I was watching a re-run of that Sky One program showing of the Premiership's top 40 foreign players the other night and the one thing that hit home was the highlighting of three Arsenal greats in Vieira, Petit, and Edu. In addition to their undoubted quality, they brought intimidating presence to our midfield and side in general. It's the obvious ingredient that's now missing from our side. We may paper over the cracks in some games, but the truth continues to come back and bite us up the arris.

We all know that we've lost a huge amount of our previous 'invincible' players in one go, and that we have mainly kids with huge potential filling their boots right now, and yes it will take most of them maybe another year's experience before we can expect them to get to the top of their game... But now think back a couple or so years, when Gilberto was considered the weak link in our midfield (if not whole eleven), whereas now he's considered a crucial part of our midfield... has he improved that much? I don't think so... Gilberto does a very good job in protecting the back four yes, but we need more than that. Vieira's protection of the back four was probably only 40% of his game... he brought MUCH more to the team than just that. Gilberto quite simply doesn't, and it's why we keep having to revert to a five man midfield which in turn compromises our forward line.

I'm hoping that Diaby comes back to the side, and partners Cesc to form the centre of a four man midfield with far more presence and bite because quite frankly Cesc needs a partner, not someone who sits behind him to mop up... Gilberto is a sidekick, and where Vieira was strong enough to carry him in the past, Cesc isn't. We need a midfielder to play alongside Cesc, not just f**king sit behind him sweeping for 90 minutes...Gilberto should be benched and used when we opt for a five man midfield in CL games away from home.

My view may be considered harsh when it has been Gilberto who has recently scored a couple of last minute saviour goals, and has made last ditch tackles saving our back four of embarrassment, but I still believe we wouldn't have got ourselves into those compromising situations in the first place if Cesc would have had for example a Vieira, Petit or Edu playing alongside him.