After the defeat at Manchester City recently I asked the question on the onlinegooner forum, “When was the last time we played badly and won?” I honestly couldn’t remember the last time and in response someone put forward the suggestion that we hadn’t done it since the Cup final in 2005!

A mere three days after posing the question we went and did exactly that. First half against Liege we were absolutely appalling. We are used to Arsenal being poor without the ball but on this occasion we were equally as bad with it, with stray passes, lack of concentration and poor decisions being made throughout the team.

However, our luck was in, Liege stunned themselves as much as they stunned us with their start and quickly retreated into their own half to protect their scarcely believable lead. A better, more experienced European team would have gone for the jugular and we could have taken an absolute hiding.

No matter, we can only beat what is in front of us and even if we did ride our luck the attitude of the players got us through. We’re told a team winning when they play poorly is the sign of a good team. We definitely need to do more of it if we are to have any hope of silverware this season but the truth is, we rarely play badly.

Our much bigger problem is that we often play well and don’t win. We’ve already seen two games this season where for large parts of the match Arsenal have appeared the dominant force and yet come away from the game with nothing. This is what we must cut out.

Our instability at the back means we continue to give up chances so when our own opportunities to score come along we must take them. For that reason alone, Wenger surely has to start Eduardo on a more regular basis. I’m hoping he is just easing him back in after his lengthy injury problems. The couple of months before his horrific injury, Eddie proved himself to be a clinical finisher, the likes of which we haven’t seen since a certain Mr Wright in the mid 90’s.

We have no one else like him at the club. We have a huge array of talented footballers who can pass and create until the cows come home but we need end product and this guy can deliver it.

Along with every other Arsenal fan, I’d like to see the defence become much more solid but I came to realise a long time ago that Wenger doesn’t really do defence. Vermaelen looks an excellent acquisition but until we get an organiser and a unit rather than a collection of individuals then we basically have to take a “score more than them” mentality.

Over to you Eduardo!