Chelsea vs Arsenal - Stamford Bridge, London - Sunday 23rd March 2008

After no wins in four games, and the League lead surrendered, nothing less than three points was required against Chelsea today, if we were to have any hope of staying in the title race. We didn't get any points at all, which means that any hope of winning the League is effectively dead for another year. We have now gone 5 league games without winning, our worst run for 9 years. Not the form of title winning sides, and by any measure, Arsenal have a huge form problem to deal with - we haven't had a good weekend in the League for far, far too long now.

The game itself started off OK - Arsenal made some decent chances in the first half, didn't take any of them, but what we saw was quite encouraging. After about 15 minutes of the second half, we took the lead when Bacary Sagna scored from a Fabregas corner. A well deserved goal for Sagna after the solid season he has had, and the death of his brother recently. The fact that Ashley Cole was stood trying to cut the corner out (and getting his deserved share of abuse from the away fans) was also highly amusing.

After we scored, though, it all went downhill from there. Within 10 minutes, we had lost Sagna to injury, Eboue had gone to right back, and the whole shape of the defence had been upset. Gallas, Toure and Eboue were still getting used to things, when Chelsea equalised through an opportunistic finish from Drogba. A very bad goal for a defence to concede, our players just seemed to switch off at the vital moment. Chelsea had 2 players offside in the buildup, but even so, the goal should not have been conceded. A few minutes later, Drogba scored again to make it 2-1, another goal that the Arsenal defence will not have been proud of. In truth, the game was fairly even overall, on another day Arsenal could have won, but the 2 defensive lapses cost us dearly.

So, how did we find ourselves here? No Arsenal fan expected to be in this position at the start of the season, lots of the pundits were saying we would be struggling to finish as high as 4th, and we were generally not expecting much from this season. So, it has gone better than anybody expected, but in truth, the lack of squad size has been our downfall - it has just taken longer than expected to hit home.

It means that we don't have anybody to give Hleb a kick up the arse and make him play for his place; it means we really suffered when Van Persie, Rosicky and now Eduardo got injured; and it means we must persist in playing Eboue as our main attacking threat down the right hand side. We lack width in our team, and when our main right midfielder provides one assist and no goals all season, the rest of the team will always struggle to pick up the slack. In short, we are too thin on the ground for players (especially players of the necessary quality), and it has finally come back to bite us.

All of this is a little disappointing, if only because it was so obvious to all at the start of the season. Arsenal fans pay the highest ticket prices in the League, Arsenal Football Club is a very rich organisation, yet somewhere along the line, we do not put the squad in place that we need in order to compete. Why Wenger won't spend some of the squillions at his disposal I have no idea, if only to give us a few more options through a long and hard season. Very frustrating indeed.

The other talking point around this game was about sportsmanship, something you are never likely to find at Stamford Bridge. From their idiotic fans (who sang "you don't know what you're doing" at their manager's substitutions which arguably won them the game - then cheered at the end like that didn't happen), who don't know how to spell the word; to their team who constantly hassle and backchat to referees; to the backroom staff who refuse to give the ball back at the end of the game in order to waste time. The club are a disgrace, and I hope Arsenal don't ever take on any of their tendencies.

Jose Mourinho made unsportsmanlike behaviour an art form at Chelsea, but it seems to have carried on since he left too. The "win at all costs" mentality, and the boring football, lack of sporting behaviour, and idiot glory hunters that go with it, is something that Chelsea are quite welcome to - I just hope it doesn't spread to the rest of the League. I don't want to take away from a good Chelsea performance that beat us today - and we have our own problems to solve - but they will continue to not get any credit from anybody, if they continue to win with such bad grace.