Tales of the Unexpected

It's a bit of a short rant this time because I don't want to keep going over the same ground.

But..

I'm not sure what surprised me most on Saturday. Was it Britain's World Heavyweight hopeful David Price lying in a crumpled heap while serial loser Audley Harrison was launching yet another comeback? Or was it the stunning realisation that the Arsenal game had left me happier with Joe Bennett's performance than the one that Christian Benteke had seen fit to put in?

Can't say I was expecting either event, but having spent much of the week in startled disbelief at the way the South African legal system works, and with the way their police deal with crime scenes, nothing should surprise me.

I suppose the least said about the Pistorius situation the better at this stage, but if they ever make CSI: Pretoria, they'll surely cast The Chuckle Brothers as the lead detectives.

Back to the Benteke question though. Quite why he didn't put in his usual shift is open the question. Fair play, every player can have an off day, however this particular one came after a week of fevered press speculation over the young Belgian's future and against a team that is rumoured to be his childhood favourite. Maybe I should have seen it coming after all.

That said, even a below par Benteke offers more to the team than Darren Bent would have done, had he been fit. He's crocked yet again though, rapidly becoming the modern day equivalent of Dalian Atkinson.

So why am I praising Joe Bennett? Well I'm not really, but you have to give credit where it's due and he certainly seems to be trying harder, putting a foot in and bearing in mind I'd started the game thinking he'd get a complete roasting, I thought he stood up rather well. Indeed, the defensive efforts of our youthful back four even brought praise from John Motson's commentary on Match of The Day. Motty was in admiration of our “stout defending”. Usually when someone mentions stout in connection with our defenders, it's because Dunne's been at the Guinness again.

Arsenal are no great shakes at the moment though. In our situation, plucky displays that garner no points are as much use as a chocolate fire guard. That game was there for the taking yesterday. Yes, Cazorla impressed and Wilshire was good in patches, but The Gunners were tentative at the back and ragged in midfield while Giroud was firing blanks. We should have taken something and we didn't. It was the sort of game that some our fellow relegation strugglers would have taken by the scruff of the neck and wrestled something out of.

And we didn't.

We played some nice stuff going forward again, but we need to start scrapping now too. Fighting tooth and nail for everything.

And we can't.

We don't have the personnel.

When the going got tough, we went into retreat, invited Arsenal on and it cost us big style.

It would be easy too to point the fickle finger of blame at Andi Weimann for losing his man for the Arsenal winner. Except the plucky Austrian had spent fair chunks of the afternoon shredding them down the other end. Plus, in my view, our right back Matt Lowton was getting back with all the urgency of a small child who is being forced to kiss his maiden aunt, the one with the facial hair problem.

So are we doomed? It's going to be a close run thing and I can see the likes of Sunderland getting sucked into the mix but it may actually come down to the last away at Wigan.

And they do know to scrap.