off the line. Had any of those gone in then things might have been a bit worrying but as I said, you need the run of the green sometimes and once the first goal went in there was no looking back.

The first came after a wonderful piece of control from Cesc who played the ball into Adebayor. He held it and fed it to Robin van Persie whose run to the near post was perfectly timed and he poked it home convincingly. The roles were reversed for the second when Adebayor headed home van Persie's corner.

The third came early in the second half when van Persie showed good strength to brush past Bruno Alves and his improvised finish went in at the far post. After that we had a whole host of chances. Walcott put one just wide from about 6 yards, then he turned provider for Nasri who put one wide from what seemed like even closer. The manager made some changes, Bendtner and Eboue coming on for van Persie and Nasri and the big Dane won a penalty which Adebayor converted to make it 4-0.

Carlos Vela came on for Theo Walcott and showed some quick feet and good skill while Adebayor should have had a hat-trick after being set up very well by Bendtner. So 4-0 it finished and I'm glad that the players who might well have been dropped have repaid the faith the manager showed in them. For the two strikers, so heavily criticised after Hull, to score 2 each is fantastic and I'm sure I even saw Gallas compete for and win a header [insert ironic smiley].

What was most pleasing was that this was probably Cesc's best game of the season. There are lots of theories about why he hasn't really performed this season. From tiredness after the Euros to lacking the kind of player like Flamini who allowed him to thrive last season to just lack of form everyone's got an opinion, but he showed last night just how important he is to the team. We can play well without him but when he clicks into gear we're a different beast altogether.

Afterwards the manager explained his decision not to ring the changes like he had threatened, saying:

I was tempted to make more than one change but I did not because I did not want to give the feeling that you punish one more than another. I believe sometimes you give the team the chance to respond quickly.

And fair play to them, they did. And it's good to see. The main thing though is that the lesson stays learned, that complacent performances against teams like Hull do not happen again. It's a cliché but there are no easy games in the Premier League and with Sunderland away on Saturday you can be quite sure we're in for another battle for the three points.

And Theo Walcott said of the win:

We owed that to the fans. It was very disappointing at the weekend but we've got that out of our heads and showed tonight how good we are.

While Robin van Persie was keen to let the supporters know his thoughts, saying:

Everybody was really disappointed after losing against Hull. We knew we had to make it up to the fans and make it right. We played well and it was a deserved win.

With the manager also talking about owing the fans it seems everybody was singing from the same hymn sheet. It was interesting to see the amount of empty seats last night though. Not all the fans appear convinced by this team. No doubt when we get a few wins under our belt again those seats will fill up, which is another debate altogether.

So top of our Champions League we go but that should go out of our minds for the next few of weeks. With the next game not until October 21st against Fenerbache we've got to get ourselves focussed back on the league with two tricky games. Sunderland away, as I've mentioned, and Everton at home coming after the international break.

It was a good response last night but let's wait and see how things go before we decide the corner is well and truly turned.

More tomorrow.

Update: Having real problems with the mailing list software so nothing has been sent out today. Sorry about that. I am trying to fix it, it appears to be a well-known issue but nothing has worked just yet. 

They say when you fall off a horse the best thing to do is to get straight back up on the horse again. Tell that to Christopher Reeve.

Still, Arsenal have a chance to get back on the footballing horse tonight after a display on Saturday that was complete pony. The manager will have had a good nag at his players and the mane thing is that we get ourselves back on track and ... oh, fuck that. I don't have the energy for horse jokes. Not even if you fed me a load of shergar lumps.

The manager has been talking a lot and it's hard to get my head around everything he says. From saying he doesn't quite know what to do about the fact our defence is a bit small (play taller players and don't let tall players leave on loan) to suggesting the current crop are potentially invincible (rather stretching credibility after the Hull game) he's had lots to say.

I know Wenger is never critical of his players in public. If one of them was to kick the referee up the hole to crown a performance so abject that it made Tom Huddlestone look like Pele he'd still keep his counsel in public. So him talking them up is par for the course. I've got no real problem with it because that's what he always does. He has admitted though that we have a problem. Not physically, not in terms of talent, but in terms of attitude and approach, saying:

At the moment, I'm not sure we can focus all the time in every single game, especially when we think the game will be easy. When you are young, you think things are going to be easy. When you have a bang on the head like this, you have to understand the need to be consistent. It was a big bang and shows we're not completely there on the mental side.

In the past, we have been beaten physically, we have been intimidated. We know we can deal with that now, but we're sometimes a bit too confident in the home games when we need to put some effort in.

It really is a quite extraordinary revelation, although there's worse to come. The general feeling around the ground on Saturday was that the team thought they just had to turn up and go through the motions to win the game. Some might say that's down to inexperience but that's why we have an experienced and professional staff. Had none of them watched Hull this season? Did they look like a Derby to them? Even at the most basic level of football you're warned that if you go into a match with that attitude then you run the risk of being turned over and so it was. For players at this level to be that arrogant, and that's the only word I can use, is amazing.

Why can't we focus all the time in every single game? It's not like anyone's asking them to play well every game. Nobody's asking them to score six goals in every game, but it strikes me that expecting players to focus for 90 minutes each week is the very least we should expect from well paid professional footballers.

What's even more incredible is Kolo Toure's admission that he was 'scared' about playing Hull. He said:

Against Man United everybody thinks it's going to be a tight game but when you play against Hull it's harder because you are expected to win and score in the first minute. But it doesn't happen like that. I was scared against Hull because there are no easy games.

What? Scared? By all means treat Hull with respect because they deserved it with the way they've started the season. But being scared of them? Be scared of dragons, or terrorists, or cancer or giant spiders singing the entire works of Phil Collins, but don't be scared of Hull or any team. We were top of the league, playing at home and you're scared? We are the Arsenal. We don't get scared of anyone. It's mad.

The manager has said that he will rotate tonight. He says it's not punishment, merely a way of keeping the team fresh and it's normal throughout the season. It should be punishment. It should be more than just bringing in fresh legs. It should be a message to some of the players who thought Hull would be easy.

'Think it's easy, do you? Here's a few weeks on the bench. How easy is that? Now, if you want to get back in the team you've got to work hard. Oh, harder than that. Hah, much harder than that'.

So tonight is a chance to hammer that point home both from the manager's point of view and from the players who might come in. We've got Nasri back, which is good. He adds a bit of guile and creativity to our midfield. I think we'll see one of the strikers dropped and Bendtner come in, it would surprise me to see both of them miss out but Bendtner and Vela have done well together so maybe. One of Kolo or Gallas will make way for Djourou, I'm sure. Again it's hard to see the manager drop both his first choice defenders but if he does Silvestre may start.

Maybe we might see Ramsey in midfield. Denilson has done well but Ramsey must be chomping at the bit to get a start. It would be quite radical for Wenger to make that many changes but if the Hull game almost made him sick maybe he's in the mood for something a bit different. If he talks about how we don't have reserves, only good players, then it's time for him to let those good players have a go.

We responded well to the defeat against Fulham, it's time to show we've got the ability to do it again. We know we have the talent in the team to win games but will the great big chunk of Tiger flavoured humble pie sort some of these players out? We'll see later on tonight.

I think we can win but if we approach this game with anything less than 100% commitment and focus then we'll find ourselves on the wrong end of the result. Porto are a decent side, technically good and big on gamesmanship. Tonight's referee is the guy who sent off Vieira and Lauren against PSV a few seasons back. The same guy who allowed van Bommell to kick and maim any Arsenal player he wanted without so much as a card, so we have to be aware of that too.

I hope this is a night when Cesc clicks back into gear again, if he does (and I think the return of Nasri will provide us with the kind of movement and energy in midfield that Cesc enjoys) then our chances are more than good. Of course it's not all down to him, there are 10 others that need to play well too.

I'm waffling now and I'm a bit nervous about tonight. Fingers crossed for a much better performance and, of course, a better result.

Update: Meant to put this in today's post but forget. The OleOle graphics team have been working on some groovy new Arsenal wallpapers for your desktop. We'll be adding to these but for the moment you can find the first three here, featuring Jack Wilshere, Carlos Vela and Theo Walcott. 

Enjoy.