As for the “duration debate” – I think you could get a fair argument that many people saw RVP not playing 38 EPL games but also not being injured for 25 of them – more like 10, which if agreed upon, brings up the “buy more insurance” plot. That is a plot that I think will be seen to be financial suicide in the near future across that part of Europe that do not have a russian oil baron using his “disposable income” to tweak his currently favorite hobby.

If it wasn’t obvious from earlier participation – great posts, great site!

Last season Arsenal had Emmanuel Adebayor. They sold him over, but never replaced him, which I think was a huge mistake. All Wenger had to do is take the Adebayor money (or even some of it) and replace the center forward that he had just sold. That doesn’t put the club into any financial peril. It just replaces a player that got sold.

Sorry for the delayed response. If you’re saying RVP is too injury prone to play the “target” player, then what you’re really saying is ‘sell RVP and buy someone else to replace him’. You can’t be saying RVP is good enough to keep and – because he is injury prone – we should have double the fun and own 2 of him / them (or 3 of them if you count Bendtner there at all), because that implies that the financial problems we are seeing with many of the Euro clubs really do not exist. Injuries to key players impair their ability to get a result. Additional world-class players in the squad to be “insured” against that eventuality are expensive insurance indeed.

* A BIG MAN up top to – you know – challenge for all the crosses and “Hope-for” balls

* Fewer players that resemble in style and ability the Fifa world player of the year – Messi and his accompany band of merry men – Xavi and Iniesta and Eto (last year). Because – you know – those types of players can’t compete with the Man Utd’s in the EPL (oh wait, didn’t they play each other last May????)

* We should spend gobs of money after EVERY LOSS, because – you know – whenever the team lose there is an obvious “hole” in the squad that should be filled right away by finding a VERY EXPENSIVE player and slotting him right into our newly minted “big ball” system; probably right next to the BIG MAN who wins all the crosses

I could go on but many of you are what we call “armchair quarterbacks” in the states.

Look. We have been poor in goal and have “switched off” in defending at times and have rightly been punished for it. Without RVP and Bendtner (so compare Man U and Chelsea without BOTH Rooney / Berbatov and Drogba / Anelka) and we are controlling matches but not controlling the big moments. Let’s leave aside Man U game for a moment as it exposed Clichy and Denilson for their – as Le boss said – naivete (in spades).

Does Arshavin have to score on Cesc’s brilliant diagonal chip over the back of Chelsea’s defense to go 1-1? – Yes. EPL Champions score that goal. Does Almunia need to match Cech’s save of Fabregas free kick with a body block of Drogba’s second goal – Yes. EPL Champions come out of those two events on level terms someway. Did we carve open the “pack the middle” Chelsea defense on more than one occasion – including a ball to Nasri in the second half that should have produced a goal or given Arshavin a sitter – Yes. EPL Champions convert that full chance. So it is not the style of play that is our problem right now. Where we were on pace to set a record for goals scored, the front 7 players have gone 3 matches without a goal from anyone. Form is temporary (and our goal scorers are in poor form at the moment), Class is permanent and will win out. Goals change games and we have not scored any in the last 3 matches so the games have not changed for the better. Add that to some pub league defending from Clichy, Denilson, and a switch off or two and the results are predictable at the top of the EPL table clashes. A good result against Liverpool and we will see what we will see as there is still a lot of Football left to play.