Arsenal Held By Birmingham: Almunia Alone Should Not Get the Blame

You could be forgiven for thinking that Arsenal had lost the game at St Andrews yesterday and with it the title. In football, sometimes, a draw feels like a defeat.

For the second time in two years, Arsenal conceded a late injury-time equaliser at Birmingham and squandered two vital points.

To make things worse, their title rivals, Chelsea and Man United, both won convincingly against Aston Villa and Bolton, respectively.

Chelsea humiliated Villa 7-1 at Stamford Bridge, while Manchester United returned to the top of the table with 4-0 victory at Bolton. 

Kevin Phillip's late goal , 10 minutes after Arsenal had taken the lead through a superb Samir Nasri strike, means that the gunners must now win all their remaining games (plus hope that their rivals drop points) to win the title.

The Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger , admitted that the draw could prove to be costly for the Gunners.

"It is a big blow for our title, of course. We were in a position where we had to win all our games and not to win today is a big blow to our chances."

Was Almunia the only one to blame?

First of all, the stoppage-time goal by Kevin Phillips was a freak one. Kevin Phillips knew very little about the equaliser, which came after an attempted clearance by Bacary Sagna hit his chest and looped high over Manuel Almunia.

The ball passed through Almunia's weak fingers and swooped down over his head into the goal, despite desperate attempts to keep it out.

It was a piece of a bad goalkeeping at the worst time possible for the Gunners, in a game where three points was absolutely vital.

However, it must be said that he was a little unfortunate with the deflection from Phillips and the speed at which the ball came to him.

Its very easy for Arsenal fans to point fingers at the keeper and lay blame at his door, but the truth is that the team was undone, yet again, by wasteful finishing. More on that later.

Furthermore, the Arsenal defending for the goal wasn't clever at all. 

A hopeful punt forward caused panic and confusion at the heart of defence, a solid area for Arsenal all afternoon.

Several Arsenal players, especially Sagna and Abou Diaby, had plenty of opportunities to clear the ball before the hapless keeper parried the ball into the net.

It wasn't Almunia's finest moment, but there were mistakes in defence that lead to the Birmingham goal.

For most of the afternoon, however, Arsenal's defence looked solid at the back with a makeshift centre-back pairing of Sol Campbell and Alex Song.

They dealt with the quick Birmingham forwards very well and looked like they've been playing with each other for years.

The Birmingham defence was similarly resolute and reduced the visitors to a handful half-chances and long-range shots for about an hour. Nicklas Bendtner, Arsenal's main striker, did not get a kick all game.

Why didn't Nasri Just Shoot?

After the hour, Arsene Wenger made two inspired substitutions: he brought on Samir Nasri and Andrey Arshavin. An immediate transformation occured.

The change in personnel gave Arsenal fresh legs and extra impetus to attack and look for a goal. For the first time in the game, the Birmingham defence looked shaky as Arsenal started to create genuine goal-scoring opportunities.

The goal eventually came 10 minutes from time when Nasri collected the ball on the right flank, carried the ball to the edge of the box and unleashed a low right-foot drive past Joe Hart.

It was a superb strike and the Frenchman fully deserved his goal as he was nothing short of brilliant until then.

But, having said that, Nasri could've (and maybe should've) killed the game at 1-0.

Fabregas played Nasri through on goal with just minutes remaining , but instead of shooting past the on-rushing Joe hart, he decided to pass to Arshavin and the danger was cleared.

For me, that miss was as bad as Almunia's blunder for the goal. This is because, at 2-0, the game is finished and there's no way back for the blues.

Its become easy for Arsenal fans to blame the keeper every time the team comes up short. Manuel Almunia has become the easy target fans love aim at when things go wrong.

Yes, he was at fault for the equaliser, he should've punched or parried the ball away. But fans must realise that it wasn't just his fault that Arsenal drew yesterday.

The whole defence failed to deal with a simple long ball in and around the box. That and some wasteful finishing by players (like Nasri, Arshavin, and Diaby) resulted in precious points being dropped.

Can Arsenal still win the title?

Yes, of course.

This is a setback, no doubt about it, but Arsenal have every chance to win the Premier League title.

This is because the Gunners have something they lacked in previous years: team spirit and togetherness. 

There's non of the previous in-fighting and leadership problems that was evident in the Arsenal side of two years ago. The team looks more settled and mature.

Players such as Thomas Vermaelen, Sol Campbell, and Cesc Fabregas have shown real leadership that was maybe lacking in previous seasons. Yesterday, Fabregas was clearly injured mid-way through the first-half, but soldiered on like a true captain.

The Gunners have already shown that they have the mental strength to bounce back from two heavy defeats to Manchester United and Chelsea. Therefore, its not beyond them to come back and make up a four-point difference.

However, Arsenal can ill afford to slip-up again and drop points. They must go on another unbeaten run from now till the end of the season to have any chance of lifting the Premier League title.

The good news for the Gunners is that the top two play each other this weekend. In that potential title decider, at least one team will drop points.

Arsenal fans will be hoping for a draw.

Finally, can somebody tell me what was wrong with Diaby's goal?

Howard "clueless" Webb blew the whistle for a foul, but i didn't see any infringements by Diaby or Fabregas. It looked like a perfectly good goal.