There could not have been anyone in the stadium at half time who thought the end result would have been 3-1 to the Reds.

Starting at the front, RVP was continuing his impression of a man who could not hit the proverbial cow’s arse with a banjo – a temporary loss of form I am sure. Adebayor, in between the offsides (a PB here as he was offside within the first minute. Way to go Ade!) and miscontrols, was proving that he has a worse chances and half chances ratio to goals scored than anyone since Andy Cole. By my reckoning he will score next against Stoke. He will then go on a streak and score 6 in 5 games and then vanish from the goal scoring charts until the end of January.

Midfield was flimsy and presented no barrier to Everton – Denilson failing to track Osman for their goal, Denilson failing to get in the way of Yakubu when he set up a chance later on for Osman. Bit of a theme emerging there but he was not alone. I think it says it all when Wenger plonks a man who, if memory serves, was being hailed as the best right back in Europe, the World, the Galaxy just three years ago, on the right of midfield to give another in a long line of, let us say, unconvincing appearances. Yes, step forward Eboue. To replace Sagna with Song and keep Eboue in midfield is not a resounding vote of confidence in Eboue’s defensive skills. I suppose the idea was that Eboue would offer pace and a real threat wide on the right. Well, there goes another theory then.

All this left the “makeshift defence” exposed. We were just not at the races – not even if those races had been a selling plate at Fontwell Park on a cold Thursday afternoon in February.

But come the second half, a combination of (I would like to think) some tea cup throwing by AW, Toure’s injury allowing Walcott to come on, Nasri’s timely goal and we were back in it. From then on in Everton retreated, offered no threat and we dominated. Not totally convincing but a heartening win.

Let’s talk about our defence. Is there a finer player in the League than Clichy? I think not. Consistency, effort, and energy levels that would shame a Duracell bunny. Plug him in to the National Grid and that’s global warming solved. When Sagna returns, we shall again have the best pair of full backs in the country. Song looked a lot more comfortable in the second half than at full back. Not surprising. I quite like Song. I think he is an intelligent footballer who could be a very good player for us – and I think we owe him some slack after the totally shameful way he was treated at Fulham a couple of years back.

Finally, here are a few words about the belated debut of the most underwhelming signing of the summer. Mikael Silvestre has obviously not been here long enough to imbue totally the Arsenal way. This means he does not always put a team mate under pressure by playing a sly little angled pass on the edge of our area. When the ball needs to be whacked, he whacks it. It is a very long time since I have seen an Arsenal player applauded for coming across the ball 25 yards from our goal and then hitting it aimlessly into the opponent’s half. Yet, that happened to Silvestre on Saturday. I loved it and it goes to show that the Arsenal fans appreciate a bit of rudimentary defending.

Silvestre also won more balls in the air than Toure and Gallas combined have managed in the whole season to date. He did this by adopting the deceptively simple method of working out where the ball was going, getting there first and being strong enough to withstand the attentions of either Yakubu or that Belgian lump, “Screech” Fallaini. There’s material there for the Arsenal defensive gurus to work on. All in all I thought he was sound. In time I might even forgive him for playing on the Dark Side.

Two musings about what I must laughingly refer to as the Everton strike force. I appreciate that on a per inch or a per lb basis, the acquisition of the aforementioned Belgian lump looks pretty good business but if that’s what £15m gets you in today’s transfer market then I have some sympathy for AW’s reluctance to sully his hands in that particular marketplace. I have this season referred to Toure’s weight and particularly his posterior. However, when put next to Yakubu, Toure could be used as the poster boy in a campaign publicising the scandal of size zero Premiership footballers. He carries some timber does that boy Yak.

A game of two halves then and where does that leave us? No idea really but if we do not get too far behind Chelsea, Man U or even the Scousers, and if we can turn them over in the head to heads then… see, I’ve moved from total despair to clutching at straws. Has to be progress doesn’t it?