Arsenal vs Birmingham City - Emirates Stadium, London - Saturday 12th January 2008

Given the recent flurry of games in December, and over Christmas and New Year, 11 days without a League game seems like an eternity. An FA Cup win against Burnley, and a Carling Cup draw against Spurs have filled the time in between, but it is good to get back to business in the League again. Strangely, despite having played 21 games, we haven't played Birmingham at all yet - this means it is our first meeting with ex players Sebastian Larsson (recently making himself popular with all Gooners by scoring a winner against Spurs), and Fabrice Muamba, both of whom were the subject of a number of newspaper articles on the morning of the game.

The game itself was a frustrating one. Arsenal started off OK, having the majority of possession, and creating a few decent chances in the early part of the game. After about 20 minutes, we were awarded what looked like a very soft and generous penalty, which Adebayor tucked away nicely to give us the lead. Then, complacency seemed to set in, and it all went downhill from there. Passes started to go astray, and, despite domination of possession and complete territorial advantage, we didn't really trouble the keeper much at all after that.

Early in the second half, a momentary defensive lapse saw Birmingham equalise, and the game then seemed to turn into a grim reminder of a number of home games last season. Virtually the entire second half was played in Birmingham's half of the pitch, but Arsenal just couldn't really create many chances, and couldn't finish off the few that they did manage to create. Lots of possession, but very little of use was done with it - lots of huffing and puffing, but to little effect. Theo Walcott was extremely ineffective on the right of midfield, Hleb was incredibly frustrating throughout, and Cesc Fabregas was way off his best - as he has been for a couple of months now.

As the second half wore on, the pressure on Birmingham kept building, but an excellent defensive performance, combined with a poor Arsenal display, meant that it came to nothing. At the final whistle, the away end erupted, with Brummies celebrating like they'd won the League - and it was a very important point for them. Not good to watch, but their manager did exactly what his employer needed him to do. So there you go - 2 points dropped in a disappointing way.

This game was just one of those things in my view. It was a very off key performance, certainly the worst of our 12 home league games so far this season. We have played a lot of games lately, although this display was something of a surprise, since several of the key players have had a bit of a rest recently. We played like this in quite a few games last season, and whilst this was a very unwelcome reminder of that, it also reminded us that, thankfully, we have not seen too much more of it this season. Hopefully, this one will just be put down to experience, one of those bad results that you get once or twice a season. A week off now, then a trip to Fulham next week, as a chance to bounce back.