Arsenal against blackburn comment

FIRST things first: Blackburn merited their point (irrespective of how the equaliser came about), played some decent stuff and had the better of the second half.But on the violence I am with Wenger. I thought we coped with it far better than in the past. But it remains true that the way they play at times is a cancer on the game. It is persistent thuggery, limited not by any sense of what is right and wrong but only by what they can get away with.

It is awful to watch, dangerous to play in and in complete contempt for what football should be. In Britain, we pride ourselves as the inventors of football. We fiercely fight the increasing prevalence of diving and our sense of history is acute when recalling how it has only recently entering the game.

Yet we are so condoning of violence and thuggery that I felt like the only person who thought Michael Ball’s three-game ban for deliberately stamping on Cristiano Ronaldo’s chest perhaps just a tiny weeny bit lenient.

And that sense of history is less sharp when recalling tales of how during early games of football a deliberate foul was considered so alien that it was not unknown for the odd striker to roll penalties back to opposition goalkeepers because he considered it undue punishment of an obviously accidental act. Today we laud those who break-up the game with deliberate fouls.

I imagine by now some disagreeing readers are thinking that like my team, I need to learn how to deal with wholehearted, hard but fair, commitment. To you I say that I have seen Arsenal be undone by wholehearted commitment enough times to know exactly the difference between it and what we saw at times yesterday.

I should say Arsenal are no angels (even if RVP’s tackle was nowhere near as bad as Mark Hughes postmatch squealing would have you believe). However I maintain I’ve never seen us behave like Blackburn did at times - epitomised by that deliberate fouler, kicker and diver, the all flawed, no genius Robbie Savage. Booked for kicking Fabregas on 45 minutes, he should seen yellow for barging Clichy into the gravel track long after the ball had gone after just 45 seconds. The way he later wrapped his leg around Kolo Toure and threw himself to the ground looking for a penalty would have made Robert Pires blush.

And yet the funny thing is that the thuggery (which went in peaks and troughs) by and large failed. We showed ourselves quite capable of dealing with it and if anything were at our strongest in the first half when it was at it’s worst.

And when Blackburn did dominate after the break, I thought it more because we simply lacked sufficient physical presence across midfield rather than because we were bullied out of it. Hit by the absences of Gilberto, Diaby and Eboue, the mdidle four of Fabregas, Flamini, Hleb and Walcott always looked lightweight and after half-time we were too often second best when possession was there to be won.

Gilberto’s return will provide some physical comfort, even if his presence is more passive than active. But with Diaby appearing brittle and Wenger in any case seemingly in two minds over his suitability in central midfield, maybe it’s time we brought in someone else with a bit of height.

The other major worry is Jens. If you haven’t seen it yet, it was a second serious cock-up in as many league games and despite Blackburn’s second-half dominance, the brutal truth is it cost us two points. There is no doubt he has a problem at the moment, but what do you do?

The obvious answer would be to drop him. But if Arsene thinks they are errors brought on by form rather than age (as I do) then it may be a case of sitting tight and letting him play through the dodgy spell.

The beautiful thing about our goal was that it wasn’t beautiful. Scrappy, nearly missed but ultimately buried. I’ll take more of them. It also involved Eduardo - who I thought looked sharp on his debut, though it did make for a less productive Hleb out left.

A second goal before half-time - from either Walcott on the break or Flamini when played in - would have made things far more comfortable. Irrespective, we need to be able to defend one goal leads.

After the equaliser, there was the chance for Bendtner and earlier Senderos should have scored with header. And then there was the time when Van Persie’s flick outfoxed his defender and left the Arsenal man with a decent scoring chance.

The defender wasn’t going to catch him. Instead, he deliberately pulled Van Persie to the ground. It meant a second booking but Nelson took the calculated decision that it was worth it.

Those early football players would have never dreamt of doing it. Nelson will no doubt get a pat on the back and be told he did the right thing.

Still, it’s not the worst away point in the world.