Fozzy 
I am sitting on the tube, trying to come to terms with what I have just watched. This under-performance is up there with all the others, and this season, in particular, there have been far too many.
Firstly, well played to Wigan. I stood around to applaud them off the pitch because they deserved it. And let’s face it, somebody had to, because their own meagre support, all 200 of them, looked like they were a part of one of those tiny wedges of cake that had been left over at a wake.
Secondly, we were unlucky enough to witness yet another in the series of incompetent refereeing performances by Andre Marriner. Doesn’t anybody realise that this bloke is well out of his class in the Premier League? But let’s not moan about the ref because we need to move on to my third point, and that is precisely what happened to our lot tonight? Was it just a matter of our players believing that all they had to do was to stroll around for 95 minutes and collect three points? Because that’s what it looked like.
We were well spooked by having to change ends before the start, and it certainly didn’t help matters by being 2-0 down by the eighth minute. Nor did the sight of Wiggy Arteta hobbling off. On came Ramsey, but we all wished that he hadn’t bothered, because he contributed very little for the remainder of the evening. But hang on, we had the best part of 90 minutes to put it right so all we needed to do was to keep playing our football. The Verminator led the way by showing future Gooner captain leadership with a bullet header, and we should have been on our way. So why didn’t the equaliser ever come? For starters, our midfield was a major disappointment. Rosicky and BennyHill both buzzed but lacked any real creativity. One Song ambled his way through the game and Walnutt was completely anonymous. In fact, I am becoming more and more frustrated with Walnutt’s lack of effort.
There was no improvement in the second half. We witnessed far too many Deckchair Denilson-esque passes and very little of anybody taking the game by the scruff of the neck. Percy was starved of the ball and Fatty Santos couldn’t work out if he was an attacker or defender and was caught out on a regular basis. The busier of the two keepers was Chesney, which spoke volumes.
The game was crying out for The Ox, but Weng got his tactics hopelessly wrong again by swapping BennyHill for Eboué-With-a-Syrup, who produced nothing. With less than 20 minutes to go, The Ox came on for the hapless Djourou, and although he started to make things happen, there seemed little support from his team-mates to latch on to anything coming their way. The Odious Chavs must have lapped up tonight’s performance because, unless we raise our game significantly on Saturday, they will run straight through us.
Finally, let’s dwell on Monday night’s lack of tactics and team management. Pat Rice was content to rest on his sun-lounger all game and Weng seemed to occasionally flap his arms around like a demented penguin and then sit down again. These antics didn’t impress me, nor did they inspire his players. If Weng gave any sort of halftime team-talk, then nobody listened. And it just happened that, sitting in the opposite dugout, we saw a bright young manager, who, with very few resources at his disposal, got his tactics spot-on. If Weng is going to carry on in this vein, perhaps it’s time to seriously consider alternatives.
