A disappointing game but not an entirely surprising one. There has obviously been a lack of quality for some time. We were out-passed by Swansea and we'll get outplayed by many teams by the end of this season. We have lost the resilience that we admired when we had Jenkinson and Santos bombing forward in attack and Vermaelen, Koscielny at the back twatting everything clear. Ramsey, Song and Arteta have slowly faded out of form. Gervinho appears to be the Chamakh of this season - a bright spark initially but failed to continue and now his confidence is in tatters. Walcott hasn't grown up. It has been very frustrating to see the rebuilding done after the disastrous start get shattered quite subtly.

Despite how the media keep portraying us, we are not a technically gifted team any more. And I'm ok with that. It was quite clear even Swansea are at least similar in terms of ability. But the thing that most observers will underrate is the value of confidence. Sinclair etc. are able to link up well because they're confident they'll link up well. When Arshavin, Van Persie, Walcott, Ramsey, Song etc. had the ball in attacking areas, they didn't look comfortable and they didn't look certain with their movement. Everything is always very wishy-washy, ad-hoc and confusing. This is simply bad management. The players are just not prepared right now.