Young Guns Fire Blanks Against City: What Went Wrong In Eastlands?

Another three—nil loss and another hated ex-gunner getting one over his old club (This time it was Loser—bayor, I have got nothing but love for King Kolo). So what went wrong for the young guns?

The obvious thing to point out is that we conceded three goals and scored none ourselves, and you're always liable to lose a football game if you allow your opponents to score more goals than you (bet you didn't know that!). Simple rule, if you don't concede any goals, you can't lose the match (A few more cliches and they'll make me a commentator or pundit [on that note] "arsenal pass the ball too much" [a job offer should be along from sky any minute now]).

Arsenal have not been good at the clean sheet game for a while, they certainly weren't before the international break when pundits all over the globe were eating their words (a rather decent move in a global recession; talk is cheap after all) and tipping us as title contenders. We were conceding goals then and we're conceding them now (conceding more now than then though it has to be said) difference is, we haven't scored in three matches. Why?

For one thing, there is a gaping hole in the centre of our attack without V.P (Thank you international break!) which Eduardo and Vela have so far failed miserably to cover. Eduardo has neither held the ball up well nor provided a threat behind opposition back-lines. And when presented with a goal scoring chance, he's seemed oddly hesitant and slow to pull the trigger.

I'm surprised to see the croazilian struggling with his finishing, but he has been having problems there for a while. Even before V.P's injury the striker had been missing easy chances, at the time however it wasn't that vital because we were rattling them in for fun.

Tonight however, Wenger went with Carlos Vela in the centre of attack and the Mexican did provide more of a threat behind the City back-line but ultimately, he couldn't consistently trouble them. He has more pace than Eduardo, but he is similarly short legged, and worryingly seems completely unable and unwilling to shoot with his right foot.

Tonight he didn't really succeed in linking up play like Van Persie did either and since he didn't provide a goal threat, it must be said that the striker problem persisted.

Another area where the team fell short was in midfield. Eastmond was a total disaster in the holding role with his lack of pace and poor passing; he simply escorted city players to our box whenever they ran past him.

Surely Wenger would have been better off playing Song in his preferred midfield position or starting with Coquelin instead (I can't believe he didn't get a game today!).

Rosicky was also incredibly disappointing and was probably the person who disappointed me the most today. The Czech would have been expected to provide some leadership and inspiration for his much less experienced teammates but he failed to impose himself on the game and failed to even show a desire to do so.

This was in stark contrast to Silvestre who actually defended with a lot of heart and determination for the most part, he really wore the armband tonight (I can't believe I just complimented Silvestre!).

Rosicky's main contribution was giving the ball away in the build up to City's opening goal and he left the role of chief midfield maestro to Aaron Ramsey (who ran his socks off again today and looked the most likely to turn the game for the gunners).

Another problem area was left-back where Traore was absolutely torn to shreds by Wright-Phillips. The sad part was that Phillips was allowed to take him on one-on-one again and again without any cover being provided, I was surprised not to see Wenger make any tactical changes to  nullify this threat. With Traore being killed on the left side and Bellamy troubling Eboue on the other side, City were able to stretch our team and do what we weren't able to do; play with width.

This leads me to my next point, we played too narrow again today. We did this against Sunderland and Chelsea as well. Too often we had both of our wing players coming inside at the same time and this left us with no options out wide.

Playing like this makes it easier for our opponents to defend against us as we then play all our football in-front of their back-line and fail to get behind them. If Wilshere and Merida had hugged the touchlines a bit more, they would have gotten more one-one opportunities to take on the opposing full backs and stretched city more thus providing more room for our midfield runners to get into the box. 

What happened instead was that we had instances where two arsenal players were standing right next to each other thus making it easy for city to pick them up and leaving them with a man free to pick up Traore and Eboue when they did push up in support of the attack.

The whole team should make sure that they is always a wide option available, if the team looks narrow then someone should move into the space out wide and receive the ball there, we need to stretch teams more!

And finally a bit of blame has to fall on Wenger who A) made poor choices in team selection and B) only made a single substitution. The starting line-up minus Eastmond looked pretty solid, but the bench players selected didn't offer any plan B for tonight.

Sanchez Watt was the only attacking player that Wenger had on the bench today. The other players who were on the bench (Mannone, Bartley, Coquelin, Frimpong, Gilbert and Randall) are all defensively minded players and I cannot believe that he only selected one striker and then; a goalkeeper, two defenders and three defensive midfielders.

The exclusion of Sunu is one that perplexed me. The Frenchman is tall, strong and has pace to burn and would have provided an excellent alternative to Carlos Vela tonight.

Barazite is another who could have made a difference tonight with his skill and shooting ability. Instead Wenger made just one change to an obviously struggling side and brought on Watt for Eastmond (YAY! BYE EASTMOND!) but then stuck him out on the wing.

I was hoping that he was going to switch to a 4-4-2 like he did in the second half against chelsea (it gave us a bit of a spark and Terry and Carvalho actually looked troubled for a while).

I don't think he was that interested in winning tonight's game, at least that's what it looked like. He made just that one change and didn't give the appearance of someone who was trying everything to get his team back into the game.

Rosicky stayed on the pitch delivering a performance void of any energy or enthusiasm, while Coquelin sat on the bench (the kid is 10 percent water, and 90 percent energy!), he would have provided energy in bundles. And with 12 minutes to go and with Tevez and Phillips gone, there was no push for the goal that would have changed the game and no apparent desire from most of the players to get it. And the manager was no different, standing on the touchline, arms crossed with two cards still to be played in his deck... he gave up.

So tonight the kids underperformed, the manager underperformed and City capitalized to stroll into the next round of the Carling Cup. In the grand scheme of things, it shouldn't matter much.

There's still a lot to play for and this season is certainly not yet over, a few wins and a few dropped points by chelsea and everything will look good again in the premiership. And of course the Champions league and the F.A cup still remain within reach.

Changes must be made, solutions must be found (at least Wenger said he's going to buy in the transfer window [I really hope he does]) and this losing streak must be stopped. Keep the faith Gooners, this writer has a feeling that the turnaround will begin this weekend.

The Gunners will hammer Stoke, Chelsea will drop points against City and the clouds will lift enough for a bit of  sunshine to filter through (I'm the cliche master!). But even if they don't, I'm not going anywhere... Gooner FOR LIFE!!!

Al-Senal