Strange times, my friends, strange times!

Confusing isn’t it?

Your centre forward gets sent off at home against Liverpool, and you think, hey, probably the best thing that could have happened.

Your captain and most consistent and best player gets injured and is out for four months. You think, perhaps not altogether a bad thing.

The team you’re going head to head with for fourth place equalises in the second minute of injury time, and you think OK that’s not too bad.

Let me explain.

Against Liverpool we were poor, even the Scousers were playing more football than us. A draw was the best we could hope for. Then, Howard Webb intervenes. The team start trying – I swear I even saw Song run twice. The crowd make a noise. Fuelled in part by a genuine sense of grievance at the red card and in part by a wish to atone for the Eboue/Wigan fiasco and demonstrate that we can get behind the team.

For half an hour or so, I thought we had got our football club back – a bit of passion on and off the pitch, getting stuck in despite playing 12 men etc. etc.. This feeling did not last long. On the way home, I realised that once again we had played badly – incoherently and without a plan. Hats off to the guy in ‘The Gooner’ who likened Arsenal’s style of play to Jazz – quite nice passages but most of the time going nowhere fast. In fact I am listening to Miles Davis at the moment and Miles is off on a flight of fancy but what makes it all so good is that somewhere there are two guys on bass and drums keeping the whole thing together and in shape. Let’s think of them as the defensive midfielder and central defender of Jazz. Unheralded but you sure miss them when you don’t have them.

Cesc’s injury is a great blow but will all those other clubs who are linked with him be put off because he will not have proved his fitness by the end of the season? Does this mean he could still be an Arsenal player next season, thereby giving Wenger two more transfer periods to sort things out and convince Cesc to stay? It seems to me that this is our best (only?) hope of seeing Cesc in an Arsenal shirt next season.

Turning to Villa’s equaliser, it is not that I wanted to concede but part of me just could not stand Wenger spouting off again about how this victory proved yet again what a great squad we have and how his faith in youth has been vindicated, and Cesc’s injury is no more than an inconvenience. All this when yet again we have been outplayed and this time saved by the woodwork three times, a marvellous clearance by Sagna and numerous blocks. I know our second goal was fantastic, and RVP hit the post but come on. We were overrun in midfield. Eboue is neither brave enough to be a defender or intelligent enough to play in midfield – that boy buys more dummies than the NHS. And why he was turning his back on the ball for the throw in that led to Villa’s equaliser, God only knows. Denilson continually fails to track back, Nasri is still too lightweight, and Diaby too inconsistent. Our midfield five this afternoon was not going to frighten anyone.

I am trying to rationalise my feelings on Adebayor’s red card, Cesc’s injury, and Villa’s equaliser. I think it is because I have given up on this season and I want things to change, possibly up to and including the Manager if he cannot see what is required, i.e. a holding midfielder (Scott Parker anyone?) who can let the others play with a bit of confidence and who can protect the defence. The (central) defence is not great - Gallas is regularly exposed, Toure still does not appear to have recovered from malaria - but when the opposition midfield can unwrap the proverbial toffee before deciding on which defence splitting pass they will attempt, then I find it hard to put the entire blame on the back four.

Of course, a holding midfielder is not the only new face required – goalkeeper, central defender, the list goes on – but that seems to be the biggest need. And that’s what I want for a belated Christmas present – Wenger buying someone as a tangible sign that he realises that all the answers do not lie in the squad or the Academy. I want Wenger to show that he has the ambition to win something, and the sense to realise that his masterplan needs a bit of fine tuning. Who does he listen to, does he take advice? The current banking crisis shows us the dangers of an overmighty executive where the normal checks and balances just don’t exist or do not work – in other words, where the Board just falls asleep at the wheel. Is there anyone in the Club who can have a grown up conversation with Wenger and challenge him? If there isn’t then I fear that his time may be drawing to a messier close than either he or we deserve as eventually the Board will get fed up with him – 5th in the Premiership will not convince those law and accountancy firms to renew their Club Level season tickets, and the business plan goes up in smoke. Wenger will be history, all his good work will leave no lasting legacy, and we shall enter another unsuccessful period like the one that followed George Graham.

The last time I wrote a piece for the Online Gooner I was accused of taking uppers before writing my last paragraph. This time, I am just too depressed to engage in straw clutching. Perhaps my mood will have lightened by the end of January but I doubt it.