Chelsea-Arsenal: Arsenal's Old Failings Come Back to Haunt Them in 2-0 Defeat

Today's piece is running particularly late, as I had to attend a family funeral on the other side of the city this morning.

I'm home now, and hopefully I can get my thoughts on yesterday's defeat to Chelsea together and come up with a few conclusions.

The boss made only one surprise selection, as he included Abu Diaby in midfield with Samir Nasri pushing wide and Tomas Rosicky sitting on the bench. It meant that Jack Wilshere was to be our creative spark in midfield, with Diaby playing just behind Marouane Chamakh.

I'm sure that Alex Song was also meant to play the defensive role. But as he has done in recent games, he pushed a little further forward.

It meant that we were vulnerable to breaks. Chelsea knew exactly that, and put all their players behind the ball in the hope of soaking up the pressure and catching us with a sucker punch.

It might have all been very different if Arsenal had taken their best chance of the game inside the first minute, when Laurent Koscielny headed over from less than two yards out. To be fair to him, I don't think he knew too much about it, as the ball came to him very quickly and he failed to react in time.

But it turned out to be our best chance of the game.

As the game progressed, Chelsea was unable to keep possession for too long, as Arsenal closed them down throughout the field and looked to play all the good football. However, every time Chelsea pumped the ball forward or lobbed a long throw into the area, Arsenal looked vulnerable, and eventually the first goal came.

It was always going to be either a mistake or a moment of genius that broke the deadlock and it proved to be a mixture of both that gave Chelsea the lead. Song lost possession about 30 yards out from Arsenal's goal, and the tackle that took it off him may have been a foul, but it wasn't given.

Chelsea then won a free kick and, instead of running away from the ball, Sebastien Squillaci kicked it back to Chelsea to take the free. Eventually, Ramires played the ball through the channel for Cashley Cole to run on to after Nasri had failed to spot his run.

He drove the ball across the goal, and Didier Drogba just managed to get a touch ahead of our defender. His touch from just a few yards hit the near post and went in, and there was nothing Fabianski could do about it.

Quite what Squillaci was doing giving the ball to Chelsea to take a quick free kick, I cannot fathom out. Nasri switched off as well, which cost us dearly.

Chelsea had the lead, and it was exactly what their gameplan required. The second half started as the first one did, with Arsenal on the offensive yet again. However, Chelsea held firm, and despite all of our good football, it always looked like the next goal would come for the home team, as we looked more and more vulnerable on the break.

Fabianski saved well on a couple of occasions, and Nicolas Anelka missed a great chance after a terrible mistake by Squillaci. With 15 minutes left to play, Chelsea came back into the game a little more and looked likely to get a second goal to seal the result.

That goal came after a very poor ball by Nasri left Koscielny with no option but to bring Florent Malouda down outside the box. As Drogba stood over the ball, it looked likely that he would take it, but it was Alex who struck it instead.

It was a magnificently-struck shot with the outside of his right foot that curled around the inside of the wall and into the top corner, leaving Lukasz Fabianski with no chance.

We could question the fact that Malouda was allowed to step out of the wall, and the ball went through the gap left by him or that Song seemed to flinch out of the way. But it was still a magnificent free kick.

Arsenal tried to rally, and Chelsea pushed for a third goal, which meant that we suddenly found a little more space to break into. At one stage in injury time, Carlos Vela looked to have been played in, but his touch let him down and the chance was gone.

As Arsenal had pushed for that second goal the space between our defenders that stayed back, and the rest of the team grew larger all the time. We were lucky Chelsea didn't take advantage of it more often.

We did have a couple of decent shots and headers, but Peter Cech had a relatively quiet game really. In a game like that, we needed Cesc Fabregas to make something happen with all the possession we had, or we needed Robin Van Persie to score a goal out of nothing like he had done two seasons ago

Unfortunately, we had neither of them in the team due to injury.

With the international break now upon us, we have to hope that a few of the injured players will make a recovery over the next two weeks, and we can start to make up the seven-point gap to Chelsea at the top of the table. With only one point in the last three games, we are on a poor run, and it has to be stopped immediately before we fall too far behind.

Our next game is at home to Birmingham on Oct. 16. It's a game we simply have to win, or we will be in the depths of a crisis, in my opinion.

We are conceding far too many goals yet again, and nine in seven games is simply too many for a team with title aspirations to concede. The defence looked good only a couple of weeks ago and now they don't, even though Fabianski has played very well in his two games during Almunia's absence.

He has done enough so far to keep his place, in my opinion, but we will see how the boss feels about that in two weeks.

I don't think we were played off the pitch by Chelsea, or even bullied into submission, but they got their tactics absolutely right and we fell for it yet again. We can only play the one way, and Chelsea and "Manure" both know that and don't try to play football against us anymore.

They both sit tight, defend in numbers, and wait for their chances on the break, or from set pieces, and it works against us time after time. I do think that their plans might possibly fail if we had a fully-fit squad, but it's anyone's guess if and when that will ever happen.

That's the lot for today, but I'll be back tomorrow to discuss the fantasy football and any Arsenal issues that might arise as well.

See you tomorrow.