Good evening.

As promised this morning, here is my mortician’s report of Arsenal and what in the name of all that’s holy happened last night. Arsenal’s corpse was found ripped apart, limp at the wrist and one questions how little David beat big Goliath. Bradford City’s best player is a 22 year old, Bermudan forward called Nahki Wells and Arsenal boasted 100+ cap Lukas Podolski to their ranks on Tuesday evening. The chasm between both sides was massive, and the odds were stacked heavily in Arsenal’s favour.

Interestingly, before most Capital One Cup matches, Arsenal will name their squad via the official website, post pictures of the players training and host a ton of interviews for players likely to be involved in the match. For Bradford, none of this took place, with the exception of an interview with Thomas Eisfeld, a young German midfielder who impressed against Reading in the round previous and was hoping to feature against the Bantams. Was that an attempt at psyching the opposition into worrying about who they would face, for only an hour before the match to find out they would be playing Arsenal’s first team?

As I said this morning, there was a murmur going around the ground that big international players would be playing and that seemed to lift the mood a little. Okay, maybe they weren’t going to get as good a chance, if any at all, against Arsenal’s first team, but wow, they’d be playing some star names! Gary Jones vs Santi Cazorla, Nahki Wells vs Thomas Vermaelen and Wojciech Szczesny vs Matt Duke. With the excitement of the crowd rising, so did the determination of Bradford City’s players to perform well and for 120 minutes, not including penalties, they worked to the point their feet were ground down to just an ankle. No matter who you are, playing against two determined banks of four is one of the hardest, most frustrating obstacles for a football side to overcome in football. It takes a fearsome, gladiatorial amount of discipline to do that for so long and for me to moan about Arsenal’s defeat and not praise Bradford for the win would be incredibly ignorant.

Bradford City, at times, rode their luck, but they created that luck through how hard they worked. Gervinho missed an open goal, Jack Wilshere failed to shoot when through on goal, Francis Coquelin hit the base of the post in the first half and Santi Cazorla hammered the crossbar in extra time. I’m not saying Bradford only have luck to thank, but on the occasions they needed the rub of the green, they found it waiting and that’s because they earned it. Manchester United get a lot of luck because they earn it through being an outstanding football club. With luck, I always feel that in order to obtain it, you have to work for it.

On the flip side to my theory on luck, with Arsenal having hit the woodwork twice in normal time, twice on penalties and Gervinho and Wilshere missing sitters, what does that say about the quality of work that Arsenal perform? For me, a handful of smashed seats in the away end said everything that needed to be said. It wasn’t much, but the gesture pointed towards how inept Arsenal were made to look by a League Two side. Frustration took its toll and there was a point in the first half where I thought back to a few years previous in the Champions League against Sporting Braga. That night, there was a moment where Cec Fabregas plays a pass through for Jack Wilshere to go one on one with the goalkeeper. Wilshere is judged offside, (he wasn’t) but on reviewing the replay of Wilshere being called offside, there movements from Marouane Chamakh, Samir Nasri and Andrey Arshavin to move in behind the Braga defence, who sat so deep their last line of defence was 10 yards out from goal. Arsenal emerged victorious 6-0 that night; their speed of thought, physical pace and movement was outstanding and for most of the 2010/11 season, Arsenal looked one of the best teams in Europe. The Gunners beat Barcelona 2-1 at home and frighteningly, that happened just last year!!!

I didn’t see that movement in Arsenal last night, and I haven’t for most of the season. That ability to find gaps and devastate teams based on movement and rotation of positions happens because you have quality players. Money has to be spent in January.

This Arsenal team for me, is at the end of a cycle, waiting for a new dawn to begin. Arsene Wenger built such a talented team which if it had stayed together, would have won trophies last season. From the team that beat Barcelona; Gael Clichy, Alex Song, Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri, Robin van Persie and Emmanuel Eboue have left (I’m aware Eboue isn’t any good) and Andrey Arshavin, the man who scored the winner that night, is set to be sold next month. Such a talented team has been covered by a blanket with holes in it. Replacement players aren’t adequate and it feels very ‘patchwork’ at the moment in the sense that there doesn’t seem to be any balance in the team.

Night is falling at Arsenal and the sun will shine again, but will Arsene Wenger be around long enough to see the light?

See you tomorrow.

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