Making a bad side look good

NAIVE, suicidal, kamikaze. Some of the phrases used to describe our football against Arsenal.

I won’t give you a list of the words I used in the aftermath as this is a family paper, but I’m sure you can guess.

With hindsight of course, when things have calmed down, you realise that it was just one of those games that could have gone either way — there were enough chances within the first ten minutes alone for both teams to be two goals to the good. What’s so depressing about Saturday’s result is that this is one of the worst Arsenal sides for decades — we even made Walcott look like a world beater!

We tried to out Arsenal Arsenal. And that was never going to work. We have been successful against them recently through sheer power — bullying them out of their normal game – yet we abandoned a winning method to play our most experimental tactics of the season. They couldn’t believe their luck.

That result reinforced their comeback from a shocking opening to the season and gave them confidence and belief — way to go Chelsea! No wonder they celebrated like they’d just won the European Cup.

Speaking of celebrations — the “odd” celebration by Van Persie has garnered some headlines but if that had been John Terry the sky would have fallen in by now. I am saying no more on the “racist row that threatens to blow football apart” as too much has already been said by too many on something that was allegedly heard by no one. But let’s get back to the football because as depressing an afternoon that it was, it is still preferable than discussing the aforementioned affair.

Szczesny should have been sent off — I know that, he knows that — most fair minded people know that — but of course, the usual rules of association football do not apply when Chelsea FC is involved.

Would it have made much difference — yes I think so, but we need to chalk that one up to another one of those things that are meant to even themselves up at the end of the season.

We must remember we are a team in transition — and that will almost guarantee you days like Saturday. But the side as it is now is not suited to pushing so high up — one mistake and your defenders are stranded — and there were plenty of mistakes on both sides. The thing that worries me most is the thinking that we could outplay Arsenal using these tactics — it’s exceptionally naive. It was especially foolhardy given last week’s result against QPR — we needed to avoid defeat against Arsenal first and foremost, but instead AVB adopted this high risk strategy — I’m not really sure what he was thinking.

You cannot rely on out-scoring the opposition in this league — a solid defence has to be the foundation of any side in the Premier League — this is one of the reasons why Arsenal have struggled for so long. I hope AVB does not have the same streak of stubbornness on this subject that Wenger does.

With Liverpool too going through a renaissance, it will be interesting to see whether AVB decides to stick with the tactics we witnessed last weekend.

Hopefully that was a lesson that only needed learning once — three games lost this early on in the season does not bode well for title aspirations. But perhaps if these mistakes were going to be made it is better now than later.