not a good day at the pitch

a nil - nil draw today at upton park. not good. not exactly bad either. let's take stock shall we: henry is gone, pires is gone, bergkamp is gone. that doesn't help us at all, but i would like to think that even with those guys down we're a damn fine time. and we are when we're playing really well.

today, though, there were only a couple of guys playing well, and most of the guys were a mess. we were lucky that the hammers didn't take us out. i think we're damn lucky to have gotten away with a draw because for every good performance we had today we had a poor performance to hurt us. toure was great at the back, but lehmann was back to his old, scary antics, coming off the line too early and booting the ball out to touch. ljungberg was great in the midfield, creating most of the decent chances, but van persie was sloppy today, slipping on the turf, making bad choices and tripping over himself. fabregas and gilberto were strong down the middle, but hleb was the worst i've seen him, and reyes didn't seem to have it in him to go for goal.

and gilberto's injury near the end sends shivers down my spine. i have a feeling he's going to have a broken bone in his foot. and if he does we're fucked at ajax. no lehmann(although that could be a blessing), no van persie, all the injured boys out too, and maybe gilberto gone. ouch.

anyway, there is no doubt that the gunners just weren't good enough today, but how can anyone look at the injuries we've got and not admit that that is definitely at the root of the problem?

one last thing: we did have one bright spot today...quincy owusu-abeyie. he came on and made things happen. i hope he's on the bench for ajax (or even starting).