Post Match Reaction: Blackburn (A)

A Yakubu brace and two own goals saw us take a huge step back as another hatful of goals were conceded on our travels. This time at Blackburn in a 4-3 thriller.

Positives:
We were always positive in attack and utterly pounded Rovers for the entire ninety minutes with 67% of the possession and 22 shots on goal. Gervinho took his goal well, as did new boy Mikel Arteta with his first for the club. Three goals on your travels is always commendable, just a shame on this occasion we then conceded four!

Negatives:
Yet again, an absolutely shambolic defensive display has cost us the points and it's about time Wenger got a well drilled defensive coach with bags of know-how in to sort out this sorry lot. Martin Keown, Tony Adams... where are you? Mertesacker was opened up like a slow-closing fire door for the first goal whilst the way Olssen was allowed to run at our defence for the coffin-nailing fourth was a joke.
We know that as individuals, our defenders are class players (just look at the way Gallas and Clichy's careers have had a fresh breath injected into them since leaving) but collectively, there is no communication or leadership.
"We are not doing that at the moment and are not consistent enough," said RVP after the game.

"It just frustrates me, and it is happening too often. Every time we start positively we just keep making the same mistakes and that is surprising. It's very important to get back on track. Even before the game on Saturday I said to the boys, 'today is a big, big day'. We have to get back-to-back wins, and we just cannot do that at the moment. That is our aim for the next couple of games, we have to win them after each other.

Conclusion:
This was our chance to get back on track and put together those all important back-to back wins for the first time in 8 months. But we didn't. And it's starting to look like it could be a very long season. Our start to this term has been our worst in 58 years and our stop-start form has echoes of 2005-06 about it. That year, we left it untill the final day of the season to secure a top four place. This year, it could well be much of the same.