Eduardo's Knee Papers Over Underlying Cracks

Half of North London will be breathing a collective sigh of relief today after Arsenal made very heavy work of Standard Liege last night. Two disastrous errors from Eduardo Da Silva and William Gallas gifted Liege two goals in the opening 3 minutes and 18 seconds, possibly the worst start to a game in Champions League history. The most positive of Arsenal fans will have been thinking 'at least we have 87 minutes to score three'! And score three they did, just.

The sign of champions; teams that play badly and keep winning. Arsenal certainly played badly, however on this showing they won't be winning much come the end of the season.

As if the defensive errors weren't bad enough (if you can call Eduardo's calamitous flick a defensive error) the attacking play was just as labourious, slow and innefectual. Too many times the ball went astray, Diaby, Song and Eduardo continually presenting the ball back to the opposition. Diaby in particular was far from his technical best. Even Fabregas was far from his magnificent best with a real lack of penetration. His dead ball delivery was horrendously off-target.

Predictably, after taking a shock 2-0 lead, Liege set their stall out to defend. Arsenal, as we all know, need the opposition to show some desire to come forward and attack if they are to proser, however, after Liege's start, their defensive stance towards the remainder of the game was understandable. This was a chance to pull off a shock result and they weren't about to ruin it by pushing forward for a third.

Arsenal thus found it difficult to break down the stout and resolute Liege back four and regularly found themselves with little room for manouvre as they continued to persist with their intricate passing game through the middle of the park.

For this to work you need a little space. This was not forthcoming.

It also requires every player to be on their toes, with slick, intricate one-touch passing. Something we normally take for granted when we turn on to watch Arsenal. Regular viewers will have been sorely dissapointed as last nights showing was completely devoid of any decent build-up attacking play. Far too many sideways passes continually resulted in plays breaking down and having to be restarted with Vermaelan or Gallas. Arsenal badly needed some width to stretch the play, yet they continued fruitlessly down the the congested central third of the pitch.

It came as no suprise that the winning goals in the second half were scruffy and unceremonious. The performance was nothing to write home about, but at least it was three points on a night when Arsenal could easily have stumbled home to London with none.

The optimists will say Arsenal played with great patience, determination and unwavering spirit.

They will point out that football is a squad game and this result demonstrates the depth of the Arsenal squad on a night when they were lacking the pace and width of Walcott, the goals of Van Persie and the imagination and creativity of Arshavin, Nasri and Denilson. Not to mention the realiable Sagna, suprsingly left on the bench.

However there will be times this year when injuries will once again play their part and if this is the best the 'back-up' can do then Monsiour Wenger better keep his arms, legs, fingers and toes crossed that the core members of his squad keep themselves fit. Either that or the opposition next time around is as poor as Liege. In this competition, that is highly unlikely.

Arsenal can play better.

In fact they have done so this season already, and lost. The performance away at Old Trafford was fantastic, and was done so without Nasri and Walcott yet they came away with no points when they deserved better. Had they played there like they did last night they may been on the end of a much larger defeat.

I'm sure outwardly Wenger will not be too dishevelled, but he will have his concerns. I would suggest this was merely a bad night at the office, even with injuries they can and should play better and I fully expect Arsenal to turn on the style again this weekend.

Wigan beware!