Arsenal 0 - Sunderland 0

Lets have a look at another statistic. It will be the lowest we have finished since Wenger has been here, the 1st time we have not gone in to the chaampions league ....etc

Could be worse you could have Tim Sherwood and Les Ferdinand in your coaching staff.

with 12 games to go i think we need 28 points at the very least which means 8 or 9 wins. I cant see Villa or Chelsea not picking up at least 21 points. Time will tell, but id imagine we need a hell of a run to pull it off, which i dont think we are capable of, especially when we cant beat teams like west ham and sunderland at home.

I think now is the time to look at the future. Playing with Ramsey, Wilshere and giving Vela more starts can only have a positive impact. Today is all gloom and I believe we will be playing the new UEFA League competition, come next September. Let's go for it then. We we'll be without some of our stars who will find their way out of the club. We should offload the players that are not CL material: Silvestre, Diaby, Bendtner, Eboue, Adebayor, Rosicky, Song and Denilson. Gallas, Arshavin and Van Persie will move themselves away from the club. I can't even imagine what will happen to Cesc, but I can't see him staying for more than next season. So the Wenger system comes full circle and we'll have to develop young players to replace these that will go. Maybe the money saved on the players leaving will allow us to buy some others that are not just brilliant in the training field but found wanting on the real pitch.

Bye bye 4th place.

Its up to the manager to find solutions to the problems we are having scoring goals. The central midfield pairing of Song and Denilson creates very little especially against a 10 man defence, All season Denilson has be trained into the role of our new 'defensive' midfielder so playing Song a defensive midfielder next to him makes little or no sense at home. Also I thought it was a mistake to play Arshavin from the start, Vela played very well against Cardiff, his confidence would have been high and he got dropped not good man management. Also to bring on Arshavin with 30 minutes to go would have given the whole stadium a massive lift, Sunderland would have been tiring and Wenger fo such an intelligent guy missed a psychological trick, instead he put Eboue on giving the exact opposite effect. We will finish 5th which is the level of this team without Fabregas, talk of players leaving does not bother me 1 bit. At the end of the day everyone has to take responsibility for our poor form so if they are walking around thinking their s*@t dont stink and its not their fault were 5th they can p*ss off to Real, Barca or whoever wants them.

we need Eduardo

How quickly the mood changes! I agree with much of that analysis iceman. Playing Song and Denilson does seem a little negative at home but with Cesc and Diaby out there isn't much alternative. I have always thought this 'need for a DM' thing was overdone. We could have played Eboue there I guess but with the current febrile atmosphere towards him that might have been too big a risk for Wenger to take.

the strikers aren't scoring because they are not getting the service from midfield and they are not Thierry Henry who could make chances of his own when running at a defender. Yesterday we kept trying to cross balls into the area to no effect because our strikers don't like heading the ball and neither did Henry to be fair.

I know all is not lost and to be gung-ho would be silly but for the remaining home games without Cesc we really do need to change things up, whether that means playing Nasri centrally and Vela and Arshavin wide or playing Bendtner wide and Arshavin in the hole I dont know? But song and Denilson centre mid at home means a certain 5th place IMO.

Its obvious to me from watching them week in week out that its the lack of creativness and speed in passing from the centre midfield. Yes Denilson & Song both do a good job at the things they do, but the ball moves too slowly and mainly from side to side. Denilson always has stats of 85% percent pass completion which is good but he is rarely capable of any penetrarting passes. And song slows down our whole game considerably. We need to play NAsri in the middle with Denilson or Song until Fabs is back.

That has to be right luckys_10. It's better to have the post mortem after the patient is dead.

I thought Chelsea were impressive yesterday in terms of spirit, determination and quality of play. And, unlike us, they got the result. United, Chelsea and Liverpool all contend with what we do at home, i.e. teams playing almost completely defensively and manage to get results. This is a clearly a tranisition season for us with new players needing to get used to each other. As everyone knows, the massive miscalculation that Wenger has made is not to buy a couple of experienced players (or not let go of them) to tie us over this time. Nasri should have been played through the middle with Arshavin and Eboue/Vela on the other wing. Believe me, we're missing Hleb far more than Flamini.

Yesterday's game revealed the poverty of quality. I was very interested to see how we would respond to a good result and the good vibes of the Cardiff match. Could they use it to kick on? Could they seize the initiative with Villa losing? Could they get some confidence into their game and start behaving like a quality football team again and sweep to 4th? The answer was a clear and no resounding no in every department. I almost think I'd feel better if I thought they weren't trying, but they are. The fact is, 3 straight 0-0 draws and no goals scored that weren't forged in their entirety by van Persie shows that the quality just isn't there, and there's no use in the manager or the fans trying to kid themselves any different.

I still don't understand why Nasri and Denilson do not start in the middle? Surely Vela has done enough now to start games.

I can see the attraction of putting Merida on but let's be realistic Wenger was in a no win situation with that choice. Had he done so and the result been the same he would have been criticised for putting on an untried, inexperienced youngster. We can all have different ideas about different permuations of players but they are no more guaranteed to succeed than the choices that were made. We need to be 7 points better than Villa or 8 points better than Chelsea gain over the next 12 games. It can be done but realisitically, on present form, that has to be a tough ask. But whatever our fate this season it isn't the end of this club or this team. A disappointing season is only a disappointing season. There is always the prospect of a better one to come.

The clamour for Vela and Ramsey is only on the basis that they haven't played often enough to yet be failures in the eyes of supporters. I think the forecasts of doom if we don't qualify for the CL are a bit early yet though it will be costly. Whether we lose players or not is a possible but not inevitable consequence - especially as they are mostly young enough to take a season out of the competition. It hasn't forced Kaka out of Milan. Nor does being out of the CL prevent us from signing other players as Ribery and Flamini amongst others will testify.

Players who have joined clubs with no chance at the CL in the past two years (off the top of my head) -- Ribery, Klose, Toni, Ze Roberto, Ronaldinho, Robinho, Beckham, De Jong, Pato, Oddo, Flamini, and every player that T*ttenham has tricked into joining them. Bayern and Milan were able to keep the players they wanted to while adding to their squad. Even guys like Nedved, Del Piero, Trezuguet and Buffon stayed with Juventus when they were relegated. Of course, you could argue that these teams showed an ambition in the summer when they failed to qualify which allowed them to improve their squad even when not playing in the CL.

I have no wish to be unduly negative but I can't keep ignoring the evidence of my own eyes and I think the manager not the players has to take the responsibility even allowing for and acknowledging the wonderful things he has done for and with this club over the years. I do wonder about the preparation when we come off the back of a good win - even if it was 'only' Cardiff - and then play with what seems to me such fear and negativity. Individually I think the players are doing their best but I wonder also about the selections sometimes; it is inevitable that a midfield paring of Denilson and Song isn't going to create very much and I agree that it might have been more effective to bring Arshavin on rather than start with him. I don't understand the reluctance to play Nasri in the centre together with Denilson or possibly Song. The manager probably thinks that Vela is too young and too inexperienced to start - even out wide but if this is the case why is he in the first team squad? The same question could be asked about Ramsey, Wilshere and Gibbs, if they're not good enough to start, at home, against Sunderland they are not good enough for the first team squad. The reason we find ourselves in this situation is the managers cavalier attitude towards experienced, but dissatisfied players when he lets them go too easily' I wonder how hard he tried to keep Campbell, Flamini, Hleb, Diara et al. Letting players such as them go without signing experienced and proven replacements meant that too many youngsters were forced to step into the team before they were ready and this has been bad for the team and probably for those players development as well. It is quite one thing to blood a youngster or two in a confident, experienced team which is playing well and quite another to expect them to take full responsibility and straight away without a significant body of experience around them. I realise that we have suffered from injuries but the wheels were coming off at the end of last season before we lost Cesc, Theo, Diaby etc ( Diaby is not a role model of experience and consistency anyway). This post is now far too long so I'll finish by just saying that the team needs to develop better movement off the ball and play closer to one another so that the passing game we used to play so well can be learned again, the team also needs to play at a higher tempo and attack and defend in numbers. We are not a bad side, we are a good side but not, at the moment a top four side. We are still in the FA Cup and the Champions League either of which we may well win. Hurrah!!!!!!!

I understand LD, and I am fearful of the summer transfer window, I'm just offering up some evidence that players don't necessarily run off to other teams if there is no CL football for them. Further evidence is actually Villa, who were able to hold onto Gabby, Young, and Barry even though they are not as big as Bayern and Milan (no offence intended as they have put together a talented squad)

The reliance on youngsters was a direct result of restricted finances while building the stadium. Let's be clear about that. The sponsorship money from the Emirates and Nike went directly into stadium finance and not team building. The fact that we have still kept competing - albeit less effectively than we would have wished is remarkable but other than the policy of spending money we didn't yet have - which is the Bates policy that ultimately virtually bankrupted Chelsea - we had no viable alternative if we were to attract the level of talent we need. Imagine trying to buy a Cesc now for example. While money may well have been available as the club said Wenger is clever enough to know that that would only be at the expense of his ability to buy in the future. Only now are we generating money - but so far only 1 years contribution after almost 8 years of very little - the team can and will now develop along more conventional lines.

I agee with many comments but not that we are the 5th or 6th best team in the PL. I believe with most of our players healthy we are the most talented, we will also finish in the top 4.We lack creativity but not just from the Midfield, our strikers apart from RVP dont take players on and beat them, not that they cant but seem to lack the confidence to (I also think Eduardo has the confidence and ability to do it). I do agree that our play lack pace, we dont run at defences but pass around all day, when a door is locked sometimes you have to use a battering ram to get through, we need to impose our will on teams and that to me will be done by taking it to the defence with speed and power, everything may not come off but It will cause the defence to have to adjust and holes will open up, in my opinion atleast. I would also like to see Nasri be more greedy and aggressive with the ball, he is a great player but is being me too passive. Just my opinion.