No defence...and no attack either

You’d be forgiven for not realising Arsenal won the FA Cup last May, such was the insipid and unacceptable surrender of our title at a managerless lower division team. I have consistently backed players like Theo Walcott, Danny Welbeck etc but no more. Holding, Elneny, Walcott, Iwobi, Welbeck - they should all be slung out of the club this morning for what they produced at Forest. Per Mertesacker’s legs have gone, we all know that. Only a mad man would put him in a back four instead of being the middle man of three so Wenger did exactly that. What ensued was what looked to people on TV as though the lad Brereton (I guarantee you will never hear of this 18 year-old ever again as he is nothing more than a big lump really) was beating him to everything. Look more closely and you’ll have seen that Mertesacker was constantly trying to cover across to his left in order to bail out the ridiculously out of position, and out of his depth at Arsenal, Rob Holding. Make no mistake, Holding was outstanding in the FA Cup Final against Diego Costa last year, but every dog has its day and anyone can produce something special on a big occasion - remember Andy Dibble of Luton Town? I do because he spoiled my first ever Arsenal Wembley final. Holding has since been nothing other than woeful for Arsenal and simply lacks the basic talent necessary to play at our level. Had it not been for an excellent performance by David Ospina Forest would have won by a five or six goal margin, they were that superior to Arsenal on the day.

Plenty of stick has been handed out over Arsenal’s team selection and that’s a consequence of losing in such abject fashion. However, a team including Ospina, Debuchy, Mertesacker, Holding, Maitland-Niles, Elneny, Walcott and Welbeck should have more than enough to beat Forest’s youngsters. What was seriously lacking was a subs bench with anyone on it capable of rescuing the game if things started to go wrong. And they went seriously wrong. Wenger picked the team but failed to set them up right. Wenger failed to motivate them against lower division cannon-fodder. Wenger failed to provide the insurance policy of senior players on the subs bench. And I don’t want to hear his b******s about people being tired - the senior players in the squad have played league games only this season and no cup ties - Alexis played one Europa League game having not started a Premier League match to that point if my memory serves me right. Wenger threw away the FA Cup yesterday and it is unacceptable. Over 4000 Arsenal fans travelled to Nottingham yesterday to get the latest in an ever growing list of humiliation under our once great manager.

I resign myself now to the hope that each defeat, each time we concede three or four goals in a game, each humiliation and embarrassment, is simply one more closer to the day when Arsene Wenger leaves Arsenal. Any club worth their salt would have had him out of the job before the team got back to London last night. The man is finished. Nobody is listening to him. Nobody cares what he has to say. Nobody has any respect for the man anymore. It’s over. The only people who can’t see it are Wenger and Kroenke.