Fight, defending and our failings, plus ratings

It's hard to disagree with much Arsene said after the game, many of us can also empathise with Arsene's feelings of frustration and disappointment. As Arsene says we were never really under threat, we didn't use the large amounts of possession we had well enough, we lacked sharpness in the final third on the whole.

For me it has been our ability to leak soft goals that has cost us this season, this has been for several key reasons. None of our goalkeepers have been on top form, we have not got the strength in depth in terms of centre backs, Sagna and Clichy have not had the best of seasons, while there has been no defensive midfield cover for Song, our inability to press as a team has also meant we can be a bit easy to cut through at times.

Some of our players were magnificent last night, while some were not. Sol Campbell was awesome, the fight and determination he showed was not apparent in the whole side, Nasri was excellent, Clichy worked hard as well. There were too many under performers, Sagna has not been at his best for a while, Almunia is just not quite good enough, Silvestre is way short of being good enough, Denilson and Diaby seemed to miss Song, Rosicky and Eboue were ineffective in the final third, while Bendtner was too isolated. RVP came on and was magnificent, he had the fight of Campbell combined with the cutting edge of Bergkamp, a truly electrifying performance, Theo gave us more of a cutting edge on the right as well.

Almunia - 3 - Erratic and a poor punch out for the goal.
Sagna - 3 - Off the pace and badly out of position for the second goal.
Campbell - 10 - Terrific fight and some tremendous tackling. Has he another year in him?
Vermaelen - Injured early on.
Clichy - 7 - fought hard and was one of our better players.
Denilson - 5 - Average.
Diaby - 6 - Frustrating given his ability.
Nasri - 8 - Always looking for the ball, inventive and hard working. Our best midfielder.
Rosicky - 5 - Ineffective.
Eboue - 5 - Tried hard but no end product.
Bendtner - 6 - Isolated.

Subs
Silvestre - 1 - Not up to it. His pass near the end summed up his season's contribution.
RVP - 10 - Fantastic.
Walcott - 7 - Gave us a cutting edge out wide.

Overall we have definitely made progress this season, unfortunately we have come up short when it matters and this is really symptomatic of how we are just not quite good enough in a few areas. We need a better goalkeeper. We need to defend better as a team and this also includes having a bit more depth in the squad in certain defensive positions. We need more luck with injuries, the number of key players we have lost this season for long periods has been quite ridiculous.

One thing I have particularly noticed this season has been how our defensive weakness has seen us unable to soak up pressure and kill teams on the counter attack, this has been a hallmark of our previous double winning sides under Arsene. Other teams have beaten us with our own old game, we have often conceded a cheap early goal which then enables the opposition to sit back, defend in numbers and then kill us on the break, this has happened so many times, Everton, Chelsea and Spurs are just three recent examples. We need to rediscover this footballing dimension for next season, possession does not win you titles, defending solidly does. It is a bit of a vicious cycle, our defensive weakness means we can only really play one way, we need to learn to defend better and we may need to change a few personnel to do this, this will then mean that we could soak up pressure when we need to, we need this dimension to our game back.