Arsenal Beat Legia 6-5 in Battle of the Worst Defences.

Good afternoon from a very tired but no longer hungover Arsenal fan.

Today's blog is running very late due to a very late night so I'll have to be as brief as possible as I look to catch up on all the other things I should have done by now.

Arsenal played their final preseason friendly yesterday away to Legia Warsaw and they managed to maintain their unbeaten record in preseason.

To say they didn't do it in a standard fashion would be an understatement as they came from 3-0 down to eventually win 6-5.

There are a few ways to look at the game as the concession of five goals to a fairly average team like Legia was caused by some dreadful defending, but we did manage to score six goals which is no bad thing.

I was lucky enough to see the game live on TV as Setanta Ireland were showing it, and had Pat Dolan giving his opinions on the game before, during and afterwards.

The defence that was selected was probably the one that will play in the opening fixture next Sunday with the probable exception of Fabianski who just cannot be included after yesterday's performance.

The most worrying thing for me was the lack of understanding among those defenders as the only new player among them was Koscielny. We were very poor when crosses came into the box and thankfully the Legia keeper thought he was on trial for Arsenal as he helped us at the other end.

The first goal was conceded because a Legia player was allowed to run right at our defence from the centre circle and he buried his shot from 25 yards. It's the type of situation defenders hate as they have to come to block at some stage and leave the man they are marking.

I thought it would never have happened if Song had been playing and it's worrying that he hasn't kicked a ball in pre-season yet due to injury.

The second goal was completely and utterly Fabianski's fault, and it showed why we cannot play him in our team.

Legia had a corner and there was a bit of jostling in the box. Fabianski was distracted by it all, and he decided to come for the ball when the corner came in. He fell over Vermaelen's leg and ended up lying on his face as the ball was bundled into the net. He claimed to the referee that he was fouled but he wasn't and I thought you could see the fear in his eyes.

We want a keeper who can control his penalty area and inspire those in front of him and he clearly is not that keeper.

Soon afterwards we went 3-0 down when a ball was crossed to the far post from a short corner, and Rosicky had a fresh air attempt to clear it before it came back in to a Legia player to score from close in.

As halftime approached it looked like the game might turn into an embarrassment for Arsenal.

Thankfully we managed to pull a goal back before half time after some great play from Chamakh.

He held the ball up with three Legia defenders around him and laid it off to Nasri who then floated a lovely ball into the centre of the box, eight yards from the goal. It was the type of ball a keeper should come for and take the striker as well as he punches it clear but it didn't work that way.

Chamakh attacked the ball and beat the keeper to it to head into the empty goal. It was in fact the keeper who got hurt, and I thought Chamakh was very brave and very unlike an Arsenal striker in scoring it.

Early in the second half Eboue scored a header from a free kick that the keeper had come for and missed.

He then scored the equaliser soon after that with a fine finish when he was one on one with the keeper. He did his prospects of playing the opening game at Anfield no harm at all and he was far better than Walcott who he replaced at half time. 

Within minutes we were ahead for the first time as Vela played a sweet pass to Gibbs, who absolutely buried his shot from more than 20 yards.

As the substitutions continued we lost our shape a little and although we looked very dangerous going forward, we were still at sixes and sevens at the back.

Legia equalised with 15 minutes left after a ball into the box was cleared and then played back in again.

The whole defence ran out to play the offside trap but Sagna decided to stay back and when the ball came in there was nothing that Szczesny could do to prevent the goal. Szczesny had come on at half time for Fabianski, and he did nothing wrong in my opinion and certainly he seemed a lot better than Fabianski.

Arsenal regained the lead soon after that when JET ran on to a through ball and took an excellent first touch before finishing well into the far corner across the keeper as a striker should do in that situation.

A few minutes later Nasri scored from a free kick as his shot almost went through the keeper who was continuing his audition for Arsenal.

It seemed to be safe at that stage, but a ball across the Arsenal six yard line in the last minute ended up in a fifth goal for Legia when an Arsenal player tried to lay it off for a defender to clear.

I'm not sure who it was, but I think it may have been Lansbury and it was a suicidal thing to do in front of his own goal.

The game finished 6-5 to Arsenal and we were treated to the inane ramblings of a very fat and very bitter Pat Dolan to add to the pain of our dreadful defending.

Any good points he made were ruined when he accused the club of "snobbery" and it was obvious that he holds a grudge against us from the days that he was a youngster at our club.

He has complained in the past about how he didn't get looked after when he was a youngster and broke his leg and said that today's young players at Arsenal get all the advantages and help that weren't available to him. The only good thing about seeing him on the TV was it answered the age old question of "who ate all the pies"?

I know we were missing an awful lot of players yesterday, but it was the defence that was so poor and the only improvements that could be made from within are probably the inclusion of Song and Almunia.

I don't think Almunia is good enough for the level we are playing at, but he is better than Fabianski and if we don't sign another keeper we will have to play him.

Hopefully Song can be included next week but if he isn't, it's a very tough game to include Frimpong in and he could suffer. I'll go into my opinions on that as the week progresses, and we build to the start of the season.

In other news the boss has spoken about his future, and he said that if he extends his contract at Arsenal, it means that he will finish his managerial career with us.

I'm sure that he will extend his contract and I hope that he can bring back some of the trophies that we won in the first eight years at the club during the next few years.

There are quite a few fans who think he should leave and allow somebody else to come in with new ideas as we haven't won a trophy in five seasons, but it would be hard to imagine where Arsenal would be now if Arsene Wenger had not arrived in 1996.

As England look to rebuild after a disastrous World Cup there are three Arsenal players in their squad for their midweek friendly. Walcott, Gibbs and Wilshere are all included in the squad despite the fact that they aren't first team regulars at their club.

It's a ridiculous decision by Capello to include them in his squad, but the pressure for the next generation of England internationals to be found is great, and it means that he has picked our trio of players.

Finally for today there's the small matter of my Fantasy league and the fact that it now has over 300 teams in it which means that there will be trophies for the first three teams. If you want to sign up the link is here and the code to join my league is 33954-12064 after you have set up a team. 

I'm running the league this season with a little help from 11Gunners and I'd like to thank them for their help in promoting my blog and the fantasy league too.

If you do sign up, please take the time to join Captain Arsenal's league too as he has been a great help to me in promoting my blog on Twitter. The code to join his league is 13028-5211 and he would be delighted to welcome you to his league.

I'm also running a results prediction league on "I know the score" which is a part of the Fantasy Premier league site. Here's the link to sign up and make your predictions and the code to join my league is  FBE3B-ZGP if anybody would like to try their hand at it.

Here's the highlights of yesterday's game.

Here's Eduardo's first goal for his new club.

See You Tomorrow.