After the Manchester United defeat, it’s clear that peoples views differ greatly on the significance of the result. Some people say that it shows Arsenal’s inability to beat big teams, whereas others look to our record of 14 victories in 15 away games and think this is nothing more than a blip.

Personally, I believe the result itself is not as important as a lot of people are making out. It certainly doesn’t end our title challenge and the fact is we are still 5 points better off than Manchester United, and 2 points clear at the top of the league.

For me, the performance can be put down to a few things. We lost Per Mertesacker and Rosicky to illness, and it seemed a few of the lads were a bit sluggish. We don’t know what the illness was, but it certainly effected the team. We’ve also had a pretty tough run in recently with games against Chelsea, Liverpool and Dormund and when Manchester United had a similar test (having to play Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City) they only managed to get one point from those games. We won two of them, and only narrowly lost against Manchester United.

Apart from the tired performance yesterday, something we’ve been missing (and been coping well without I might add) is pace up front. Lukas Podolski is quick off the mark and has been injured for a long time but it is Theo Walcott we have missed the most. He gives us such a valuable outlet with his runs and with him I am sure we would have given Manchester United a much tougher game. Even in the games against Liverpool and Dortmund, there were times when Theo’s presence on the pitch was sorely missed.

We have done extremely well to play well and win games without him but there is no doubt that he gives us that something extra when we run out of ideas. We have Olivier Giroud up top and Theo is the perfect player to play alongside him to feed off his flicks and passes. Yesterday, and in other games this season, Giroud has looked isolated and that has influenced the amount of chances we’ve created. Against United, we had Ramsey, Cazorla and Ozil behind Giroud which should be a line up good enough to scare most defences in the world, but without that burst of pace we can’t vary our game and give the defenders something else to think about. Playing in front of an oppositions back four is exactly what they want, and playing against pace scares the living daylights out of them.

The sooner Theo Walcott comes back from injury, the sooner we can really kick start our season again and push on.

There’s no doubt that Arsenal were second best yesterday but there are ration reasons why this was the case. We had a tough run in with Chelsea, Liverpool, Dortmund and United and Olivier Giroud has been leading the line pretty much single-handedly. So it wasn’t a huge surprise that he struggles now and then.

Manchester United looked like a team that had done their homework and they basically bullied Giroud out of the game with their physical approach. More often than not, he would come out of 50-50 challenges holding his face as if he’d been hit there. That’s not a slight on the way Manchester United played, they targeted Giroud as a threat and dealt with it well.

The problem is with Podolski injured, Giroud is the only recognised striker. And even then, it could be argued that Podolski is more of a wide player than a typical centre forward. So we have a problem.

It is not unreasonable to think that Giroud could get injured, or at the very least will need a rest. We have been relying on him far too much so what will Arsene Wenger do? Will he fight on with the same squad or dip into the transfer market yet again and bring in a striker?

Because I don’t care how you look at it, Nicklas Bendtner is a joke and can’t even be considered to be a realistic option. I bet the Manchester United fans laughed when Arsene brought him on yesterday.

So the January Transfer window could be an important time in our season. We have a solid and settled back five, our midfield options are plentiful even with injuries to Oxlade-Chamberlain and Abou Diaby, but up front is where we are light.

So who are our realistic options?

Robert Lewandowski is someone who I’ve wondered about, but last week he came out and told potential clubs not to bother getting in touch as his decision was now made up and he would announce it next summer. It doesn’t take too much guessing to figure out that he will be staying in Germany.

So who else is there? If we focus on the Premier League then we could always rekindle our love affair with Luis Suarez. But there’s more chance of Bendtner playing for Real Madrid next season.

We have Christian Benteke, who has proven to be able to score goals at this level and impose himself on games. Other names that have been bandied around are Benzema, Remy, Llorente, Hernandez and Michu amongst others.

So what should we do? Stick or twist?

Tonights disappointing result was hard to take, especially when Manchester United celebrated as if they won the league, but the bottom line is that it isn’t a disaster by any stretch of the imagination.

We had a run of games where we faced Chelsea, Liverpool, Borussia Dortmund and Manchester United. This was supposed to be a period that would “prove our title credentials” and if you look at it objectively, we’re still in a great position and real title challengers.

We’ve won 14 of the last 15 away games in the Premier League. That is a hugely impressive record and although it’s disappointing to lose to the team I hate with a passion, we’re still top of the league by two points.

We gave Manchester United too much respect and were unlucky to concede a goal from a set-piece. They parked the bus once they went one goal ahead and even though we should have scored at least one goal, we are more than capable of picking ourselves up and giving a positive response to the defeat.

Manchester United will be “galvanised” after this win and despite wanting the win more and showing a lot of character, they still struggle to do this against the smaller teams in the league. It’s one thing to give 110% against Arsenal in a big game, but they didn’t turn up against West Brom and really struggled against Stoke and Sunderland. Arsenal on the other hand have been extremely consistent since January 2013, so maybe Robin van Persie should concentrate on that before thinking he’s scored the goal that has won Manchester United the title.

We’ve only lost twice this season while Manchester United have lost 3 times and Manchester City 4. We’re still 5 points ahead of United and if anything, this could act as a warning to Arsenal that they need to get back on another impressive winning run.

Everyone will be talking about how it was a great weekend for United but it wasn’t a bad one for us. Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham all failed to win and we’re still at the top of the league by two points.

Annoying? Perhaps but a disaster? Hardly.