We had no luck and Blackburn had bucket loads but we still should have won by a mile. Clearly zonal marking doesn't work and our Japanese style Kamikaze Zonal marking will certainly never catch on anywhere other than with Sunday morning pub teams. Looked for all the world like we were going to take Rovers to the cleaners before half time. Then was the time to build a lead. Sagna was taken out by a foul that wasn't given after which he was not at the races. Arshavin's foul which led to one their goals didn't look like a foul to me. If the kid who dived was carded, he'd have been off with a second yellow instead of being given a free kick. If the lino wasn't holding a flag and a white stick the Yak's offside would not have been given. We could have had a pen. All unfortunate stuff but sh*t happens when you play crap for long periods.
Pulling hair out won't help as I have insufficient quantity. Mertesaker looks painfully slow and Santos looks half decent, but not at left back. He played them onside for their first(?) goal and went AWOL in our box a few times. Positional play clearly isn't his forte and right now the very last thing we require are maverick defenders. Kos blows hot and cold and is capable of both great stuff and truly appalling stuff. How we miss Vermaelen. And how we miss the wonder kid in midfield. Djourou it seems is the new unofficial whipping boy. No sign of Squillaci, Almunia, Clichy, Bendtner, Diaby or Eboue so Djourou it is then. Arsenal fans just can't live without one can they?
On the plus side we did play some very good football before the break and we did shoot on sight. Sagna and Gervinho looked good down the right. Arteta puts himself about very well and took his goal with aplomb - a great cutback from Ramsey. Fantastic cross by Robin and great header by Chamakh. Sweet through ball from Song to Gervinho who I'm pleased to see can find the net and does enjoy shooting. So it wasn't all bad going forward. That said Aaron and Mikel both seemed to run out of steam.
But it was Arsenal cock ups that won the day for Rovers.
We need some belief both on and off the terraces, plus some lucky 4-leaf clovers, lucky horseshoes, lucky rabbits feet, lucky shirts, lucky knickers and a whole lot of defensive coaching as a unit.
One more thought - where was our Korean today? Had he been there he could have helped Park the bus.