Does Gervinho deserve his place in the Arsenal team?

By Avenell Dave

It says it all about sunday's draw at Citeh that most Addicts were disappointed with a draw. 

Sure, the home side could have won it when Aguero fired just wide and they are always capable of causing problems. 

But yet again, our workrate, our commitment and our ability to cause problems bodes well for the rest of the campaign. 

Much of the talk during and after the game was about Gervinho, a player who really does divide opinion. 

Ungainly, unconventional and hugely frustrating, the Ivorian certainly lacks the elegance of the player he ultimately replaced, $amir Na$ri.

But when you look at the stats of both players when they first arrived, Gervinho doesn't look like a bad player.

Last season he scored six goals and created four more, while in his first season Na$ri scored six and created two others.

So there's not much in it.

Of course, because he misses chances, because he doesn't play with the efficiency and elegance of others, including Na$ri, he gets lambasted by some.

But if you watch Sunday's game at the Etihad, you'll see a player who not only carries on looking for the ball and working hard for the team (his tracking back is a symptom of the new hard-working, defensive regime) but also of a player who pulls opponents towards him.

That in turn creates space for others and while us fans have no idea what he is going to do next, you can bet defenders don;t have a clue either.

Arsene Wenger went with more solidity in midfield yesterday, added Aaron Ramsey in place of Alex Oxlande-Chamberlain or Francis Coquelin and it worked.

I'm forever banging on about how fine a player Ramsey is but like all others, he makes mistakes. Sadly he seems to be one who provokes more ire than he really deserves amongst his own supporters.

What worries me at the moment is that after a superb first half, we looked a little jaded, just as we did in Montpellier in midweek.

It's tricky making too many changes to a settled team, particularly when we're doing so well, but after the Ch*vski game, we need to rotate a bit more to ensure we keep the players fresh.

If you look at our title rivals, they all tend to do this and have done already, albeit with bigger, more established squads of course.

Abou Diaby, despite his brief injury lay-off, looked lost at sea at times in the second half and while his ability to retain the ball and dribble his way out of trouble can be superb, so too can his refusal to make simple passes or clearances cause unnecessary problems.

But it's hard to be too downhearted after a decent result in Manchester.

There is a long way to go in this title race but, hopefully, we've shown that we can compete with the other top sides and now we need to beat the leaders at the weekend to underline once more that we're in this race for the long haul.