For all the insistence yesterday that I couldn't give a monkey's aunt's husband about the result yesterday, the performance certainly delivered something of a knock. I didn't have super high expectations from our cobbled together defence but it was our more senior players who left us wanting the most.
We Love it here! The bench has comfy seats.
Of course, I always want to see Arsenal win but you can't help but be a bit disappointed with the performances from the likes of Campbell and Podolski. They're on the fringes of the first team for a reason and that doesn't look likely to change any time soon. It didn't seem like they mind either. Podolski has proven quality and I imagine Campbell probably thinks his quality is proven as well with his European experience but it should be clear that they have very talented and hard-working players ahead of them and they need to work hard for a place. Maybe they feel the task is too great. If that's the case, they both need to be moved on ASAP.
Encouragingly, our defensive line probably contained our best performers. As I alluded to yesterday, we needed the whole team working defensively to protect our cobbled defence and that didn't happen. But the signs of three youngsters and le Coq, yep even Arsene's Coq, getting his first outing for over a year, were promising enough.
Nevertheless, I'd feel a lot more comfortable if we don't need to use Hayden and Bellerin as starters in any important games this year, as promising as they might be, so this is not the titular silver lining.
The saving grace of our exit takes a series of unnecessary fixtures out of the schedule that our top heavy squad probably can't cope with. It means there are less minutes to go around for our plethora of midfielders and attackers but based on last night's performance, that's no big loss.
Let's treat this like the friendly it might as well have been, sweep it under the rug, push it in front of a bus even, and get on with smashing Tottenham with our newly rejuvenated (not premature at all after one good game) Ozil pulling the strings.
That's all from TheArseAndAll.
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