Fabregas-less midfield won’t inspire confidence

IT’S amazing that it takes a sense of outrage and injustice to get Arsenal fans up and out of their seats nowadays, offering the sort of vocal support that at long last turned our new stadium into an intimidating cauldron of noise on Sunday.

In fact, considering the way in which the atmosphere went from its customary lukewarm to white hot, as a result of the apoplectic riposte to Howard Webb’s red card and that this in turn prompted such a positive response on the pitch, I was left quipping “I wish he’d sent Adebayor off half an hour ago”.

Having seen Fabregas limp off at half-time, in truth I feared the worst when we saw Diaby warming up during the break.