Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat at Craven Cottage yesterday was one of the poorest Arsenal games I have seen in a long time.

The line up didn’t really suprise me due to lack of midfield options, but I knew life would be hard for us when I saw Denilson and Eboue lining up in central midfield.

Nasri Eboue Denilson Walcott, it isn’t a title winning line up. I know Fabregas is out, and Diaby too, but even then the squad looks worryingly thin, all we had on the bench as cover was Ramsey and Wilshere. Eboue isn’t a central midfielder, and Denilson was out of his depth, he made a lot of bad mistakes.

We lacked the quality in the squad to replace injured players, and we desparately need a new centre mid. We ended up with RVP playing there and Bendtner and Adebayor up front.

The defence and attck however was the first choice team, and we looked worryingly toothless, we couldn’t string passes together, we weren’t tackling, crosses were misplaced, runs were mistimed. Schwarzer had 1 easy save to make all afternoon.

To make matters worse, Gallas’ awful marking at a corner allowed that new Fulham guy to get a leg in and score.

I know when Cesc is back in the squad things will be different, but we can’t rely on one guy, we seem to have lost a lot of defensive qualities in midfield (Diarra, Flamini, GIlberto) and creative qualities (Hleb). We need a new signing now, and the Boss needs to have a think about how the team will shape up for the season.

Arsene told the press:

“We were not sharp enough in the first half, and our passing was certainly not as good as we expect it to be. I don’t know why,

“Of course it is a setback. But the result is there, and we have to make up for it by winning the next match. We have a big game on Wednesday in the Champions League and need to improve.

“We paid a big price for the mistake on their goal. We should be able to cope with a corner when it comes in at low level like that.”

It’s only one loss, and we aren’t out of anything, but last year we finished 4 points off the top, we dropped 3 today and I hope we don’t regret it.

Click here for the highlights.