We can't beat United or Chelsea, but we can still win the title

Results

Date	Time	C	Opponent	F	A	R	S
31 Jan	4:00 PM	P	Manchester United (H)	1	3	Lost

Another thrashing at home to our rivals. Is this what the Emirates was built for?

The ease with which Chelsea and Man Utd beat us these days sends out quite a simple message: they're much better than us.

Wenger doesn't sign tall, strong forwards, and he doesn't sign fast and direct wingers. He seems to like to pretend they don't exist, and as a result, makes no effort to prepare his defenders on playing against them.

And it comes back to haunt him, again and again. Drogba, Rooney, Ronaldo, Malouda, Robben, Young, Wright-Phillips - Wenger has no answers for these kinds of players. They know how to play against us.

And because we have no players like this at the club, our defenders don't get the chance in training to practice ways of stopping them. Of course, the fact that Wenger signs small centre-backs and full-backs that can't defend doesn't help much either.

I never got round to writing a match preview for this game, but the player I had on my mind was Antonio Valencia, an old-school, no-nonsense winger who deserves credit for the way he's played this season. He's no Ronaldo and never will be, but he does what he does very well and contributes a lot to that United side, and he's the kind of player we don't deal with very well.

In the end though, he didn't start the game, which surprised me. It turned out that Nani did the job for him very impressively, which also surprised me. I never thought he'd amount to much, but United fans have been excited by his recent revival, and today, in United's biggest game of the season (according to Ferguson) he did all the damage.

There's not much else I can say that hasn't been said already. The bottom line is, we were never in it, just like we were never in it against Chelsea earlier in the season.

However, I don't think we're necessarily out of the title race.

I have this crazy and unrealistic idea in my head that Wenger should do a Mick McCarthy and play a reserve side for the game at Stamford Bridge. The Wolves boss did it at Old Trafford in a game he decided he couldn't win, and in my opinion we're in a similar situation: we won't beat Chelsea. Prepare yourselves for another 3-0 or 4-0, because that's 100% what's going to happen.

Head-to-head, we can't match these teams, but we could be better at beating the smaller teams than they are, so why not rest the players, save them the embarassment and focus on beating Liverpool?

Obviously that idea was (slightly) tongue-in-cheek. The difference with Wolves was they weren't in direct competition with Man Utd. The relegation strugglers have their own little league at the bottom of the table and those head-to-head points are the ones that really count for them.

Sadly, I don't have any ideas. How to beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge? I just can't see it. Not unless Wenger makes some big signings in the last 24 hours of the transfer window. The fact that he hasn't brought in a new goalkeeper or a new striker is absolutely criminal.

We played with three midfielders upfront today, or make that two since Nasri was (once again) nowhere to be seen - how is that acceptable?

Wenger says he has £30million to spend. Why not offer that plus van Persie for David Villa? I have nothing against van Persie, but realistically he's never going to give us more than about half a season, so why not?

It's hard to tell what the future will bring, but 'future' is a word us Arsenal fans are sick to death of hearing about. We're yet to see true Arsenal greats, playing great football and parading the Emirates with trophies. When we left fortress Highbury with the aim of becoming an even bigger and better club, home-game-humilations like these were the last thing we were expecting.

It's not really going to plan is it?

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