The way I see it – Arsenal v Ajax

There comes a time when you simply cannot defend our players when they sold themselves, the fans and the club they are supposed to play for down the river in the way they did at the Reebok on Saturday. Arsene knew it and having listened to the game on the radio myself and then watched the extended highlights on Sky, I bloody well knew it too!

It's probably the oldest saying in football but it is probably the truest - you have to earn the right to play your football sometimes. We Gooners can go around saying all we want about Bolton's style of football but the fact is you cannot go to somewhere like the Reebok and expect to get a result there by cutting corners and having a slapdash, sloppy attitude - no matter who you are.

Nobody is going to tell me defeat was down to us having a lack of English players – Bolton had just TWO in their starting line up and possibly a third at best on the bench. Nobody is going to tell me that we lacked the experience to handle what we were faced with or that we missed Vieira – we had three bloody World Cup winners out there on the pitch on Saturday and a whole host of other players who have won titles, cups and League and FA Cup doubles with this great club of ours. Winning those things must have taught them something about winning football matches and being prepared to adapt when the chips are down.

And because we can still boast players of that ilk, nobody, Arsenal fan or otherwise, is going to tell me that I'm some sort of spoilt new age Arsenal fan who cannot handle the fact that we are not having things our own way anymore.

I don't enjoy seeing the Arsenal lose, of course I don't. But that is not to say that I am afraid of seeing us lose. Hell, I've seen the Arsenal lose all sorts of football matches in all sorts of ways in the last 20 years or so. But the fact that we lost on Saturday was not down to bad luck or missed chances or even a mistake - it was purely because we put in one of the most feeble all round performances I ever seen from an Arsenal side against anyone, anywhere in that time. That is thing that leaves a foul, lingering taste in my mouth.

Anyone who has read my articles over the course of the season will have heard me banging on about taking things step by step, game by game and day by day at Arsenal this season. I just never thought I would see the day when we folded like a clapped out old accordion against anyone certainly in the Premiership.

Apart from Van Persie and young Fabregas (and Henry in fleeting moments) nobody else showed any bollocks or pride in my opinion. That is not the way Arsenal teams have been known to invariably operate, with just the odd individual turning up to actually play in my experience in the last 20 years or so and I tell you what, if I was Arsene Wenger, I would fined the lot of them a weeks wages and made the players club together to refund to every single Arsenal fan that went up to the Reebok out of their own pockets as well. Believe me, I am not joking here.

So as far as I am concerned, the game on Wednesday against the Dutch giants, Ajax, at Highbury is far from being a dead rubber anymore. Both teams may have qualified for the last 16 and Arsenal cannot be overhauled as the top team in the group.

But, after the goings on at the Reebok at the weekend, that doesn't mean a thing in the context of this game and the fact that Ajax have been going through a fairly indifferent spell themselves over the last six weeks or so doesn't mean nothing to me either.

I want see a reaction from the Arsenal on Wednesday night. And above all, I want to see us play like a side that does boast proven winners in the ranks. The players owe it to themselves as much as anyone else to go out and do just that because I think that there are quite a few of them with reputations to preserve right now.