In case you don’t have Arsenal TV or just don’t watch ‘Fans’ Forum’, Tom Watt is the presenter of the show, he was in Eastenders a good few years ago and that’s about all he’s done. (Ed’s note – in the interest of a fair hearing, here’s Tom’s Wikipedia entry.) He’s an alright presenter, and other than the reserves and match replays, the Fans’ Forum is the only decent thing on it to be honest.

Anyway I’m not here to talk about Arsenal TV, but more about Tom Watt’s opinions that get on my nerves every week. He rates Alex Song far too highly in my opinion. No don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Alex Song is a bad player, in fact I think he will develop into a good one and a very handy squad player, but will he ever be top quality? No, I believe not. That is my opinion however, and you are free to rate Alex Song as highly as you like.

My main point is that Alex Song is not the type of defensive-midfielder we need, nor is Gilberto. Tom Watt goes on about Gilberto as well saying we should never have let him go, but no we were right, he simply lost the legs to play in midfield last year in the Premiership and I am sure Wenger saw him as a centre back which is why he bought Diarra in the summer of 2007. Arsenal don’t need a ‘sitter’ style defensive like Gilberto and Song, who just sits in front of the defense and wins headers and mops things up. We need a real grafter, all-action, ball-winning defensive midfielder who looks to get involved.

Every team needs a grafter and someone that wins tackles, grafters make space for your creative players to create, just like Flamini did for Fabregas last year. Look at Chelsea, they play much better with Essien playing because he is a grafter, Heskey isn’t a defensive midfielder obviously, but the reason he is a good striker is because he works hard and creates space. Song isn’t a grafter, or a ball-winner, I can’t recall Song ever winning a slide tackle, or even attempting one!

The reason Fabregas hasn’t appeared as good this year is because he simply hasn’t had the space. Neither of Song or Denilson are grafters so Fabregas has had to do the donkey work which has limited his creativity. This is also why Fabregas and Gilberto weren’t that great together. Gilberto and Vieira was different, because Gilberto could afford to sit as Vieira was so physically dominant that he could boss the midfield and create his own space.

The sort of players we should be looking at signing I think are Scott Parker, Marcos Senna, Miguel Veloso, Gokhan Inler and Anatoliy Tymoschuk. They are all players who will work hard, have good engines, will win tackles as well as having good enough technical and passing ability to play in this Arsenal side.

So we should be looking to sign one of those players this January, the other player we should be looking to sign is a replacement for Hleb, those are the key players we lost over the summer and never replaced. And before anyone says ‘Nasri,’ no - I believe you are wrong. Nasri would have been bought anyway, I recall Wenger over the summer he wanted to sign a creative player even before we sold Hleb. He was needed, imagine if we didn’t have Nasri, and who would be playing on our wings at the moment, god forbid!

There has been a lot of speculation about Arshavin and he would be perfect, a great replacement for Hleb. He would play mainly on the right side, and also sometimes on the left or behind the striker just like Hleb did for us. The reason Hleb was so good is because I believe no matter how good a defensive layout is, a good dribble can always open it up, and that is what Hleb did - and I believe Arshavin can also do this.

I have also heard people say that if we get Arshavin we will have too many of his type of player, what with Nasri, Rosicky, Walcott and Eboue. But we need the depth, and more importantly competition for places. It is unhealthy to have a situation that whenever Walcott is fit, he starts. Eboue provides no competition for that place on the right wing. Then when everyone is fit, on the wings we will have Rosicky, Nasri, Traore, Walcott and Arshavin, not bad, eh?? Not that we ever have everyone fit, it’s just not Arsenal like is it?

My final point is that Arsenal aren’t suddenly a bad team. Yes we are doing very much below expectations this year, but we can’t have suddenly gone from a great team last season to a terrible one this. The problem is not replacing Hleb and Flamini, any team without two of their best players would struggle. Not to mention injuries to other quality players along the way. We just need two players this January, the debatable keeper and centre-back situation can definitely wait until the summer, they shouldn’t be priorities. I just really hope we can get those two players, if we don’t it I will be very much fearing falling out of the top four. I’m sure Wenger knows this, he has made mistakes like everyone but the one thing he isn’t, is stupid. In Wenger I Trust.