4 league defeats by early October

I am sure many of you will be feeling the same frustration that I am feeling now, it is hard to take defeat to one's local rivals at the best of times but when it is after such a shambolic start to the season, it becomes rather gloomier for me anyway. The sad fact that is dawning on me now is that we are now not significantly better than Tottenham as a first eleven or as a squad, this is the first time I have said this in my adult life.

It was a close game, it could have gone either way in the end, and our players on the field tried their best, there is no doubt of this. Also we are looking far far better than the shambles of a side that took the field at Old Trafford a few weeks back. These are positives no doubt, but how far backwards have we gone in recent years for these to be the positives, quite a long way it appears.

There was an element of bad luck to the defeat, the Van der Vaart goal should have been disallowed for the clear handball by the goalscorer and Szczesny would probably save the second goal if he got another chance to face it. Still we are still at the point of early October where we have lost 4 league games, we do not have much understanding and cohesion in the side with so many new players coming in so late, and as a result we are playing catch up with the big boys such as City and United.

The thing that has been concerning me for a while is where on earth are our goals going to come from if not from RVP? We have so little quality goalscoring striking backup to our Dutch maestro that it beggars belief. Seeing Arshavin come on as the final throw of the dice said it all, his lack of threat and pace has been evident for a while. We blatantly lack striking options and it frustrates the hell out of me. This is a decent Spurs side but no more, the fact that we were about as good as they were is depressing as it means that we are no better than a decent side ourselves these days, we are no longer one of the best sides around.

I'm fast running out of patience with the current direction of the club, big preventable errors have contributed massively to this appalling start to the season that we have had. There is no denying that the board and manager have both contributed to this disaster in progress, it is arguable as to how this blame should be spread between them, even so to deny it is a disastrous start is to be living in cloud cuckoo land. Results must improve and fast, what we have been served up thus far this season has simply not been good enough for Arsenal FC.