Gunned down

Another Premiership match, another crushing disappointment. But the defeat to Arsenal at Highbury was galling not because of any lack of commitment or spirit, but because we should have left London with at least a point.

Overall, the performance was of a very high standard - excellently-worked goals from Robert and Bernard, Dyer again seeming to hint that he's at his most dangerous on the flanks rather than straight through the middle, Bowyer giving his best showing in a black and white shirt. The defending, too, was for the most part sound.

But only for the most part.

We gifted an injury-plagued Arsenal side three goals and emerged from the contest pointless when, but for stupid individual errors, we might have got all three. Bramble did very little wrong all night - except for swinging wildly at an attempted clearance and allowing Henry a simple tap-in for the first goal. Then we gave Gilberto a free header, and - worst of all - Jenas inexplicably raised his hand to a cross from the right to concede the penalty from which Henry notched the winner. I'm still not convinced JJ actually touched the ball - but simply raising his hand in the first place was utterly stupid. It wasn't even as if he was trying to gain extra height in jumping with his arms up - he was already well off the ground.

So, naivety costs us dear once again, and we remain off the bottom of the table only thanks to Kevin Davies's late equaliser for Bolton against Wolves. But we might have escaped such severe punishment for our mistakes against a worse side, and we'll definitely play worse than that this season and win. As the magnificent Breda fans sang on Wednesday night just after Shearer had made it 4-0, "always look on the bright side of life"...