Lack of defensive steel raises familiar questions.
On paper a draw away from home, two days after a demanding match, is not a terrible result but it was the manner in which we surrendered two points that casts the usual doubts over our title ambitions. With ten minutes to go we led 2-1 and Charles N’Zogbia inexplicably lost his cool with Jack Wilshere and attempted to head butt our young star and deservedly saw red. Sadly, even against ten men we look vulnerable from set pieces and so it proved as Rodallega directed a header from the back post across the face of the goal to leave a terribly positioned Sebastien Squillaci with no option but to head the ball into his own net.
Wenger admitted after the match that he was frustrated by our inability to organise ourselves properly at set pieces and even against Chelsea where we generally defended well, we looked vulnerable from free kicks and corners. Johan Djourou’s appeared to give us a better presence in the air but we are caught out too often for our problems to be caused by individual failings. There is a collective inability to concentrate at set pieces and Squillaci’s failure to get goal side which caused the equaliser was an elementary error that any of our players are capable of at any moment.
Understandably Wenger made eight changes to the side which performed so well against Chelsea. Our injury prone squad could have been decimated by two matches in such quick succession. Abou Diaby still succumbed to a recurrence of a calf injury in the first half despite only coming on for the final few minutes on Monday and there must be serious concern over his long term future now. Since his broken ankle he has never had more than a couple of months without injury.
Those changes left us looking a little disjointed at the beginning of the game and Wigan capitalised when N’Zogbia dived on the edge of the area to win a dubious penalty. Despite the questionable nature of the penalty award, it did give the hosts a deserved lead. We responded before half time with some neat play that sent Niklas Bendtner clear and his shot was palmed away into the path of Andrei Arshavin who acrobatically volleyed the ball into the far corner. Our two much maligned forwards combined again to give us the lead before the interval when Arshavin played a neat ball through to the big Dane who held off a challenge from two defenders before stroking the ball home. Suddenly there was a feeling that we meant business and there was a real hope that we would extend our lead early in the second half just like we had done 48 hours earlier.
Unfortunately we struggled to find any rhythm and inevitably a one goal lead was not enough. We have to improve defensively if we are to win the league but thankfully the manager is beginning to recognise the faults that have blocked our path to success in recent years. Hopefully we will be able to lay down another example of our intent to make a serious challenge by taking three points from a very difficult game on Saturday.