Broken Arsenal

I went to the Emirates yesterday, and it wasn't good. In fact, in terms of performance it was one of the worst I've ever seen from an Arsene Wenger team.

Unfortunately, my seat wasn't the best, fairly central - behind the goal - and around 13 rows from the front - it's hard to give adequate player assessments from such a horizontal view.

So what did I learn from watching the game:

1. Arsenal supporters hate Mike Riley, rarely have I seen a referee given so much abuse. The supporters are full of excuses, Riley only made one bad decision - of which I agree with the majority that Vela was fouled prior to Aston Villa's second goal.

2. Nicklas Bendtner is not Arsenal quality and should be sold fairly quickly to make room for Vela. We've had a good look at Bendtner now. He's talented but slow, he's fairly clumsy at times, but worst of all - he's often lazy. He's like Berbatov - same stinky attitude, but with 30% of the talent.

3. Not only are Arsenal too young, they're too small. In the flesh, the midfield  look like a bunch of little boys running around - and yesterday was boys against men, it really was. How could Wenger get it so wrong? How could he imagine this lack of physicality would ever hack it?

4. The lack of fight in many of the players is all too evident - they look like they want help. At 2-0 down, some of them were on the verge of giving up - particularly Fabregas. His body language was a clarion call to Arsene Wenger: "for God sake, put some men around me - help me!! I can't do this on my own anymore." He looked mentally tired, and he looked physically abused. At this rate, Fabregas will be destroyed by the time he's 25.

The first 5 minutes, Arsenal looked up for it - a couple of mazy runs from Walcott ended with half-decent crosses that no Arsenal player could get on the end of because none of them were in the box. That's because nobody wants to take responsibility, they're afraid of running out of position and getting blamed for it.

I noticed some things that were not quite right with team morale. A Fabregas corner that Sagna came short for - Fabregas said go back and Sagna gestured his reprehension. Then Fabregas rebuffed him. This happened a couple of times with Walcott too - eyes drilling into the back of his head after a poor pass, a poor decision.

For me, the atmosphere between the players is not right. Raised voices in the dressing room following the Tottenham debacle may well have left a negative imprint in the minds of some. When things aren't going well, players look to blame each other for fear of being blamed themselves - especially young players.

Also, there's no communication on the pitch, and as we already know - there's no leader on the pitch. Only Sagna leads by example.

Arsenal somehow made it to half-time thanks to a penalty save from Manuel Almunia. But Aston Villa were bossing the game. They were extrememly well organised, and very patient. They had a game plan, could see it working after 10 minutes and knew they could sew the game up in the second half if they did more or less the same thing. Arsenal had no answer to Aston Villa's organisational qualities. Had Manchester United not been so arrogant and played a more defensive-minded game last weekend, they would have beaten Arsenal too.

The first goal arrived on 70. How Arsenal were still in the game by then was a mystery, but Sagna stumbled awkwardly on his weak ankle, Ashley Young streaked forward and crossed for Gabriel Abonglahor, but "Calamity Clichy" as I now call him headed into his own net. Clichy was under significant pressure, but most half decent defenders would have just headed it over the bar, it wasn't that difficult.

On 80, Vela was sliced down outside the box and Villa hacked the ball away under duress, the long punt finding Abonglahor one on one with Gallas. Youth beat experience, but Abonglahor's strike could have been saved by Almunia had he got his angles right. Fabianski would have saved that - but I still think Almunia is more convincing than Fabianski - which tells you Arsenal have a goalkeeping problem.

Post-match, Wenger came out with the usual tripe about sharpness, tiredness, blah blah blah. There has to come a time when he tells it like it is - that Arsenal are relatively crap compared to Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.

Maybe another two defeats will put Wenger in such a weak position that only the bare naked truth will suffice - those defeats might well come in Arsenal's next two Premiership games; Man City and Chelsea.

Wenger could certainly do worse than give Djourou, Ramsey, Wilshere, Vela their chance now. With them in the team Arsenal are just as likely to make the top four as they are fielding Denilson, Diaby, Bendtner, Silvestre  - who by the way, is beginning to look like a last-minute mistake signed out of sheer desperation rather than necessity.