4 negatives from Sunday's match

I have address the positives in my previous post so now let's move on to the bad news. The negative elements that have creep into or remained in our play and contributed to the loss on Sunday.

1) Scoring goals never used to be a problem with us during days on the invincibles. Henry, Pires and co were extremely clinical in front of goal. Since then we have been plagued with strikers needing multiple attempts to score. This is definitely the big problem we are facing but have not been able to rectify. We would not have lost on Sunday if our finishing was better. Hell, i reckon if our finishing were much better we would have won the league last year . Remember the game at st Andrews last year where we had plenty of chances to kill of the game and get three points before Kevin Phillips popped up to score in the last minute? What about Sunderland this year? Enough said. I stand by what I said in my previous post, if Koscielny had scored from his header, we would have won Sunday's match.




2) Individuals mistakes continue to surface in our game. The mistakes by the goalkeepers have been well documented along with those of the defenders but now the disease seems to be infecting the midfielders. Nasri poor pass the led to the second goal was classic lack of concentration on his part. Don't know why but the lads can't keep their focus for the whole ninety minutes. Arsene really needs to work on the team's concentration.


3)Arshavin has been poor this season. I know he has had a real bollocking in some of the blogs, but I thought he did ok in the Chelsea match. He definitely did more running than in the pass few matches. However he is a big player for us and we need him in good form if we are going to mount a serious challenge for the title.


4) Lastly, the main weakness plaguing the team is injuries.  Last night, the commentator asked his partner if the Gunners were the unluckiest team in the league. It may be true but his partner also mentioned that Arsene really need to look at his training and backroom staff cause this happens every year and a lot of those injuries sustained by the players were training injuries. I have wrote about this subject extensively so I would not dwell upon it now.In the Chelsea match we lost the entire core of almunia, vermaelen, fabregas and van persie to injuries. It was always a long shot to take on a team like Chelsea without these players. Just imagine if we have a full team against Chelsea without Cech, Terry, Lampard and Drogba. I leave it to your own conclusion.