Ed’s note - An excerpt from an email sent after the Villa game from my old mate Bernard Azulay, of the Irish Examiner and the Gooner’s Diary blog…

It was another head-scratching afternoon today! For me, while he's still perfectly capable of conjuring up the odd defence splitting pass, Fabregas has gone seriously off the boil these past few weeks. In fact, when I think about it, I am sure I've been saying the same since the start of the season and even against Man Utd, he was guilty of giving the ball away far too many times.

To my mind, we were fortunate that Man Utd were so profligate in front of goal last week, but where we raised our game a crucial 5-10 per cent to boss the midfield against Utd, a very flat Arsenal side seemed to drop 5-10 per cent against Villa and this accounts for the big difference in the two performances

Although it's true that we were a bit unlucky, as Gallas was drawn out to the right for the first goal, when Sagna went down injured and then we blatantly should've had a free kick prior to the second, Villa could've long since have put the result to bed if they were a little more clinical. The main difference in the two teams was the strikers, as where Agbonlahor not only caused us trouble all afternoon, he was seen grafting back, using his pace to ensure Walcott didn't catch them on the break and constantly pressing us to ensure we didn't have time to settle on the ball. Whereas I can hardly recall a single instance where Bendtner successfully managed to hold the ball up and bring others into the game and when not on the ball, the big Dane just strolls around, lending absolutely nothing to the team with zero contribution off the ball.

Also I was seriously impressed with Denilson v United, but he was back to his anonymous best against Villa and it gives me cause to think that we have a bit of a problem with players feeling too secure in their first team positions, to bring the same intensity to every game. As I see it, the problem is that while the kids looked so brilliant against Wigan, they are perceived as a separate entity all together, when really we want them to be challenging for first team places as individuals to ensure that the likes of Denilson etc. do not feel quite so comfortable about being automatically selected.

And from a subsequent email…

We may have been questioning whether Adebayor was going to prove himself more than a one season wonder, but he's certainly closer to being a recognised threat than Bendtner, who has yet to convince me he's anything more than a Championship level front man.

For my money, nowadays you can only get away without having an advantage of searing pace, if you make up for it in other areas and the Dane definitely doesn't seem to possess the hunger, or any sort of selfless commitment and I've yet to be convinced that he has sufficient intelligence.

To my mind yesterday's game only reinforced my opinion that we don't possess anything like the consistency required to mount a credible title challenge but far worse than that, we could afford a shaky defence if we were guaranteed to outscore the majority of opponents by creating a shed load of goal scoring opportunities, but with such a seemingly impotent strikeforce, you have to worry for our Champions League security.