Manchester United deserved all three points last night.

They had a game-plan, executed it and had the far better chances. Robin van Persie should have scored after 90 seconds and also near the end of the game, when Szczesny pulled off a fantastic save from a Van Persie header.

The hugely disappointing thing about the game was the Arsenal performance. Manchester United are not a very good team. That’s a fact and the Premier League table doesn’t lie and David Moyes is a manager still finding his feet at Old Trafford. Yet for 90 minutes they weren’t seriously troubled. De Gea had a couple of routine saves to make but was never really called upon to make a defining save.

Arsenal were sloppy, lethargic and lacked any real cohesion. Mesut Özil looked lively and tried his best, but was let down by Olivier Giroud, who has proved yet again he is not good enough for Bolton Wanderers, never mind Arsenal.

We had some chances to score but Giroud did his best to missed them all, as well as make sure he performed his theatrics. We saw the whole range last night; we had punching the ground, screaming to the heavens, holding his head in his hands – and even head butting the ground this time around. Seriously, if he put as much effort into his “performances” as he did with scoring, he’d be the Premier League’s top scorer.

Overall though the team were poor. The only players who can come out with any credibility are Szczesny, Gibbs, Sagna, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Cazorla and Özil. Giroud was, as I have already mentioned, poor, and Wilshere and Rosicky kept on giving the ball away time and time again.

Wilshere’s sloppiness almost resulted in a Manchester United goal, after Rooney fed Van Persie for his header.

Arsenal have more than enough motivation to win this game. They got battered at the weekend, could have returned to the top of the Premier League and even more disappointingly, they faced the worst Manchester United side we’ve faced in the last 20 years.

This was a game we had to win and yet again, we bottled it.

Liverpool (5) – (1) Arsenal
Arteta 69′ (Pen)
Barclays Premier League

Well what a disgrace.

Arsenal have been playing well over the last 24 games except for when it comes to the big games. We lost 6-3 against Manchester City and 1-0 to Manchester United in performances which were below par, and today we got absolutely battered by Liverpool.

Only this week I wrote an article asking why Arsenal fans are so negative?

One of the main reasons was the lack of striker options, and the state of our squad.

Today we were well off the pace and I’ve never seen Arsenal get dominated so much in an opening 20 minute period. Liverpool were quicker, more determined and wanted it more. Arsenal on the other hand were slow, sloppy and were never in the game.

Liverpool were 3-0 up in the first 16 minutes but the game was over well before then. By 20 minutes Liverpool could (and probably should) have been 5-0 up and there wouldn’t have been any complaints.

Arsene Wenger got it completely wrong today, the same way he did against Manchester City, and a lesser extent Manchester United.

The stupid thing is, and this is something I can’t comprehend, is Arsene’s approach to the “big games”. Arsenal’s record against the “lesser” teams is fantastic, and over the last 24 games our position at the summit of the Premier League table has been completely deserved. But when it comes to the big games, his attitude makes absolutely no idea whatsoever.

Why is it that when the other big sides “struggle” against teams lower in the league are we so open in big games. Why not use a Chelsea approach and keep it tight, and try and nick a win? And if it’s a draw then it’s not a disaster is it? We’ve been top of the league for the majority of the season so we don’t need to desperately win these top of the table games.

Against Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool, we should have played conservatively and not so open. It is self-defeating, pointless and completely unnecessary. And look what’s happened – we’ve ended up humiliated.

We got taught a football lesson today and would a draw have been so bad? Arsene has shown he can play conservatively in games already this season, like we did against Borussia Dortmund.

We’ve got some massive games coming up and Arsene Wenger really needs to think long and hard about how he sets up his Arsenal team.

Today, it was criminal that he didn’t start Lukas Podolski and Tomas Rosicky. In the big games, Rosicky has always been the one that sets the tempo for the side and without him we were lethargic. Podolski is one of the few midfielders who actually shoots and scored against Liverpool last season. And Monreal has shown for me he is not good enough for Arsenal and is a liability.

Wenger needs to grow some balls and bring on Gibbs, Podolski and Rosicky on at half time.

— Mike (@afc4life_uk) February 8, 2014

Mesut Özil has not performed for a long time and it makes it more depressing that Arsenal probably could have secured the signature for Luis Suarez, the stand out player this season, for about £50 million in the summer. It would have certainly been better value than the German playmaker who was £42.3 million.

The January transfer window was a massive chance to strengthen our position at the top of the table and even the most optimistic Arsenal fan will have feelings that February and March could be a disastrous period in our season.

I didn’t get to see the game live but caught the extended highlights of the game on Sky Spors last night. From what I saw, Arsenal were poor in the first half, stepped it up in the second and almost snatched all 3 points. Southampton bossed the first 45 minutes, let Arsenal back into it and then finished strongly.

When Mathieu Flamini got sent off in the 79th minute the score was carefully poised at 2-2 and once we went down to 10 men the most important thing was not to go home with nothing.

The fact is Arsenal were sloppy in the first half. Players were giving the ball away, passes were going straight to Southampton players and nothing was coming off. We weren’t making decisive runs, players weren’t moving for each other and Southampton completely deserved their lead. And if it wasn’t for Szczesny it could have been worse.

The response after the break though was perfect.

Olivier Giroud scored a beautiful back flick from a Bacary Sagna cross 3 minutes after the interval and only 4 minutes later Santi Cazorla scored a well-placed shot into the corner to give us the lead.

Deserved? On the balance of play up to that point probably not, but to come out in the second half all guns blazing and claim the lead was a sign of the mentality potential champions possess.

It’s a cliche but they say you’re the most vulnerable after you’ve scored and less than 2 minutes after taking the lead, Southampton equalised. You would think that if we just managed to calm things down after Santi’s goal and keep the ball for the next 10 minutes afterwards, we could have killed the game off.

But is it a disaster? Certainly not.

We sit 2 points ahead of Manchester City and 3 above Chelsea – two sides who have had massive financial backing and spent about 20 times as much as we have on player transfers over the last few seasons.

Yes, they can go above us tonight with favourable results but they also play each other on Monday and at least one team has to drop points. We can also reclaim top spot on Sunday with a good result and performance against Crystal Palace the day before.

The fact is our performance levels may have dropped recently but we’ve been playing badly and still getting results. The draw against Southampton isn’t the start of a “downward spiral” as everyone suggests. We have some killer fixtures coming up against Liverpool (twice), Manchester United, Bayern Munich and so on but we haven’t turned into a terrible side over night.

The only concerns I have at the moment are the left-back position, and in midfield. Monreal had a shocker last night and you could tell it affected Mertesacker, Koscielny and Sagna’s confidence. And of course in midfield Wilshere is injured, Ramsey is out for 6/7 more weeks and Flamini got sent off meaning he’ll miss a few games. I’m not sure when Rosicky is back, so Arsene is going to have to find a system that includes Arteta, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Podolski and Santi Cazorla.

With characters like Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny and Mikel Arteta in the side, you know that they will busting a gut to make sure the team bounces back from this draw and get a positive result in the next game. And when you have a setback like this, that’s all you can ask for.

We might have some tough fixtures coming up, but these are the games we live for and we have to have faith in the team and Arsene’s philosophy.

Arsenal (0) – (0) Chelsea
The Emirates Stadium, London
Barclays Premier League

It was a frustrating night for Arsenal fans, as Arsenal struggled to break down a stubborn Chelsea side.

We knew Chelsea would be compact, solid and try and hit us on the break. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the answers and in the end, we were lucky probably not to lose.

Frank Lampard rattled the bar in the first half, and Chelsea carved out a decent chance before the break but Willian’s shot was tame.

It took 85 minutes for Arsenal to register a shot on target, and when it came Olivier Giroud couldn’t convert the chance. He also had another golden opportunity to score about 5 minutes before that, but sliced the ball well wide.

In games like this, when it’s tight you need your strikers to take these chances. He had two decent scoring chances and missed both. The top teams have that one player (Suarez, Aguero, Van Persie, Lukaku, etc.) who can score when your team needs it.

At a time when teams are giving us tougher games, Olivier Giroud has shown he isn’t good enough. Against Everton, he had chances to win the game and the same happened tonight – but unfortunately the same happened again and he didn’t take them.

He adds a lot to the team but his finishing isn’t good enough. If we had Suarez or Aguero up front, they would have buried those chances. They were difficult chances but ones you would expect the top players to score. Even Podolski would have made a better effort of the left-footed volley.

As it stands, we couldn’t break down a stubborn Chelsea team who had the better attacking possession and chances. You know how Jose Mourinho is going to setup his team which is not to lose, and they did exactly that. Arsenal needed to step it up a gear but it never came, and I don’t understand why Podolski didn’t come on for Giroud for the last 20 minutes or so. It would have given us that little extra boost we were lacking in the final minutes.

Mike Dean lived up to his reputation of being a complete cunt and made some shocking decisions. He gave Mikel a yellow card for almost breaking Mikel Arteta’s leg, he failed to give a penalty when Walcott was clearly fouled in the box, and overall had no control over the game.

He obviously has a massive bias against Arsenal and he didn’t disappoint tonight. We all know that we’ve only won one game with Mike Dean officiating in the last few seasons, and tonight was another game where we were never going to get the breaks.

Overall, a frustrating night made worse by poor refereeing and the fact we failed to perform how we can do. Too many players were below par and that played into Chelsea’s hands. Tomas Rosicky was our best player, and our back four were good, but apart from that we were poor and didn’t deserve the three points.

Napoli (2) – (0) Arsenal
The Stadio San Paolo, Naples
Champions League Group Stage

In the end, Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat against Napoli means that because of Borussia Dortmund’s 2-1 win against Marseille, they finish second in the group.

Which now means we could play teams such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletico Madrid, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint Germain.

Arsenal played like a team that only needed a draw and that is always a dangerous game. Obviously, Arsenal didn’t need to make any unnecessary risks but from the outset it was clear we didn’t want to concede three goals and by full time that didn’t happen – but we conceded two.

The first half was timid and both sides went through the motions. Napoli’s game-plan was to keep it 0-0 and try and score in the second half, while Arsenal just didn’t want to concede. Unfortunately while Napoli raised their urgency in the second half we were still trying to see the game out and on 73 minutes we conceded to a well-taken Gonzalo Higuain goal.

As soon as the second half kicked off however, Napoli were at the races but we needed something to lift the side and for me that should have been Theo Walcott. As Napoli pushed forward, we were camped inside our own half and had no outlet or way to relieve the pressure. Napoli were so high up the pitch that it was perfect for Theo to exploit with his pace.

But as it stood, Arsene made no changes and the inevitable happened. Napoli scored and with the result in Marseille being 1-1, Napoli rested on their laurels and sat on a one goal lead. With 4 minutes of normal time left, news came through that Dortmund scored and Napoli almost responded immediately, scoring a second through Callejon.

The worrying thing was that when Napoli went for it they scored. We defended well at times but as Per Mertesacker said at full time, it’s hard to perform when mentally you’re only at 90%. Arsenal were more than capable of getting a draw in Naples but they were too negative. Once the game kicked off, Napoli knew they were against a side content on defending and knew we wouldn’t offer an attacking threat. The approach was counter-productive and now we sit in 2nd place in a group we really should have won.

There is no way that we can get an “easy” game in the knockout stages now we’ve finished second in the group, and whichever side we draw, it is going to be one hell of a challenge.