Tedious exchange and how long til things change?

Whatever Arsene said, and frankly most of it was very reasonable, I don't think it merited the response that it has received from Michael Ballack. Although Ballack had a point in that Arsene does look like he is making excuses when pointing out just how dire and negative Chelsea are as a football side, the way he makes the point does make him look rather aggressively defensive of Chelsea's style, does someone protest a bit too much? Certainly the mild mannered Ancelotti hits the spot where the repugnant German fool does not:

"Maybe Arsenal had more possession than us but that is not football. Football is about results."

It is a simple fact that we will not win the big games when defending like a collective of lemons. Chelsea are a rather vile bunch of individuals that have been cobbled together into a very effective football team. They may not be nice, they may not be pretty, they may cheat and dive, they may be boring to watch a lot of the time, but they win matches and are very hard to beat. It must be added that their side was assembled at huge cost, they have numerous twenty million pound players and a monstrous wage bill.

For an excellent game summary check Goodplaya's piece, his words on Mike Dean's performance are perfect, this little weasel had no idea how to impose discipline upon the game, some of the cynical shirt tugs and fouls that Chelsea got away with were a disgrace, it started from the first minute when Ballack hauled back Cesc in a dangerous position, a yellow then would have set the tone.

The general point still stands though, we are too easy to score against, we lack the players and the tactical variation to be able to really challenge a side like Chelsea. If you can't beat them then you should show them the respect they deserve, they are a damn effective bunch of c*nts, that is the most respect either I or Arsene should show them. But we should learn from them just what we lack and then address it.

We have big problems at the back and they have been present all season. We are slack from set pieces, we are naive to the counter attack and we make too many slack errors. The shield to the back four is too reliant on Song and Diaby, it is not good enough to have only two midfielders in your squad who can defend. We have too many midgets and not enough muscle in the squad, we need a balance so that we can defend with our backs to the wall when needed, so that we can use different tactical approaches against different opponents, so that we can change our approach when Plan A is not working. Our lack of strikers is also a very preventable problem, why was someone like Benjani not brought in as short term cover for the rest of the season. Only two injury prone strikers is not enough for a battle on two fronts. I could go on but I think some fairly substantial changes need to be made, not only to change the balance of the squad, but also to send the message to some underperformers that enough is enough.