Arsenal won't win a match in which Diaby-Denilson-Song all start in midfield.

It was a bit of a rubbish game, all in all. Some nice early passing yielded little, with Diaby blasting wide when he should have passed to Ade, then shooting straight at the keeper when he was played in himself.

But, we took the lead from a Fabregas-Adebayor corner combination, and it looked like things actually might go our way; until Jeremie 'I only score against Arsenal' Alililliliadiere scored after sloppy defending from Clichy, Song, and Gallas.

After that, aside from a Stuart Downing effort, we dominated, but with little reward. Robin van Persie continued to show his 'enigmatic side', shall we say, by missing a host of easier chances than the two he put away against Chelsea a few weeks ago. Consistently inconsistent, at least, which I suppose just makes him a player who consistently can't produce the goods week-in, week-out.

It was all rounded off by Bendtner blasting the ball straight at Turnball, when Adebayor was practically waiting in the area with a ten-foot billboard above his head which said 'IF YOU PASS TO ME I WILL SCORE'. It certainly didn't smell of team spirit.

So, what does this match tell us?

Firstly that, again, Arsene is fantasising when he talks about us finishing in first place. This will not happen, despite the fact that if we were even a little bit better we could be making a real fist of it this year. United, Chel$ea and Pool all dropped points this weekend but we made up no ground on them. Just think, if we'd beaten Stoke, Hull and Fulham we'd now be top of the league. Really think about that for a minute. We're not first now, and without major signings, we won't be first come May.

Secondly, when any three of Diaby-Denilson-Song-Eboue start in midfield for us, we will not win. There is a chance, although with every week I watch them I wonder how great this chance is, that these players might make it and turn into great players, but at the moment they are neither offensively nor defensively strong enough to boss games. They are a sea of dross with the island of Fabregas's quality floating among them. His face after the game said a thousand words about what he thinks about the quality that surrounds him at present.

Thirdly, that, without signings, this is our level. Maybe a draw in the north-east is a good result for a team which is realistically aiming for fourth, not first place.

Lastly, Arsene's post-match comments are getting weirder and weirder. To say that it was a good result because 'we might have lost this game at the beginning of the season' is to imply that he knew how weak our squad was in September; which may well have been the case, but simply shows he failed to do his job over the summer of constructing a squad strong enough to compete for the league this year.

So, all we can do is crawl through to January where reinforcements have to come in. Because if not, we are looking at fifth place.