Joe Fitzpatrick 
Not only was the infuriating cult of Eboue finally put to bed forever at the Grove on Sunday, The AKB cult was put in right beside it too. It was after around 10 minutes when I first heard the first murmurings of "Emannuel E-boo-way" to the tune of "Seven nation army" by the White Stripes, all around me in the lower west stand, I could feel my teeth involuntarily start to grind a little and my eyes narrow a bit as I gave my friends around me my pre-match review of Emmanuel Eboue "Great chant, great tune. rubbish player." I know a lot of you are either only joining in the chant in a very tongue in cheek way or many of you are just trying to support the poor guy, but, come on Ladies and Gents, his time with us has got to be over now, hasn't it?
After that infamous Wigan game in 2008 I felt genuinely disgusted with myself for joining in the booing of Eboue, Not many of us will own up to being part of that scandal, and with good reason, because, it was in hindsight a very ugly afternoon indeed in the history of Arsenal F.C. You can probably never justify booing and jeering one of your own players as a home crowd of 60,000 but Emmanuel Eboue sure does push those buttons, doesn't he? We didn't really want to see Eboue leave the field in tears that afternoon against Wigan, as a substitute being substituted, but we didn't want to see him still playing for us in 2011 either!
All the sympathy chants must stop, right now, and this cult of Eboue crap must be put away with the rest of the toys. Emmanuel Eboue is simply not fit to wear the shirt or play in the position that Lee Dixon played in. He is a right winger, not a right back, just a very, very ineffective right winger pretending to be a full back and being played out of position by his tactically inept manager.
He has played 212 times for Arsenal notching up only 10 goals and 24 assists despite playing as an attacking full back, right winger and right outside forward at various times during his saven year Arsenal career. Do those stats scream "He looks great going forward" at you? No they do not, because his numbers are quite frankly, appalling. Yes, he does like to go on an exciting looking, meandering run but there is simply not enough end product coming from him and his frequent Shakespearian dives, face first into the grass, feigning injury and rolling around like he's just been shot in the thigh by a sniper have not exactly endeared him to a large section of the Arsenal faithful. Wait, What's that I hear you all cry? "Does he look any good defensively?" The short answer is no, he certainly does not.
Lee Dixon on ‘Match of the Day 2’ had the following pearls of wisdom for his successor as an Arsenal full back, whilst reviewing the penalty incident on screen. Lee exclaimed "Eboue, what are you doing?" and "What's he doing there? Last kick of the game!" Lee Dixon was of course watching in horror, as we all were, as Emmanuel Eboue shoved Lucas needlessly in the back therefore awarding Liverpool a penalty in the 10th minute of injury time. Dixon then went on to say what 60,000 Gooners had said at the time, that it was a stupid, pointless foul because Lucas was heading away from goal at the time! In what HAD TO BE the last action of the game Eboue did not use what little brain he has to any of its limited capacity whatsoever as he shoved into the back of Lucas and he obviously panicked, just as the rest of the Arsenal team were so obviously panicking around him.
It was Kamikaze defending from Eboue in a team full of potential warriors, prone to a wee bit of hari-kari at the back. Arsenal now have one of, if not the worst, records for holding on to leads this season in the Premiership because, my fellow Gooners, the evidence says that this keeps on happening to us again and again and time after time after time. Eboue surely isn't the greatest right back in the world but has he ever shown us any really great defensive qualities? Is Eboue to blame for not being good enough or is Arsene Wenger to blame for still picking a player that many of us knew way back in 2008, was not fit to wear the Arsenal shirt? Is it Emmanuel Eboue's fault this time that we drew the game? Yes, but, before him it was Clichy at Sunderland, Almunia against West Brom as well as Szczesny and Koscielny against Birmingham who were the villains for the day.
Arsene Wenger has allowed a culture to develop at the club wherein defending is seen as the ugly unimportant side of the beautiful game, an unnecessary evil, never to be again spoken of in training. Eboue does not pick the team or coach the rest of the team. Yes, he is a stupid idiot of a defender but he is not responsible for the fact that Arsenal just cannot defend.
Arsene Wenger must get a defensive coach in to sort out this motley crew of his or he will never win a trophy for us ever again. Same kind of stupid mistakes late in big games, different personnel, The only common factor in the 4-4 draw with Newcastle, the 2-1 loss to Birmingham, the 3-2 loss to Tottenham and this 1-1 draw with Liverpool is that Arsene Wenger was and still is, both the manager and head coach of the team. The ultimate responsibility for Arsenal's defensive shortcomings must rest solely with Arsene Wenger and his inability to coach the art of defending. If Wenger cannot coach defenders then why doesn't he let somebody else have a go at it?
And why doesn't he make life easier for himself and buy some quality defenders? Only the man himself knows the true answers to those questions but Arsenal fans who have "never worked even half a day in football in their lives" are going to keep on asking them until they are answered. Arsene clearly doesn't always know best when it comes to goalkeepers and defending and many of us are now seriously questioning his ideas on the more attacking aspects of the game too.
Arsenal have scored no goals from open play in three consecutive home matches in the league now and that has everything to do with our predictable style of play and lack of cutting edge in the final third. Teams have figured out how to cope with what Arsenal always try to do and even John Hartson, also on ‘Match of the Day 2’ was saying that he thought it might be an idea to buy a "20-25 goal a season striker, someone to stay in the box and help Van Persie". He also said "in order to take it to the next level, Arsene Wenger has to go out in the summer and buy big on a top top front man"
John Hartson is only saying what a lot of Gooners are already saying. Arsenal need a bit of quality to be added up top, as well as at the back, to give the opposition a bit of a different threat to think about rather than just concentrating on preventing Arsenal from passing the ball into the net. I let out a low sad sigh of a laugh when I heard John Hartson say, "I just don't think Chamakh and Bendtner are good enough, in my opinion" and thought yes John, me and you both Mr. Hartson. If Lee Dixon, John Hartson and everyone else can see the huge problems at Arsenal then Arsene Wenger really must have problems with his eyesight because we are going backwards as a team and that simply cannot be allowed to continue.
Wenger bringing on Bendtner as a winger and delaying the inevitable Arshavin cameo for as long as humanly possible are grave mistakes typical of Wenger but they pale in comparison to the fact that Darren Bent of Aston Villa has scored more goals in recent seasons than all of our strikers put together.
What happened on Sunday at Ashburton Grove was the most gutting, heartwrenching capitulation of the season so far and surely must show us that Arsene doesn't always know best and no one really only came to see Eboue.
