I don’t want to be too negative but today Arsenal played pretty poorly. Two long throws from Rory Delap allowed Stoke two relatively easy goals(Fuller ’11, Olofinjana ’73). Those throws are not easy to defend against, especially if you are Arsenal, weak in defence and hate balls into the box.

When playing against a team who have scored over half their goals from Delap’s long throws you would think that Arsenal might have been more prepared than they seemed for these. Maybe they are undefendable?

Stoke worked incredibly hard all match to give us no space and we really had very limited chances, our goal came in extra time – Clichy’s shot took two deflections and went in, his first goal for Arsenal, it started a small revival, but the 93rd minute is way, way, way too late.

We couldn’t get anywhere, and the exclusion of Nasri, RVP and Walcott, in exchange for height and power with Diaby, Song and Bendtner didn’t really pay off.

The game was worsened by the sending off of Van Persie for barging Sorenson after he teased RVP with the ball, and injuries to Adebayor – who looked in a lot of pain, Walcott – who has probably dislocated his shoulder again, and Sagna.

This means we may be without our main strikers for the games aganst Fenerbahce and Man Utd at home.

Our title bid may be over, Wenger even seemed depressed, when asked if it was the end of our title bid after the game he said “lets win the next one, and see after..”