0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0: What is Wrong?

I now think it's officially a deep psychological problem. How else does one explain how a team with so much quality, using the same basic formation that dominated Roma (and even perhaps an even more attacking formation) fail so badly to beat Fulham? The performance today lacked heart, lacked quality, lacked commitment, and most importantly lacked goals. Just what is wrong with us at the moment?

I'm usually an optimistic supporter of Arsenal. In fact up until today I firmly believed we would overhaul Villa for fourth place. But now my faith has been extremely shaken. This is four 0-0 draws in a row now, and that's 12 points dropped in the league. If we had won all these matches we would be four points ahead of Villa: and that's after they beat Stoke tomorrow (which they will of course do).

But instead here we sit five behind them, eight if Villa triumph tomorrow, and only two points ahead of Everton in sixth. Not only am I not sure we we will make the Champions League, I think there's a distinct possibility that we will lose fifth spot as well.

In all honesty, Fulham were just better than us today. They created far more chances, defended better, and they knew how to hang onto a result at the end of the match. Their passing around the ball in the last five minutes was extremely frustrating, but also extremely effective. This Arsenal side have now changed from a side that could comfortably beat Fulham 3-0 at Craven Cottage (Jan. last year) to a team that barely hang onto a 0-0 draw at the Emirates. This is despicable.

I usually try to give you, the reader, some ray of optimism in my posts, but to be honest, I don't think I can give you one today. Insofar as the league goes, I think our chances of making the Champions League are dead and buried. Our only hope now of making it in is to win the darn thing this year, and unless both Man Utd and Barcelona are somehow knocked out in the second leg of this round, I fear we won't be able to win that either. The only prise we are still very much in the running for is the F.A. Cup, and as much as I'd like to see us win it, it still would only get us into the Europa League next season.

So back to the question I posed in the title of this article: just what is wrong? Well unfortunately I think it's now psychological. And if it is, there is simply nothing Arsene Wenger or anyone else can do for the team. The only thing that will get us out of this mess is time and goals. We need first to score, and then score some more, and then, after a time, we will be back confident again.

Don't forget, we have Eduardo returning shortly, and we all know what a difference he made in his first appearance back, so all is not lost in the attacking department. But I fear that once we finally do figure it out and start scoring again, it will be too late to even have a chance at fourth. So Europa League 2009-10, here we come. Until next time,

Fab 4