But of course at this stage of the season, you cannot really draw too many conclusions. The Gunners obviously only took the game half seriously, and it is hard to blame them. What really does boggle the mind is why Paul Jewell actually elected to take the management job at Derby. I mean, based on this season’s evidence, they will struggle not to be relegated next year too. What on earth attracted Paul Jewell here? It really is quite mysterious.

There really is not much else to say. Adebayor got a deserved hat trick, which brings his goal tally for the season to 30. It’s too bad he suffered from a lull at a crucial time in the season. But then, the whole team did.

The questions about the Arsenal defence remain unanswered, and it is quite obvious that Arsène Wenger will need to make at least one purchase in that department in the summer, especially if, as suspected, Senderos is allowed to leave.

Third place is guaranteed. The goal now is to finish with 83 points. Whether that will be enough to move ahead of one of the two top teams is highly questionable. We will obviously know more about this by kick-off time on Sunday. Until then, we are all spectators, and of course most Arsenal fans will probably be Barcelona supporters today.

As a die-hard Arsenal fan, I cannot really claim to be a “neutral.” But the truth is that I dislike both Manchester United and Chelsea almost equally, and much for the same reasons. I can tolerate Manchester United a bit more sometimes, because they do play attractive football at times, but I cannot stand the attitude of players like Rooney and Ronaldo (and van Nistelrooy before them, and Scholes, etc.).

Ronaldo is just so full of himself that it is painful to watch (except of course when he screws up gloriously, as in the missed penalty in mid-week at Barcelona), and Rooney is just a foul-mouthed, foul-tempered twit who happens to have good feet.

That said, in terms of being dislikable, Chelsea probably win the contest, as today’s game proved once again. And nobody does dislikable quite like Didier Drogba. Today’s game could easily have been titled “The Didier Drogba Drama Queen Show.”

It started with Vidic’s injury. Yes, it was probably accidental, and yes, Drogba did display some concern about the well-being of the player after the collision. But did you watch that slow motion replay carefully? Did you see how, immediately after colliding with Vidic’s head, Drogba’s immediate, instinctive reaction was to crumble to the ground in seemingly excruciating pain? It is only once he realized that what had hit his own precious knee was actually Vidic’s face that he corrected his reaction and decided that, after all, his knee didn’t hurt all that much and probably was not injured!

I don’t believe that, in the whole history of football worldwide since the very invention of the game, there can have been a single incident where any player got his knee injured through a collision with another player’s head. I think it is physically quite impossible, that even the toughest jaw or skull is simply no match for an elbow, let alone a knee. Yet Drogba’s instinct was quite obviously to try and make everyone believe that it was possible—until he realized how ridiculous it was. It just says so much about his attitude. As soon as anyone touches any part of his precious body ever so slightly, it has to be a foul, and he has to act like he’s seriously injured. It’s sad, just sad.

Then of course there was the whole Ballack/Drogba subplot. How embarrassing can it be to everyone involved with the club and to the team’s supporters to have the whole wide world witness such a spectacle on the pitch? There are of course big egos in English football these days, and there is a history of ugly confrontations between players from the same team in recent years. I distinctly remember the scene between Bowyer and Dyer at Newcastle a couple of seasons ago, and of course I am not forgetting the confrontation between Adebayor and Bendtner at Tottenham earlier this year.

But this one surely is the most high profile and the most embarrassing of the whole lot. And who else but Didier Drogba to be at the centre of it? How can any neutral spectator have any empathy for the “big family” at Chelsea after witnessing such scenes?

The bottom-line, however, is that they did win, and are now level on points with Manchester United. The Red Devils are still guaranteed to win the title if they win their two remaining games, because of their superior goal difference, but they cannot afford any kind of slip-up. It certainly puts more pressure on them, which they did not need ahead of the return leg of the Champions’ League.

It also means that mathematically, if Arsenal win at Derby on Monday, they still won’t be out of the race. There is of course, no realistic chance of both Chelsea and Manchester United slipping up in a major way in their remaining fixtures, but there still has to be some motivation to finish with the highest possible number of points, if only to prove that the Gunners really went pretty close this year.

Certainly, on the evidence of today’s game at Stamford Bridge, there is no gulf in ability between Arsenal and Chelsea and Manchester United. The football played today—to the extent that any football was played, which is debatable—was really not impressive. It’s just highly unfortunate that the Gunners went through that bad patch after the Birmingham disaster and didn’t recover from it quickly enough. It was a very fine line between success and defeat (or, in that particular case, a succession of draws leading to defeat), and the Gunners ended up on the wrong side of it this year.

But I didn’t see anything today that convinces me that these other two teams were indeed better and “deserved” it more. They are just more adept at turning a footballing contest into big drama, with a stomach-churning blend of bullying, cynicism, theatrics, and referee abuse. If that’s what it takes to be champions this year, then the Gunners should have no regrets, and they should only hope that they can redress the situation by winning with stylish and quality football in the next contest.

Manchester United might have dropped two points, but it’s a two-horse race between them and Chelsea now. The big clash at Stamford Bridge on Saturday will be crucial, but Arsenal fans will be watching it as neutrals, because the result will have no impact on the outcome of their own season. One can always dream of Manchester United losing their remaining three games and Chelsea losing their other two games, but it’s about as likely as lightning hitting Wayne Rooney and turning him into a beautiful frog.

It’s really too bad, because three more victories is definitely a possibility for the Gunners, which would mean finishing with a grand total of 83 points—a huge improvement over the last two seasons, but one that won’t count for anything except for a psychological boost at the beginning of the next season.

Still, even this comfortable 2-0 victory against relegation-threatened Reading couldn’t mask the fact that this Arsenal team still has trouble finishing off the opposition. What we really need is a string of more emphatic victories that reassert the Gunners’ superiority in an unequivocal fashion. And of course we need all the current players to stay at the club.

I was going to add “except for Éboué,” except that, shockingly enough, when Éboué came on on Saturday for the injured Touré at right-back, he actually had a pretty good game. Of course, it doesn’t mean much in a game like this, but it really made it look like this “Éboué as a winger” thing—which has been a bit of a nightmare, to be honest—had actually never happened in the first place. Does this mean we could use Éboué against as a right-back ahead of Sagna? No way. But maybe we could keep him as a capable substitute…

OK, maybe not.

Arsène Wenger took his final gamble of the season by replacing Senderos with Song in central defence and bringing Lehmann back in goal in lieu of Almunia.

The latter was a highly questionable move following Lehmann’s latest ugly rants earlier in the week. What signal was this supposed to send to Almunia? As it happens, Lehmann did have a couple of impressive (albeit slightly fortuitous) saves during the game. But he had his big chance to prove that he was better than Almunia in the big games by saving Ronaldo’s penalty, and he did not, so the conclusion here is pretty obvious.

I don’t think Almunia is a better keeper than Lehmann, but he does not seem to be worse to me, and at least he does not get himself booked for idiotic behaviours. Wenger will still need to find a world-class replacement sooner rather than later, but it’s not exactly fair to blame Almunia for our lack of silverware this season.

As for the rest of the game, yes, it was yet again a somewhat dodgy penalty decision, but handling the ball in the area at Old Trafford is always a pretty risky behaviour. It was unfortunately the highlight of Gallas’s game. And since Adebayor’s head probably got a helping hand as well for the Arsenal goal, it is hard to feel cheated here.

The truth is that the Gunners played very well during the first half, but had absolutely nothing to show for it at the half, which was unfortunately an all-too-familiar refrain. Given that Manchester United were missing their best central defender, it was simply unacceptable for the Gunners to have all this possession and not get ahead.

Then they did get ahead early in the second half and, once again, were unable to hold on to their lead for more than a few minutes. The rest of the game was a bit of a blurry mess, but the tide had turned, and Lehmann failed to stop that Hargreaves free-kick. (I could have said “Hargreaves scored a beautiful, unstoppable free-kick,” but then Lehmann clearly implied in his comments he could make the difference in a big game. This was another chance to do so. So much for turning your words into actions, Jens.)

I don’t understand what Wenger didn’t give a starting berth to Walcott ahead of Éboué, but then I am not a manager. Clearly Wenger sees something in Éboué that no one else can see. Seventy minutes later, I don’t think anyone can see it any better. And it was too late for Walcott to really have an impact.

For all of the Gunners’ dominance, there were not enough of the truly incisive runs that would have created unstoppable chances. Adebayor wasted a number of good chances and Hleb still refuses to shoot, which I find highly problematic in that the opposition’s defenders clearly know that they don’t have to bother trying to block his shots. Van Persie still hasn’t recovered his pre-injury form, and Fábregas still squanders too many opportunities himself.

The big question now is: How all of this going to change next season? Wenger does not seem to be willing to adjust his thinking, and continues to complain that his players “get slaughtered” by pundits even though “we fight until the end of the season with teams who have spent much more money – some teams spent over £100m.”

While it is perfectly true, of course, it’s hard to be surprised that the media don’t give credit to Arsenal for not winning anything. There’s no trophy for still being in the title race in April while having spent £100m less than the others.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want trophies at any cost. I don’t want a takeover financed by Russian oil money, and I don’t want a team of mercenaries. I also don’t want an idiot like Rooney in the Arsenal team, regardless of his actual talent. I don’t want to “win ugly,” at least not with constant ugliness (bullying, referee harassing, cynical fouling, etc.).

But to me these three trophy-less seasons mean that something has to change. There needs to be a shift in attitudes. There needs to be a combination of youth and experience, of agility and physicality, etc. Wenger seems to have taken things too far in one direction, and it’s not paying off. Yet he still seems to believe that he is right.

Belief is of course laudable, and you need plenty of it to win things. But that belief needs to be backed by concrete facts, and there have been far too few of those in recent weeks, during the crucial part of the season. There is no point in building up expectations if you cannot deliver. Do we really want to go through the same thing all over again next year?

For a club of Arsenal’s stature, I cannot help but feel that three trophy-less seasons is about the longest barren spell that they can afford. If this continues, sooner or later the fans will turn against the players and the manager, or key players will become dissatisfied and leave, and so the cycle will continue.

The parsimonious approach was understandable and acceptable when money was indeed tight. But what is the excuse for continuing with it now? Will the focus on youth development really be lost with the addition of a few key players with experience and grit?

Arsène knows—supposedly. But sooner or later he’ll also have some explaining to do.

Pretty much all the goals conceded in the past few weeks have been extremely poor goals to concede. None of them were brilliantly constructed or executed goals against which the Arsenal defense would have been powerless.

Yes, you can blame the referees for a string of decisions that obviously cost the Gunners dearly. Last night, it was a penalty that never was. But even Wenger had enough sense to stress that, while it was a dodgy decision, the defending that enabled the situation to occur was even dodgier.

There is simply no excuse for conceding so soon after scoring and retaking the advantage. Yes, Walcott’s run was fantastic and it was a terrific goal. But there were still 10 minutes to go, and this was the Champions’ League, this was Liverpool, at Anfield. They would try anything.

As it happens, they succeeded in the first thing they tried. And then it was truly over. Even before they scored the immaterial fourth goal, you knew that this was a team that would not fail after retaking the lead with less than 10 minutes to go.

I am obviously glad that Wenger “believes” in this team and believes that he will win the Champions’ League and the Premier League with them. But if he really think that his team will be able to regroup so quickly and get a result at Old Trafford, then he’s probably somewhat deluded. This is a team that results are slipping away from, and have been for a while now. It does not have the maturity and stamina required to go through an entire season and grind out results when the going gets tough.

This maturity and stamina might be developed over the years, but will probably require yet more painful learning experiences. Will everyone involved—including the players, the coaching staff, and the fans—have the required patience? Will they all be able to sustain this “belief” that results will improve, that we will soon reached the end of this trophy-less patch?

I for one believe that it will not happen without a substantial injection of new blood. Almunia has had a decent season, but he’s not an outstanding, world-class keeper. Gallas and Touré are not complementary and don’t really create a feeling of central solidity. Senderos is still too easily outpaced, and there is reason to fear that he’ll never become a great defender. Arsenal badly needs a world-class central defender or two.

In central midfield, Fábregas and Flamini are indispensable, but Wenger needs more options, with a world-class central midfielder of greater physical stature. On the wings, Éboué is completely and utterly useless and it is simply impossible to understand why Wenger persists in including him in his starting lineup. Clichy and Sagna are great full-backs and can combine well with whoever is playing on their wing to become creative wingers themselves, but Arsenal probably needs true wingers, players that can whip the ball in with perfect accuracy again and again.

Walcott is not a winger. He could still become a great forward one day. But he needs to be given more chances. Adebayor has scored more than his quota of goals this season, but cannot do it all by himself. There are too many key players on the perpetually injured list.

We need world-class players who are not just technically gifted, but strong physically and with great stamina and a quick ability to recover from knocks. We have far too few of those. And in a game with so many ultra-fit players, this is costing us dearly. We are just too lightweight.

Will Wenger finally alter his philosophy and break the bank and spend this summer? Or will he continue to “believe” and refuse to see reality?

Of course, Arsène will claim that it is not over, but he knows as well as everyone else does that it is. There is just no realistic way that the Gunners can find the moral and physical strength to reverse the tide now. The focus will now largely be on the Champions’ League and on that game at Anfield on Tuesday. If they can win it, then there will still be hope of a trophy in 2008. If they don’t, the entire season will be over, and lots of questions will need to be asked.

The first question I would ask, however, would be about today’s team selection. It was quite clear during that game at Old Trafford in the FA Cup that a second fiddle team would not be good enough in a game of such importance, yet Wenger still made six changes. Wasn’t this a clear admission of defeat in the title race?

Sure enough, in spite of their own multiple changes, Liverpool dominated the first half and deservedly took the lead. They might not have many spectacular or highly talented players, but they clearly have more depth in their squad and it showed.

Even in the second half, while the Gunners played better, there were still far too many openings for Liverpool. If Wenger was willing to take a big gamble, he should have done so earlier on, possibly from the very beginning of the game. The first-team regulars came on too late in the game, and there was not enough impetus to really change the game’s outcome. Too many players still looked too tired and static to me.

It really is a pretty sad end to this season, but I strongly believe that Wenger can only have himself to blame. The excellent position early in 2008 fooled us into believing that this team had the potential to actually win things, but the reality is closer to what the pundits had predicted at the start of the season. It might not be as bad as they predicted (a finish outside the top 4), but it will most likely be another trophy-less season, with little hope of things changing in the near future unless Wenger finally agrees to spend some money and strengthen the squad.

The “nurturing” approach is just too idealistic in today’s world. We need a hybrid approach, with a combination of youth and experience in all areas of the pitch. I still believe in the overall emphasis on playing elegant, fluid passing football, but I also believe that this type of play can still be achieved even with the addition of more stamina and depth.

Without a change in the approach, I just see more false hopes and more disappointment in the near future. I like most of the current players (except Éboué, for obvious reasons), but we simply need more depth, a bigger squad, less collective vulnerability to injury, fatigue, etc.

I certainly will not bother to get my hopes up for Tuesday, like I did for the return leg of the tie with Milan. While the outcome of that tie was ultimately one of the highlights of the season, it was too costly emotionally. The higher the hopes, the bigger potential for excitement and elation—but I just won’t take another crushing disappointment. I’ll be pleased if they go through, but I will not be too affected if they don’t.

I too would love a replay of that 2006 final, but there are Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester in the way, and frankly I just can’t stand the sight of any of them. If it happens, great. If it does not, let’s just hope that Barcelona can put the other English teams in their place.

It was also a performance marked by a fair amount of bad luck. The Liverpool goal was in part the result of a pretty lucky bounce for the visitors. It is still hard to fathom the reason why the referee did not give Hleb a penalty for what was an obvious foul on him by Kuyt. And the combination of Bendtner blocking Fábregas’s certain goal and of the linesman’s flag for a non-existent off-side—there was a Liverpool defender on the goal line, for crying out loud—still makes me cringe.

But in this competition, at this stage, you need to force your luck, and the Gunners once again failed to do that. They had little trouble stifling the threat posed by Torres, mostly because Liverpool adopted such a conservative approach. But they still conceded a very stupid goal, and, in spite of their utter dominance in the second half, they still weren’t able to break down the opposition’s defense more than once.

The tie is by no means over. The usual cliché about Liverpool having the advantage is true, but the same could be said of the Gunners four years ago after the first leg at Chelsea, and we all know what happened.

True, Liverpool have more of a reputation for just squeaking through in the European competition, and we could very well end up with a 0-0 draw at Anfield next Tuesday and Arsenal going out because of the away goal rule.

Once again, the Gunners are going to have to do it the hard way, and after three games in six days against Liverpool, it is hard not to worry about the risk of fatigue. Maybe we will have a better sense of what might happen after the Premier League game on Saturday. The Gunners will most definitely have to go for it, because they simply cannot afford to drop any more points, whereas Liverpool’s ambitions are much more limited and they have a five-point cushion ahead of their local rivals for the fourth spot.

In that respect, the new van Persie injury is highly unfortunate and once again highlights the limits of Arsène Wenger’s “nurturing” policy. We can always hope that Walcott will set up and make his mark at this crucial stage of the season, but the truth is that the team simply does not have enough attacking options.

It had all the makings of another Bolton-sponsored failure: a poor run of form, miserable weather conditions, the typical Boltonian blend of physicality and… physicality (albeit without the blessing of Fat Sam, but that does not seem to have made much difference), an early sending-off, etc.

And sure enough, the first half was an unmitigated disaster. The Gunners, in typical fashion, dominated possession but created little (or were guilty of poor finishing when they did create openings), and then they conceded two goals and had one man deservedly sent off and it looked pretty gloomy indeed at half-time.

The second half was a combination of good tactical changes, a bit of luck, sheer determination and a refusal to let the season die a miserable death—along with the type of defensive collapse by the Bolton team that explains why they are on the brink of relegation.

William Gallas scored an important first goal, which partly atones for his currently defensive failings. Then Hleb did very well to earn a deserved penalty, after another great collective move. (Maybe he fell a bit too easily, but everybody does this these days.)

Van Persie duly dispatched it, to his credit (although apart from this particular kick, he really needs to relocate his shooting boots fast if he wants to play a significant part in this last stretch of the season).

And then it looked very much like we would have to settle for yet another draw. But somehow, with a couple of fortunate deflections, we found a third, and did end up with all three points after all.

This kind of comeback might end up being a good morale booster ahead of the coming high-profile fixtures, but in all honesty, at this stage of the season I’d much rather have an easy 4-0 victory. There is no denying that, on current form, Manchester United are by far the favorites to win the trophy.

Then again, the last time I said that we were level on points with them and within a few weeks we were five points clear. So who knows?

The reality, though, is that the Gunners are effectively clutching at straws here. Without these lucky deflections for the third goal, they would be eight points behind the leaders, and would have nobody but themselves to blame. The same can probably be said of Chelsea, who were indeed very lucky not to concede an equalizer against Middlesborough on Sunday and drop points themselves.

We are still going to hope against hope, and try to come out of the three consecutive fixtures against Liverpool with the required results (a league win and a semi-final berth), but there is no denying that, for more than an hour on Saturday, we had that ominous feeling that the season was about to end.

The Gunners are going to have to overcome fatigue, deal with the injured and suspended absentees, and count on other teams to slow down Manchester United’s march towards the 2008 title. It’s not impossible, but these four consecutive draws still cast an overwhelming shadow over the proceedings and the victory at the Reebok ultimately does little to erase the painful memory of all these precious points carelessly dropped.

There is no debating the result today. The Gunners were undone by bad defending (Gallas looking particularly guilty on the first Drogba goal, and the whole defense going to sleep on the second), and fairly toothless attacking.

I have said it several times and I’ll say it again: The team has run out of steam, and the main reason is a lack of depth on the bench.

There was some hope, of course, when Sagna (of all people) scored a perfectly placed header on the hour mark, after what had been, until then, a fairly even contest. And for a few more minutes after that the young guns looked full of confidence, but they failed to capitalize on it, and then the same old figures (Drogba, Anelka, Belletti) came back to haunt us and clinch the points for the Russian’s mercenaries.

The Gunners are professionals and they will still keep fighting, but unless Manchester United start dropping points very soon and Arsenal start winning again immediately, after what has now been their worst run of form in the league in many years, then all hope will be lost for good.

At this point it’s hard to imagine that we’ll be able to rescue the season with a Champions’ League win either. There are just too many high-profile English teams in the way, and I highly doubt that the Gunners will be able to rebuild their confidence after this week-end.

In order to gain confidence, you need to win and you need to score, and we simply have not done enough of that lately. It is very disappointing, after exceeding all expectations for so long. But it is a form of reality check, I suppose.

Will Wenger draw the appropriate lessons from this? Will he finally amend his purchasing philosophy and come to a more reasonable compromise between youth and experience? If he does not, there is reason to fear a few more lean years before the players he is developing gain the stamina and consistency that are really needed to win trophies.

I don’t mean to sound too gloomy. I am not excessively disappointed today. This is a game that we could have afforded to lose if we had not wasted all these precious points in the previous fixtures. So in effect the battle was lost in the past few weeks, not today.

A win at Stamford Bridge would have been an extraordinary lift and would have relaunched our assault on the title. It was not to be. We simply did not have enough defensive steel and enough attacking incisiveness. We did not really deserve to win, and we didn’t. And there are more than enough reasons to fear that this season is over for us.

Whatever happens, it will still have been an improvement over the last one and a better achievement than what was expected by most people. But it was still not enough to really challenge for trophies, and you have to wonder how much more patience all these still young players will have before they decide to go try their luck elsewhere.

While the 2-2 draw at Birmingham might have been unfortunate, the other three draws achieved since then have been at best an accurate reflection of the quality of the team.

The Gunners were rather fortunate to escape with a point against Aston Villa, and they were fortunate again today to clinch an equalizer. Yes, they should have got an early goal when Adebayor was incorrectly flagged offside, but such errors happen all the time, and you cannot afford to dwell on it. You have to move on and try to create more chances. I am afraid the Gunners created very few real chances today.

Four points out of 12 is certainly not championship form. It’s not even top 10 form. If this continues, the best that Arsenal came hope for is a third-place finish, and even that is not entirely guaranteed.

Given that just over a month ago the team was five points clear at the top, it is a precipitous decline. It is, to be frank, a disaster.

One can only hope that the Gunners have reached the bottom and will now bounce back. But at this point it is looking like they don’t just need to get some kind of result at Stamford Bridge and at Old Trafford. They need to win—both games. Then maybe they have a chance. If not, I am afraid that all these weeks spent at the top will count for nothing.

The only marginally good news today was that Manchester United did not play very well either. The big difference, however, is that they did get the three points, and it’s the result that counts. Yes, Arsenal can still win it, but they’ve given themselves a mountain to climb, and there is little doubt that Manchester United are firmly in the position of favourites. The quality of their performance today will quickly be forgotten, and they’ll thoroughly enjoy their return to the top of the league, which they’ll most probably confirm with a win against Bolton in the mid-week fixture.

It’s not like Arsenal can count on the Champions’ League to salvage their season either. It’s a cup competition, and the draw is not exactly favourable to the Gunners…

It’s still too early to draw conclusions as to “what went wrong,” but this is a team that appears to have lost its edge, through a combination of injuries, fatigue, and lack of focus. It’s still a very good team, of course, but only a few weeks ago there were still very high hopes for them, and now… it looks they will need to rebuild not just the confidence of the fans, but their own. Can they do it? I hope so, but there is good reason to be doubtful. This is a team that is still too inconsistent to be able to challenge for a title.

Even though they were privatized a long time ago, they still have the monopoly on supplying power to most homes in the province. And of course, with their shareholders’ interests firmly at the top of their list of priorities, they are doing as little as possible to actually serve their customers, who are a captive clientele and do not have the option to switch to the competition if they are not satisfied.

This means that, even though we are, as a maritime province, obviously exposed to the elements, especially in the winter, with lots of wind, snow, ice, etc., there has been absolutely zero effort to try and move some of the wires underground. Indeed, when I first arrived in this province, the one thing that struck me was the number of wires in the air. It ruins the scenery, and it vastly increases the vulnerability of the entire network, and yet no one seems to be pushing for the obvious solution, which would be to bury at least some of these cables.

Sure, it would be an expensive undertaking, but, you know, sometimes you have to invest in order to improve services. And clearly a power utility whose network of electrical wires is so bad that it is even vulnerable to things such as “salty fog” is not putting a lot of effort into serving its customers.

All this is to say that, thanks to Nova Scotia Power, I missed most of the game yesterday. It wasn’t “salty fog” this time. It wasn’t even snow or ice either. While most of the eastern half of North America was enduring blizzard-like conditions, we just had heavy rain and lots of wind. But obviously that was enough to cause an extended power outage that started late at night on Saturday and was not over until 2:30 pm local time on Sunday.

Since we had to change our clocks for daylight savings during that same night and England did not change, this means that we were actually able to catch the last 20 minutes or so. (Otherwise, we would have missed it completely.) And, er, oh yes: It was also supposed to be our first Arsenal game in high definition here in Canada. Well, it was—for those who had power.

Anyway, from what I saw and from what I read about the game online, it was nothing to write home about. The greatest benefit of HD was that you could really see how atrocious the pitch was. And it is quite clear that Wenger make little effort to get his players to train on such surfaces in anticipation of such ugly conditions.

This, combined to the utter lack of depth of the squad, which forced Wenger to first play Fábregas as a winger, and then introduce Kolo Touré as a makeshift winger near the end of the game, means that the ultimate result of the game had an element of inevitability about it.

Mind you, it is probably the kind of game that we would have lost 1-0 last year. But the question remains whether a draw is a much better result. It is ultimately, yet another 2 points dropped, and this now represents 6 points dropped in three games. Not championship form by any stretch of the imagination.

We are now only at the top of the league because we have played one more game, and there is little doubt that Manchester United will collect maximum points in their next two games. So in a way the pendulum has swung yet again—although the title is not “out of our hands.” Simply put: If we win all the remaining league games, we’ll be champions. But that includes a trip to Old Trafford and a trip to Stamford Bridge and the visit of Liverpool at the Emirates. Not the easiest of schedules—but there is hope that Manchester United and Chelsea too will drop points between now and the end of the season.

Still, to think that we recently had a pretty comfortable lead and could actually have afforded not to get good results on those trips… Instead, we’re right back in the thick of it, I am afraid, and the squad is still woefully short. The return of van Persie is welcome news, of course, but there’s little doubt that he’ll need some time to rediscover his form after such a long absence.

The game at the San Siro proved that this is a team that can compete with the best, but the unfortunate reality is that, at this time, the team is not capable of maintaining this form consistently in all competitions. In my view, it is down to the lack of depth of the squad. I know what Wenger says. I know he “believes in this team” and has good reasons for this. But still, if you actually want to go all the way and win trophies, you need a bit more depth—although clearly, as the Barnsley saga demonstrates, deep pockets are not enough. But Wenger is a great coach, and I don’t see why he can both maintain his philosophy and build a stronger, bigger squad with a better mix of experience and youth.

Everything is still possible, but surely we should never have reached a stage where we had to introduce Kolo Touré as a midfielder in order to try and turn a draw into a win! Needless to say, it didn’t work…

As so they did.

Me, I had hopefully predicted a 1-1 draw, and said that I would take it, of course. Milan AC still would have never been defeated at home by an English team in Europe, but I was quite willing to keep their record intact, if that was what it would take for us to qualify.

But no—instead we had to endure yet another long period of goal-less football, with all the associated tension.

It’s such a fine line between frustration and elation, isn’t it? After a rather shaky start, the game was almost a replica of the first leg, with Arsenal dominating the game, creating the best chances, and yet somehow failing to score. They were really playing like the home team, with the likes of Pirlo, Kaka, etc. strangely subdued, but of course the Gunners were always at the mercy of a deadly counterattack.

It would clearly have been against their very nature for the Italians to actually sustain long periods of attacking football. They tried for 15 minutes and there were a couple of worrying moments for the defense, but ultimately it all passed, and then it was really all Arsenal or mostly Arsenal.

But still they could not score. Fábregas hit the bar. Éboué missed. Senderos missed. And still Wenger would not bring van Persie on. I confess: I fast-forwarded through a few bits. (We never get to watch these games live in this house. They take place too early in the afternoon for us working folks in North America.) I fast-forwarded not because it was not captivating stuff, because I just couldn’t take the tension. And my wife took refuge in the bathroom. She has it easy: When she can’t stand the tension, she just goes away.

But then she knew what would happen. Well, she didn’t quite anticipate Fábregas rediscovering his goal-scoring accuracy at just the right time, in just the right game, but yes, she was in the bathroom when it happened.

And then she was very silly and went back to the bathroom during extra time. Now really that was unnecessary. She knows it’s going to be over soon, and she knows we have much more than a good chance of getting through now. After all, Milan would have to score two in four minutes. Hardly likely.

But still she went away. And well, yes, we all know what happened. Walcott once again refused to go down when clearly fouled and recovered his stride and hit a great cross for… Adebayor! The man who’s not capable of scoring in the Champions’ League, remember?

OK, so it wasn’t the hardest of finishes, and Milan had to have pretty much given up on the whole thing at this point, but still… Obviously the Togonator does not need long hair to score. And Walcott did exactly what could be expected of him after coming on as a sub. Inject some additional pace and deliver the death blow.

But in truth it was a great all-round team performance—except maybe for these first 15 minutes of early jitters. Thankfully the Italians did not capitalize, and then history was made, in more ways than one.

It’s still to early to predict how far this team can go, but it has to be a terrific morale booster at a time when there were doubts about the fortitude and stamina of the team. Nothing has been won yet, but surely this performance will prove once and for all that the Gunners are serious contenders this year in both the competitions that they are still involved in. Yes, they were ultimately disappointing in the two domestic cups, but it was obviously a gamble that Arsène Wenger was willing to take, and tonight’s performance appears to justify it. There is still a long way to go, but there is hope that this will be a turning point and an end to the recent slip in form and results.

The question now is, of course, who we are going to play next. Based on this round and on other results in recent years, it looks like it might be better for the Gunners to continue to be the underdogs—but then at this stage of the competition, the other teams left are all pretty serious contenders.

That said, I seriously hope that we don’t get Fenerbahce. I skimmed through the game at Sevilla and it might have been entertaining for the fans, but the amount of play-acting and cynical fouling on both sides was purely revolting. It reminded me of Mourinho’s FC Porto team that won it a few years ago.

Compared to that game, the Milan AC – Arsenal game was remarkably “clean.” Hleb may have been deservedly booked for what looked like a rather theatrical fall on the edge of the area (but the truth is that he was fouled and that it was a free-kick), and of course Éboué had a couple of fairly stupid falls, as per usual (I really don’t think he’s ever going to make it as a proper winger; he missed yet another glorious chance today). But apart from that, there was obviously a fair amount of respect on both sides, and the referee did not have any controversial decisions to make. It was good to see this at this stage, in such a high profile game.

Let’s hope it continues for the rest of the tournament—although for that to happen we might need to get the professional whiners from Stamford Bridge booted out of the competition. Still, there is a serious risk that four English teams will be in the quarter-finals, which unfortunately substantially increases the chance of them having to play against one another.

We’ll see on Friday.

And then it’s on to Wigan on Sunday and a breakthrough here in our home in Canada, since it’ll be the first game involving Arsenal that we’ll get to see in HD. (I know, I know, we’re late to the HD game, but “soccer” is not a high-profile sport around these parts.) Unless the HD channel in question screws up and feeds us a horribly stretched SD broadcast, of course, which it had done on occasion.

Well done to the Gunners, and let’s hope for an exciting end to the season.

Then again, they were unlucky to concede an own goal by Senderos and, while Almunia had a few good saves, in truth this was a game that the Gunners should have comfortably won at this stage of the season. Aston Villa are significantly improved, but they still rely on set pieces a lot, and the Gunners have gotten better at defending those.

Unfortunately, it was really on the attacking front that Arsenal was lacking. It was as if most players had lost their edge, including Fábregas, Hleb, and Adebayor. Walcott had a few promising opportunities early on but did not capitalize and failed to have an impact as the game wore on.

It is not exactly the best time of the season to endure a drop in form. Yes, the horror show at Birmingham had a lasting impact, if only psychologically, but it is not enough to explain what is now a succession of poor results.

Amazingly enough, the Gunners are still top of the league, but you cannot help but feel that what happens in the Champions’ League this week will have a crucial impact on the rest of the season, for all three title contenders.

For the Gunners, it is quite simple: a victory in Italy or a draw with goals scored would provide a big lift at a crucial time. If you want to “win it for Eduardo,” you have to show on the pitch that you actually mean that. Otherwise, it’s just an empty cliché.

I don’t quite know what it is at this point that is causing the drop in form. It could be fatigue. But that’s where the lack of depth in the squad shows the most. And I have said what I thought about the lack of depth in the squad this year. I just don’t see how Arsène Wenger can rationalize keeping such a short squad when the transfer window was open for a whole month in January. I just don’t see why the club couldn’t spend some money on one or two established players to provide substantial support when injuries or fatigue take their toll.

It is, in my mind, the biggest gamble that Wenger took this season, and if it pays off it will be quite remarkable. But you have to agree with bookmakers at this point that Arsenal are not favourites to win either of the two competitions that they are still involved in. I will believe in them until things are objectively over, but it pain me to see players struggle on the pitch right now with not enough reserve to support them.

Being in the black with a packed stadium every week is all well and good, but sometimes you also have to base your calculations on the need to actually win trophies. I am not saying I would like to win at any cost—otherwise I would be a Chelsea supporter. But the battle in England is not just about creativity versus physicality. It is also, as with any sport, about stamina, and that’s where squad depth and energy levels play a crucial role.

We won’t find renewed depth between now and Tuesday. But let’s hope that Wenger can find the words to stimulate this team and instill the belief that they can actually win stuff this year.

The difference here, of course, was the nature of the opposition. Rather than some bottom-tier EPL team or lowly first-round Champions’ League opponent, this was Milan AC, the title holders, and masters of the art of defending and making the competition repulsive for anyone who likes enterprising, attacking football.

They have done it countless times before, most notably in the last couple of Champions’ League finals that they have won. They will do it again, and again. It’s in their blood. It is what makes them a top-class team, apparently. I don’t know. They’ll never be top-class in my book. They can win all the titles that they want, including the most sought-after, repeatedly, and they still won’t convince me that this is what makes football the beautiful game.

I mean, can anyone mention a single contribution to the game by Kaka last night? Sure, he’s a great player, but great playing is not what this team’s about. This team’s about grinding out results in the most boring fashion imaginable. It’s a triumph of cynicism over creativity. And, of course, most of the time, it works beautifully—so to speak.

It does not mean that the Italians are through. There is a return leg in Milan in a fortnight, and if the Gunners can reach the next level in their game, they have a chance. They certainly should be a bit freer mentally without the fear of conceding a goal at home. But they’ll need to be at their best, and they’ll need to up the tempo. The Gunners can afford to play at a lower tempo against lower-quality opposition, because it’s usually enough to win. But against a team like Milan AC, it is their youth, their enthusiasm, their energy that could and should make the difference.

There wasn’t enough of that last night. They were too cautious. In spite of what Arsène Wenger said before the game, they did play with the handbrake on. It wasn’t helped, of course, by the early exit of Kolo Touré—although, based on his recent form, this might have been a blessing in disguise. Senderos did quite well in his place, but in truth the pace of the game suited him more than the usual high tempo of the EPL.

Unfortunately, in order to win the return leg and qualify, I strongly believe that they will definitely have to play with no handbrake this time, even if it means running a higher risk of conceding a goal or two. They are more than capable of scoring a couple of goals themselves. They will need to. It’s as simple as that. (Yes, I am aware of the possibility of another 0-0 draw and extra time and penalty kicks. Let’s just not go there.)

Elsewhere, the other Milanese team was undone by shockingly poor refereeing and the usual stroke of luck for Liverpool in the Champions’ League. I mean, I have absolutely no love lost for Materazzi. But how do the two offences that he committed amount to a red card? If they do, then we need about half a dozen players sent off in each and every Champions’ League game. I am all for fighting against cynicism in defenders and punishing them accordingly. But you cannot start doing so in the middle of a competition by picking one team arbitrarily and deciding that that particular team—or that one player—will now be punished in the strongest possible fashion. It’s just not right.

I would love it if referees started issuing yellow cards systematically for all cynical offences. But the key word here is systematically. It has to apply to every team, all the time, in all competitions. Otherwise it simply destroys the fairness of the competition.

Again, I am not regretting for one moment that an Italian team will be booted out of the competition. The last thing we need is more Italians teams in the final rounds. And if I were a referee I would give a red card to Materazzi for just showing up on the pitch. But then, so would I for Jamie Carragher. The thing is, I am not a referee. And that referee in the Liverpool – Inter Milan game shouldn’t be one either.

Benitez and his team got lucky once more, but you can’t help but wonder just how long his luck will last. There has to be a limit. It’s not about Liverpool showing their true colours in Europe. It’s about Liverpool being particularly lucky in Europe. It’s as simple as that. I distinctly remember Gerrard committing a foul worthy of a straight red card in a crucial game in the earlier rounds of the competition that they won back in 2005. Had he been sent off as he deserved to be, the outcome of that game would probably have been very different, and they probably would never have reached the final. Again, they just got lucky. But it can’t last forever.

Manchester United got lucky too last night. They got a barely deserved equalizer late in the game, just as they did a couple of weeks ago at White Hart Lane. Only this time the value of that goal is much higher. It’s an away goal, and they have every chance of going through now.

As for Chelsea, well, what can be said? Didn’t they sack Mourinho because they wanted more spectacular football? Rrrrrright. Chelsea are the Milan AC of English football—without the pedigree, that is. There is only one way to spell the way they play. And it’s b-o-r-i-n-g. I can’t help but hope for an upset at Stamford Bridge in a fortnight, because that lack of ambition does not deserve to be rewarded. But then, look at Milan AC’s pedigree…

None of this happened today, and the Gunners were deservedly spanked and humiliated. The score could easily have been even greater. It was as if everybody on the Arsenal side was having a bad day at the same time. It was simply not acceptable. Not a single shot on target. Not a single opening. Not a single chance. The statistics are unbearable.

How could this happen? What on earth has happened to a player like Cesc Fábregas? Where are his incisive passes, his vision, his commitment? Since returning from injury, he seems to have become a shadow of his former self, of the player that he was earlier in the season. In recent games, other players have made up for his shortcomings, and he’s shown glimpses of what he’s capable of, but today was a day where he was really expected to put on an outstanding performance. Instead, like everyone else on the team, he was guilty of all-too-easy capitulation.

Gilberto did nothing to convince anyone that he has a future at the club. Hleb and Eduardo tried a few things, but didn’t get very far, and did not do nearly enough defensive work. Bendtner never got going, never tried to impose his presence. Hoyte and Traoré were obviously not up to the task. And Gallas and Touré had a shocker. What else is there to say?

Ah yes, Emmanuel Éboué. He’s always had an attitude problem, but this was easily the lowest low of his Arsenal career. Is it because Sagna has taken his place and Wenger has been trying to convert him to a winger position? I am afraid when you are paid that kind of money and you are given a first-team opportunity in a high-profile club, people expect you to seize it and try to succeed, even if you are not 100% convinced it is the right position for you. And when things don’t go well, you keep fighting—within the laws of the game. His attitude today was simply shocking. Being reduced to 10 men was the last thing that the Gunners could afford after going 3-0 down, yet it’s exactly what happened, and there can be no excuse for it. With him went the vague hopes of a second-half recovery, and after that there never was even a sign of a possibility of a consolation goal.

What is going to happen now? Sure, out of the three competitions (the EPL, the Champions’ League and the FA Cup), the FA Cup was the lowest priority, but you don’t lose 4-0 at Old Trafford without consequences. Now is the time to try and build some momentum, not to collapse and run home to mummy crying. Will 4-5 days be enough to recover and find enough of the self-belief required to beat a team such as Milan AC? Will this blow knock the Gunners off course in the title race? Everything is possible, including the worst.

I know it’s all about keeping the faith when you are a fan, but surely even Wenger will have doubts after today’s display—doubts that there is enough commitment in this crop of players, and doubt that the second-string players are even close to competing for first-team action. Once again, with the complaints about the squad being thin, I question the decision not to buy any players in the January transfer window. When you are a club as rich as Arsenal now is, you can only use the thin squad excuse so many times before people start questioning your strategy and your long-term plans as a manager.

In other words, this result raises a lot of questions, all of them very uncomfortable ones, and we’ll need a quick reversal of fortune with a string of very convincing performances to believe that this was indeed just a blip, like the Carling Cup semi-final defeat was, and that there is still a big potential for greatness in this team this year.