Doubting Tomas

Well, that was a barrel of laughs wasn't it?

As expected, Sunderland made life very difficult for an Arsenal side that Arsène Wenger unexpectedly and, with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, unwisely chose not to rotate from the midweek rout of Braga. However, Arsenal appeared to have taken the best Sunderland had to offer and looked set to take all three points from Wearside, courtesy of the one of the freakiest goals ever seen in the Premier League. That was, of course, until Darren Bent popped up to score his regulation goal against us at the very death of injury time. People tell me he's a die hard Gooner, well, he's got a funny way of showing it, hasn't he?

What was really weird was the way the ball just ricocheted from Gaël Clichy's cross, off Koscielny, to where Bent just happened to be. A similar thing happened last year at the Stadium of Light when he turned in a header that was going miles wide. I guess you have to give him credit for being in the right place at the right time and credit to, to a side that made life very difficult for us without resorting to the thuggery Sam Allardyce seems to think is the only way to combat us. I'm not going to make a big thing of Titus Bramble's tackle on Wilshere, it was bad and he should have been booked. But I don't believe it, and this is the important thing to remember, I don't believe it was in keeping with the way Sunderland approached the game.

What they did do very well was to press us hard, get in our faces and make sure that we couldn't string more than three passes together. It was a world away from Wednesday night's performance under the bright lights of home. Yet, we were somehow gifted the lead early on when Anton Ferdinand took too long on the ball and allowed Cesc to close him down, his rushed clearance struck the skipper and flew up into the air, coming to rest in the corner of the Sunderland keeper's goal. Goals have been coming earlier than we've got used to this season and it has generally been the platform for a solid, authoritative performance. Not this time. Standing and watching in the Haymarket's Sports Cafe, the sense of disquiet was compounded listening to two very negative Gooners, one of whom turned out to be a season ticket holder (and hello, if you're reading), as Sunderland attacked and attacked and attacked. Alex Song got booked after Steed Malbranque dived over his leg, Song taking exception to the award of the free kick and we lost Cesc soon after his goal, apparently to guard against further injury to a hamstring that must surely now be described as "dodgy".

But we made it to half-time 1-0 up, Arshavin might have put us two us after a straight pass from Song, but fired wide. He wasn't going to be the last unfortunately.

Early in the second half, Malbranque pushed the ball past Song, the Cameroonian didn't get out of his way and our midfield destroyer was duly dispatched for a second bookable offence. Even then we might have gone two nil up, Chamakh was put through one on one only to be denied by the keeper. Denilson arrived for Arshavin as we looked to close the game down. With fifteen minutes left, a glorious opportunity arrived to do as Samir Nasri was clipped in the penalty area. Easy to say now, but as Rosicky prepared to take the penalty, I was never confident that he was going to score. It didn't feel like that West Ham game last season when Cesc took a penalty in almost identical circumstances and you just knew he wouldn't miss.

The penalty flew over the bar and, sitting in the commentary box, Chris Waddle must have flashed back twenty years and a few thousand miles south. From then on, for me, it was like waiting for the bullet to the back of the head, a bit like Henry Hill towards the end of Goodfellas (seeing as we're indulging in 1990 references). As the clock wound agonisingly down, I flashed on the thought that whilst we've been impenetrable at home so far this season, I can't remember the last clean sheet achieved away from the Grove. So I wasn't massively surprised when Darren Bent duly got his kill shot in 4 minutes and 15 seconds into 4 minutes injury time, but it didn't make it any easier to take. Luckily, Jo and I were straight off to (and late for) Bill Bailey's new show, which, to add insult to injury, features a section on Doubting Thomas. Apart from that, to my mind, rather gratuitous section, I was able to put the game to the back of my mind, mostly anyway. I didn't feel the need to watch Match of the Day, or Goals on Sunday and revisit it all.

As Andrei Arshavin has told his website, winning games 1-0 is not an Arsenal thing, so it was fairly clear we needed that second goal. It didn't happen, it could have, it should have, if only Rosicky... if only Clichy... if...

"If"'s the biggest word in the game, isn't it? I'm not going to dwell on it too much. The bottom line is that we went to Sunderland without Vermaelen, without Walcott, without Diaby, without van Persie, losing Cesc in the course of the match and we got a draw. Whilst not playing particularly well, and immense credit is due to our two new centrebacks for that. I believe that we would have lost in similar circumstances last season, you only need to look at how our season ended for proof of that and, as mentioned earlier, we did lose at the same place last season. What can't be denied is that we've come away from three very testing trips up north unbeaten and we're still sitting in second place. I'm not going to lie and say I was happy with how we played, but I think the same people who have been criticising us after Saturday need to wind their necks in and remember that this season has a long way to run yet.

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