Arsenal 4-4 Tottenham: How? How Didn't We Win?

I just saw the result and highlights and I must say I'm gutted. We just as well have lost this game as we played so bad defensively I'm a bit ashamed. How in the world did we not win this game? 3-1 ahead and later 4-2 ahead and we still didn't have the defensive tenacity to keep the lead. It's a TWO-GOAL lead and we blew it again. Thankfully the draw didn't hurt us too much in the league and it was a good one for the neutral, but that isn't any consolation.

Where to begin? The first goal was unavoidable, with that hate-object Bentley firing in the strike of his life. I have to ask, why are we getting such bad luck with long shots? This is now three times this season that we have gone down to wonder goals, once against Hull, Sunderland, and Tottenham. It seems the only way to beat Arsenal to the scoreboard is to score a wonder goal. Surely our luck will change soon, it must.

After that we scored twice on either side of the half through set pieces because Tottenham are so bad at defending them. it's comforting to know there's someone else in the league worse than us at defending set pieces. After the goal Nasri was played in beautifully and chipped a lovely through ball to Adebayor who slotted home. Then we conceded again through Almunia's mistake. This guy's been solid for us over the last month or so but a slip up was bound to occur eventually. Then Van Persie showed some real world-class finishing to put us back ahead by two goals.

So it was now 4-2 and then it all went wrong. We should have kept the ball, not let Tottenham attack and kept the score at a respectable 4-2. But no, the defense had to go and screw up. First Clichy slipped through no fault of his own - the pitch is always wet at the Emirates - but that sent in Lennon who scored and then in stoppage time Spurs struck again with a long range shot that hit the post and then was finished without trouble.

We should have kept out Tottenham but we didn't. Almunia shouldn't have made a mistake but he did. It could have been entirely different, and frankly this feels like a loss. Not as bad as really losing of course, but it's dreadful that we conceded four goals against Tottenham, the worst team in the league. Looking at the table the damage wasn't too bad. We're up to 3rd thanks to Hull's loss and we're still only 3 behind Chelsea in second. But Liverpool are now six points ahead of us. This being only the end of October that's a bit worrying but then again we had the same total last season after ten games as Liverpool do now, and I feel that Liverpool aren't as good as we are. They will slip up before the end of the year and we'll be near the lead again.

So no major damage done, but this draw still feels like a loss to me. We need to shore up the defense and fast. If we concede four goals to Tottenham, how many more will we concede to Manchester United? Until next time,

Fab 4