Are there any reasons for Arsenal Christmas cheer?

By Avenell Dave

I hate to quote AVB but I said to one of my neighbours that I really feel Arsenal are in a negative spiral at the moment.

Gone is the ruthlessness that characterised the start of our season, the zip in our passing and the ability to create chances at will.

We've taken two points from a possible nine and dropped from the top of the table.

We don't seem to be able to get the balance right and on our showing against Chelsea, you could see how much our form has dipped.

Passes that a few weeks ago would always reach their man went astray, players forgot that pressing opponents is the first rule of all great teams and the crowd frustration was indicative of another performance that failed to live up to expectations.

If you look at our shots total his season, it's way behind most of the other teams we are challenging for the title/top four and as we all know, the more times you shoot, the more goals you score. That may sound obvious, but even when keepers save shots, it is the rebounds that can make a difference.

Jose Mourinho, despite unnecessary comments about us being cry babies, was right when he said that we were limited to one chance in the game and let's be honest, Chelsea always looked the more threatening despite coming with a far more conservative team.

In Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla, Theo Walcott and Tomas Rosicky, Arsenal have playmakers who should be able to break teams down, but we saw last night how badly we need a world class striker to supplement Olivier Giroud.

The movement was simply not there, much as Giroud tried, but I found myself screaming blind at Walcott in particular whose lack of tracking back and making intelligent runs betrays his weaknesses.

It's all very well being fast and clinical when not thinking, but football is about wit as well. 

Thierry Henry said that he used to get angry at players who did not make passes to suit his runs, but he then realised that he had to make runs to suit other players' passes.

Walcott, I fear, does not study the game to work out what he could do with his talent and it lets us down.

Aaron Ramsey has lost his early-season dominance as well and as my neighbour pointed out, when he does not play well, the whole side struggles. He has had a break but is probably afflicted with the same drop in confidence that has affected others.

Mourinho got it right when he said that there was no need to pressure Mikel Arteta, because he knows that the Spaniard passes sideways more often than not and yet Chelsea still put us under pressure for much of the game, giving us little time to breathe.

We have played five of the ten toughest games we will have this season (United, City, Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool) and have two wins, two defeats and a draw.

It's not quite as bad a record as some would have you believe.

We're second in the table on goal difference and if this is as bad as our dip gets, we can't really complain too much, especially if we push on in the second half of the season with two forward players coming back into the squad in the form of Lukas Podolski and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

One final point: Mike Dean.

Was it a penalty by Willian on Walcott? It would have been given without doubt had it been at Stamford Bridge.

Would Arteta have been sent off for the challenge Mikel made on him if the situation was reversed? Most probably.

Dean is a snarling, unpleasant character and the fact that his record against us is so appalling (one win when he officiates - see this statistic of his record) can;t just be a coincidence.

Onwards and hopefully upwards. Let's hope the worst of this run is behind us.