Sorry about the late match report. I’ve been ill, picked up a bad case off ‘Thomasrosckiyitus’. Looked to have shaken it off tonight though but I’ve heard that this rare disease comes back in ‘waves’ every two to three weeks. So I should be ok for a little while anyway.

In all seriousness, if the blog doesn’t get updated much this week it’s because I’m in bed, dying.

On Saturday we played ‘Boro in a game that had 1-1 written all over it up to the game yet somehow we’re all praying that we wouldn’t make it 4 draws on the bounce. It’s really quite incredible. We just can’t seem to win at the moment. It’s been over two months since we’ve won in the league! For a team chasing the title that is terrible.

Draws against Birmingham, Villa, Wigan and ‘Boro have seen us fall back down into second with Man United even having the luxury of a game in hand. I was thinking, if we’d lost one of those games, I think that might’ve kicked our arses into gear a bit. Say if we lost against Villa (which we so nearly did), I’m pretty sure we would’ve beaten Wigan the following week. 1+1=2, but 0+3=3. And 3 is better than 2.

We started quite well on Saturday. We nearly went 1-0 up after 4 minutes. Adebayor found himself through in the box and stuck it away but the ref waved it offside. At this early stage in the game and not seeing the incident properly I wasn’t too fussed but the replays showed that the ball clearly came off a defender and it was a perfectly good goal. Some nonsense about van Persie intended to play it to Ade, fuck this offside bullshit, that rule really needs to sorted out.

A few minutes later Eboue’s cross hit the bar. It was the opening I was hoping for, we were going for the early goal and were showing no mercy. Eboue had a decent shot, Adebayor and Fabregas had good chances too. It looked like an Arsenal goal would be coming soon…so that’s exactly when Middlesbrough scored.

It was completely against in the run of play. In the 25th minute Schwarzer booted the ball up field, Tucay ran onto it down the left wing and squared it to Aliadiere who tapped it in the net.

I could not believe what I was watching. The same old story. I couldn’t believe it though. I just sat there with my head in my hands just wondering why. Just to rub it in, that goal was offside too. Typical.

The players probably couldn’t believe it either, it’s not like they aren’t used to it. They carried on pressuring though, a few decent chances but nothing really clinical and we went in a half time losing 1-0.

In the break Gareth Southgate quite obviously said, “Right, our new objective is to sit back and defend this one goal lead by any means necessary. The formation is now 6-3-1.” I’ve seen teams take a lead at Ashburton Grove and try defend it. However on Saturday it was so obvious it must’ve been quite embarrassing for the ‘Boro fans.

The second half continued with us going forward. ‘Boro were just sat back with 10 men in their box defending everything we could throw at them. With so many white shirts around, it was hard for us to make something decent happen and we were struggling to find that equaliser.

After an hour Wenger brought on Walcott and Bendtner. I was expecting Eboue to go off but he was moved to an attacking right back position and the other man to be replaced was van Persie; Robin didn’t have a great game on his return to The Grove looked fairly anonymous. Hope he gets his game back soon.

Bringing Theo on was always going to raise our game and his impact was obvious so obvious for all to see. He did more in his first 5 minutes on the field than Eboue had done in the whole game on that right wing.

Our first proper chance for a while came not long after those subs. Fabregas found himself one-on-one with the ‘keeper about 7 yards out with not a lot of time or space. In fact it was an incredibly similar chance to the one he had up in Wigan. Up there he just shot without much time to think and it went straight into the goalie, a similar outcome came of this attempt to.

Time ticked on and it was getting worrying. I was still quite sure we’d score the equaliser but I wanted us to win this fucking game. Draws aren’t good enough!

Fabregas hits the bar with a soft header on the edge of box. Better, but still not close enough!

In the 86th minute we finally scrambled the ball over the line. We won a corner, which Fabregas went over to take. I was watching Toure slowly make his way up the pitch, it looked like he was in two minds as to whether he should attack this corner. Anyway, he made it just in time for Cesc’s delivery and Kolo ran to meet the ball with the side of his head. With so many bodies in the box and Flamini trying to get a defining touch on the ball, the ‘keeper didn’t have a clue where it was going and we’d made it 1-1 at fucking last.

Far to late though, we did push for the second goal but we’d left the equaliser too late in the game. 10 minutes earlier and we might’ve had a chance. While we were searching for a winner, Clichy was brought down by a very careless challenge from Mido. It was a long ball coming over the top, Clichy went to head it but Mido just stuck a leg out and caught Gael badly on the head.

The ex-Tottenham man was shown a straight red for his clumsiness and Clichy was stretched off. He’s probably going to need stitches for that but I’d be incredibly surprised if he misses our next game, it’s nothing that should stop him playing.

So in the end it was 1-1. A game we really should’ve won but oh well, that just Arsenal for you at the moment. If it couldn’t get any worse we play Chelsea next. Hopefully we’ll be more up for that game though and produce something the fans can smile about. That Milan win seems a little while ago now. Build up to that one this week, I’m off back to bed. Speak to you tomorrow.