It's all very well for Arsène to say this or that players is immensely talented, but as our latest Euro-trip so clearly points, talent is not enough.

It would be easy to focus on Fabianski, but truth be told his 'schoolboy' errors are far from the only one's which have lost us points or games this season. I'm not someone who reacts to a bad individual performance by claiming the player is rubbish, etc. With a few exceptions our players are very talented, and you just have to watch them play (between errors) to realise that. But obviously having a squad of gifted players is still leaving us short of the sort of results we should be achieving.

Is it team ethic, attitude or merely down to the frightening number of injuries we have continued to pick up? If only someone could make a watertight case for it being one of them. Trouble is, inevitably it's probably a mixture of them, with a dash of peculiar tactics thrown in.

I'm not suggesting we start engaging in faux camaraderie and group hugs to bolster our team ethic. If it ain't meant, it won't work. But when you put it together with what looks an awful lot like fear (or at least trepidation) at times, you start to wonder whether there just isn't the belief that this team will prevail. I know Cesc among others has said we can't use the 'Age' card any more. I'm not so sure. Apart from some of the older players, I'm still sometimes reminded of schoolyard games where the smaller and younger guys pull back from tackles with the big guys because they've been intimidated verbally or physically very early in the game. I can't imagine that the players think it's appropriate to not get stuck in, but psychologically there seem to be lines they won't cross. I do wonder whether there is the spectre of two bad ankle breaks to Arsenal players in recent years is just niggling at their sub-conscious.

So anyways, say we have a bunch of young, mostly physically immature players who may have personal confidence in their own ability, but are beginning to believe that this team are short. If you'll excuse the pun. If this is the case, then physically mature, proven ability players coming in may be the only way to shake the team up sufficiently to get us performing consistently. It's not a knee-jerk must buy players reaction, but somethings gotta give. Alternatively winning the Champions League would fix it as that sort of belief would go a long way to redress the balance. My heart says it's still possible, we are still in it of course, but my head says if we get through this round we're going to meet some serious teams in the next. Teams which like the mancs will take hold of our weaknesses, chew them around a tad and spit them out.

In fact the mancs are a case in point. They have some very ordinary players, but they rise to the challenge. They may not be the team they were, but they saw us off easily and at home as well.

As far as the game was concerned, it had some pretty standard features. We can argue about the refs part in it, but the ref didn't force our goalie to push the ball over the goal line. The ref didn't give sleeping tablets to our defence even if he did facilitate a rather too quick free kick with the way he took the ball from Fabianski, who should have just dropped it at least to win some time. Had Cesc taken a free kick so quickly we would all have smirked and commented on what a smart guy he was. Although I can't imagine what one of our over-officious Premiership referees would have done in the circumstances. Yes, we probably should have had a penalty, but we don't get them any more since Eduardo-gate. And although we didn't get the rub of the green in terms of decisions, it wasn't the ref who lost us the game, it was our players. Having said that, we are capable of winning at home by a sufficiently large margin to progress. I just don't won't the score to be 2-1 to us with five minutes left, I might not survive the match.

So as Cesc has stated, we have to look after Fabianski, even if he never plays for us again, because that's what a team does. He might of also added that a team should look after their captain when he's getting kicked all over the shop. And just to clarify, reminding the ref of the number of fouls committed doesn't count. Some (small) retribution does. But that's not what talented players do, right?