We lost our lead in the premiership after today’s game. Our game against Birmingham at The Emirates ended 1-1, and was “very frustrating” as Wenger said. ManU won their game against the managerless Newcastle 6-0, which gives them a 7 goal advantage on us for the lead.

We played a very good first half, but didn’t capitalize on our dominance. We should have been 2 or 3 up and to be honest it looked to be a very comfortable game until their goal. Our passing was good, we had shots on goal, everyone was doing it right (except for Walcott). We scored our goal from a lucky penalty call. Adebayor got his 13th goal of the campaign.

Only 3 mins into the second half, we were caught from a corner, which is unlike us this season, it is very last season of us. This whole game was actually very similar to a couple of games from last season where we dominate and don’t win. We had 16 corners, they had 3, we had 16 shots, they had 2. Their goal came from a corner which was deflected by Fabregas.

The rest of the game was just annoying. I do want to discuss few points though -

• Waclott was out of sync and on a different wavelength the whole time. Most of our fluid game was disrupted when the ball went to him. This was the perfect game for him to start though, at home against a team 2 points away from the relegation battle. Unfortunately, this is another below average performance from our young Theo.
• Senderos did very well again following his good game in the cup. Our future captain was solid and hopefully can make the most from his opportunity as a starter.
• Fabregas had an average game, but what really bothered me about his game today was his delivery from corner kicks. We had 16 corners, all of which were useless. Taylor went and grabbed most of them easily. That was a very frustrating part of our game today.

I believe we missed Eboue today. I think he is a quality player who gets way more criticism than he deserves. He would’ve helped today at least in one aspect, our width.

Birmingham were able to defend well because we gave them the space to defend. Whenever Walcott got the ball on the right, he would cut inside. We were very narrow in our attack, which makes the defenders’ job much easier. Hleb used the width of the field once or twice and Clichy was there with him. Our best chance of the game came from Hleb’s cross from the left which Eduardo headed straight to Taylor. On the right however, there was a whole section of the field that was not used.

This is where Eboue would’ve helped. He stretches the defence with these runs, which gives our strikers more chances with less people surrounding them. When Walcott was taken off, Bendtner went up front, Hleb switch to the right, and Eduardo went left. In his short time on the right, Hleb created a nice opportunity. Eduardo kept cutting in like Walcott did but had Clichy running on the left which gave him some space.

When fans talk about getting a winger, I think someone who adds width is what comes to mind, and in our squad currently, Hleb is the only true winger we got. Rosicky plays behind the strikers for the Czech national team and I think that is his preferred position. Funny enough, when we see the young players who left in recent years, most of them are decent wingers (but crap mentality) - Bentley, Pennant, Reyes … The one player who I believe could’ve helped us perfectly would have been Ribery, who is doing wonders for Bayern. He’s not available now obviously, and Wenger doesn’t think we need to buy anyone now. Wenger knows, and I’m not being sarcastic.

Speaking of buying players, Wenger was asked if he will look for defensive cover during the transfer window, his response was - “If there is no additional injury, we don’t go on the transfer market.” That settles that then.