Shameful cup defeat to arch rivals could scupper our title challenge

AS hard as it might be to focus on the bright side, considering how badly the Gunners let us all down on Saturday, I would guess that with a track record of two games missed and two defeats, my newly-acquired lucky mascot status means I won’t be short of an offer of a lift to the remaining away matches!

Some suggest that the oldest knockout competition on the planet has lost much of its lustre, ever since managers with more important fish to fry, began to rest some of their stars and use the tournament to bring on some of their youngsters.

However there’s a downside to Arsène’s approach. On the basis that momentum is everything, I would’ve thought that Wenger might have learned his lesson from last season, which showed we simply can’t afford to treat these cup competitions in isolation. No matter that we might be meeting AC Milan this week, I’ve always been a firm believer in playing our strongest side against our principal rivals because I don’t think it’s a good move to have gifted the likes of United the sort of psychological advantage, which might well prove crucial as we approach “squeaky bum time” in the run-in.

All that was required was for us to run our socks off for the first half hour, silence the Theatre of Snores and prove themselves worthy of the opposition’s respect. Instead of which, in the absence of Ronaldo, Tevez, Giggs and Scholes, we passed up a perfect opportunity to finally put a sock in the mouths of all those pundits who’ve been expecting the Gooner bubble to burst and who’d begrudgingly begun to admit that perhaps they’d been wrong about United proving their superiority.

Admittedly Arsène’s was decidedly hamstrung in his selection decisions by our long list of injuries and the fact that a number of the alternative choices have been allowed out on loan. Nevertheless, our line-up was neither one thing, nor the other. There weren’t enough second string players for this mauling to be meaningless, but even if the first-teamers hadn’t embarrassed us so badly by their failure to turn up, without the influential contributions of Clichy, Sagna and Flamini, we never really had a hope.

If Arsène truly didn’t give a stuff because he feels it unrealistic for us to be able to maintain our challenge on three fronts, then to my mind he should’ve been bold and gone the whole hog, rather than hedging his bets by putting his big guns on the bench. It defeated the object to send them on for the last 20, as they will have ended up back in the dressing room having expended just as much energy and no less demoralised than those who played the entire 90.

I believe many of us were quite prepared to be disappointed on Saturday, as in truth it should come as no surprise that Wenger’s prioritisation of cup competitions should be reflected in the atrocious attitude of some of our players. After all if Arsène doesn’t deem the FA Cup important enough to warrant playing his best team, the likes of Fabregas and co are hardly likely to feel inclined to run their guts out! But despite our depleted squad, I’m sure that along with most other Gooners, I would’ve rather watched our U13s wear their shirts with pride, going down with all guns blazing as they gave of their all, rather than end up feeling so ashamed of the utterly flaccid display of players who quite patently weren’t at the races.

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether the ramifications of this depressing result will cause the derailment of our campaign, or whether we can bounce straight back with the sort of performance necessary to restore some pride. As far as Milan are concerned, I can’t quite see this aged Italian side having sufficient energy to cramp our style for 90 minutes. If the Gunners are sufficiently shamefaced about the debacle, they’ll demonstrate their remorse by bringing their ‘A’ game along on Wednesday.

From a glass half-full perspective, if our confidence hasn’t been eroded, then hopefully while Man Utd continue on the road to Wembley, we’ll be running away with the league. Although we’re going to need to make the most of any matches played while United are otherwise distracted, as the ‘no fear’ approach I would’ve expected on our return to Old Trafford in April, is now likely to be replaced by more than a little trepidation!