Blackburn Rovers vs Arsenal - Ewood Park, Blackburn - Saturday 25th February 2006

The last time Arsenal got a result as good as the one in Madrid, everybody showed up for the following game ready for a huge celebration and another rout. The game in question then completely disappointed everybody, finished as a dull 0-0 draw, and left everybody scratching their head as to whether it was the same team that had just won so well. Just five days after the 5-1 San Siro victory, came a dull 0-0 home draw against Fulham. So, I was not getting too carried away about our prospects for Blackburn away, especially given our sketchy away form in England this season.

When you go to Ewood Park, there is a schoolyard which is the best place to park, if you fancy a quick escape back to the motorway. On the wall of the school yard, I found this sign. Both teams in the game today heeded the message. Arsenal seemed utterly disinterested in playing any football for at least the first hour; and for some players (including Thierry Henry) for the whole game.

For their part, Blackburn also shunned playing football for a game designed to just stifle and press Arsenal, mixed with punting long balls up the pitch for their own attacks. I have seen this exact same game several times before this season, a real sense of deja vu - so it really was a case of "same crap performance, different Northern venue". Blackburn joins the list including Middlesbrough, Wigan, Bolton (twice), Liverpool, Everton, and Newcastle; and with the joy of 2 trips to Manchester still to come this season. Looking at Arsenal's remaining away fixtures, I fancy a point or three against Sunderland, other than that we can't be too confident on past experience.

Negative tactics are to be expected away from home (teams aren't exactly going to just let us steamroller them), so we really should have made some more progress on a way to deal with these tactics. Instead, it was the same old same old disinterested, sloppy, half-hearted performance away from home. Our game plan that worked so well a few years ago (most of the time) has been well and truly found out. Work is now urgently needed on a rethink as to how we deal with committed opposition away from home.

Blackburn fans were ecstatic at the final whistle - they must have been mistaking their opponents for the Invincibles that they played a few years ago. Don't they realise that everybody is beating Arsenal at home this season??!? If West Brom can do it, you'd have to be very disappointed not to be taking maximum points against us this season.