Having had a few days to think about it, who was the most disappointing player midweek? To my mind it has to be Van Persie. Not because he had an astonishingly bad game, but because I think he's capable of so much more. Quite patently the left wing doesn't work for him, he may have a good left foot, but he isn't a great crosser of the ball in open play and I am assuming that is why he was playing there as the only left-sided player on the left. Nice try, but it didn't come off. As I have said before, RVP and Thierry are not a strike partnership, so if Thierry is playing surely Robin has to play right wing. He has the ability to cut in from the right in the same way that Freddie used to cut in from the left before Bobby arrived. Instead he tries to get to the byline and get around the back when he does come in from the right. He should let Eboue do that and start to go inside earlier to give him a better angle on any potential shot. If Arsene can change a winger into the best striker in the world, surely he can turn a striker into the free-scoring winger we need. Possibly the only block to that would be RVP himself. For him to be effective in the role, he will have to become much more of a team player and decide that the glory a striker gets is less important than the team winning.

When I heard that Arsene considers either Gilberto or Song as decent cover at CB I was initially concerned. We need Gilberto to do what he does best so Cesc can do what he does best. That leaves Song. I don't pretend to be a big fan but then I can't say I have seen much of him recently. Apparently playing well in the reserves I imagine he'll be getting a Careless Cup outing or two. Then I remembered the cobbled together defence that took us to the CL final. How did Arsene know the Flamster would do such a great job? Well maybe he sees something similar which suggests that Song can perform because the public reasoning that he has played there before doesn't sound like a reason to take a chance. Could be we will see another triumph for Arsene's gift of playing players out of position to good effect. Hope so, I don't get the feeling the Addicks are just going to roll over.