- We have a great array of attacking talent.

- All in all, we appear fairly well covered in midfield.

- There is no knowing how well the two new central defenders will adapt to the English game. But there can be no argument with Arsene’s transfer business in this regard: he has three central defenders, all of whom should have realistic hope of making the spot next to Thomas Vermaelen their own.

- In goal, it is frustrating that we have failed to bring anyone in. After all, it was not the case that we were simply looking to upgrade from very decent to world class. It was that manager, fans and one presumes the defence were of the feeling that someone with a clean slate was needed.

That was presumably why the manager went after and the fans were accepting of Schwarzer. Not world class, but very decent and a fresh start. But because we were not after that one world class player, the pool should have been a lot wider and really it is hard to believe that we have failed to learn from previous mistakes the danger of leaving it til the last minute and hoping things would fall into place. They so often fail to.

I do think one has to be balanced about this: continuing with Manuel Almunia will likely do us few favours, but equally it would hardly rank as football’s biggest shock were he to rediscover his form of two years ago. Were he too, it still wouldn’t be perfect, but it may just see us through til January.

Generally speaking…
I thought we deserved it. Yes, we struggled early on with the long balls (and boy were they long), but every team would to an extent. I thought we were conceding throw-ins in particular too readily against opposition who can really punish you from one.

Our opening goal…
Was a reminder of the subtlety Robin Van Persie can bring. His ball to Theo Walcott was inch perfect and really there was not a lot Blackburn could do.

Their equaliser…
Was not such a fine reflection on RVP. His half hearted attempt to track a man meant he ended up getting in the way of his teammates. Then when it came wide, Sagna was out of position and Koscielny learnt a harsh lesson. I don’t think Gael Clichy was to blame when it came into the box, though there were other occasions when he looked shaky and I really don’t think Gibbs is all that far away at all right now.

The winner…
Came courtesy of some fine attacking running from Sagna and a very decent pull back.

As for Blackburn…
I am no fan of Sam Allardyce but you have to admit his sides are always very well drilled and even when they resist the dark arts, (such as on Saturday) they’re still very hard to play against.

Another thought…
Who the hell do Stoke think they are putting in an official complaint over Wenger accusing them of rugby tactics? Whatever happened to free speech? If they don’t agree with his comments, fine, say so. But I don’t understand how it can be an issue for the authorities.

On vaguely the same note…
I am going to defend Alan Hansen over the stick he has taken over his criticism of Theo Walcott. Frankly, I don’t think he’s said anything a great many of us haven’t said previously. Watching him last season, the truth is it often looked as if football didn’t come naturally to him. We should embrace pundits who have an opinion.

Player ratings…
Almunia (7.5) did well, Sagna (8) looked really sharp, Clichy (6.5) less so. Koscielny (6.5) struggled for the goal while Vermaelen (7) looked sharp but had his own nightmare moment in the second half. Diaby (6.5) was the usual mixed bag, Song (7) was Song and Cesc (6.5) looked rusty again. Arshavin (7.5) looked livelier than against Blackpool, Theo (8) very dangerous and RVP (7) provided that pivotal pass. Sub Chamakh (7) offers more than RVP when we’re under the kosh. Rosicky (6.5) was fine and Wilshere (6.5) fluffed his lines for the second times in as many games when in front of goal but was otherwise fine.

Whereas reading too much into Liverpool (somewhere no team can go and expect to win) and Blackpool (a game where victory was essential) would have been unwise, Ewood Park could prove to be a true bellwether game.

Surrender, like we did in the same fixture a few months back during the “can’t be f***ed” phase and you worry that lessons haven’t been learned. Come through it with three points and it has been a very good start to the season.

It is, of course, simplistic to subscribe to the view that we are universally woeful away when the going gets tough: victory at Stoke last season was hardly an isolated event. But any added belief we can give ourselves will be no bad thing, not least for our captain, whose programme notes last week conspicuously did not devote a single word to what he thought our chances were this season.

When I look at the signing of Squillaci I really do wonder what exactly there is to argue about. Imagine we had signed Matthew Upson. I think we’d be reasonably happy. Well this guy is also third or fourth choice centre back for his national side but he is a year younger than Upson and has Champions League experience. I really am quite pleasantly pleased.

It means we have a genuine whiff of competition at the back. We have three guys who will all realistically think they should be filling one place and Vermaelen will know that while his place is secure, he certainly can’t become complacent.

On the keeper front, I’d dearly love to see someone arrive. Arsene protesting all of a sudden that he has four great keepers and all this talk is unfair on them seems a little rich!

But overall I’m impressed by his signings. For the first time in quite a few summers it does not feel as though the squad has been weakened.

Of course, the two new signings at the back are just that and we will have to see how they do. But it is great to have a proper complement of centre-backs. Four is enough frankly: a senior player who is happy as fifth choice at the back is rarely going to be much good anyway. Barring a season long injury, what should now happen is that the four centre-backs will exclusively fill the position, with the exception of maybe one or two games over the season where injuries and suspensions will coincide and Song will be asked to drop back. That’s no biggy.

And that is just about your lot.

More after the game tomorrow.

It was great to be back…
Watching proper competitive football at the Emirates for the first time in 19 long weeks since Arsenal beat Wolves 1-0 back in early April thanks to Nicklas Bendtner’s late, late header. Sure, I’d seen Man City and Fulham and Celtic in the meantime but frankly they really may as well not have existed. You need to be fearing dropping points and it was great to wake up yesterday with that concern hanging over me.

Pre-game…
We got the return of the North Bank, Clock End and west and east stands. It’s a welcome move – though getting the “we’re the North Bank” and “we’re the Clock End” songs going in a stadium where the two are significantly further away from each other than they previously were may not be easy.

This Arsenal side…
Going forward this Arsenal side had a very good balance of creativity (Rosicky, Arshavin), pace (Theo) and height (Chamakh). We always look at our most balanced when all those three attributes are present and it was when either pace or height were lacking last season that we sometimes looked one dimensional.

The good thing about Chamakh…
Is that unlike one or two recent Arsenal strikers, he has clearly never been under the illusion that he is technically the world’s most gifted player. The upshot is that he has no qualms lowering himself to such meanial tasks as say, closing the ball down and running the line. He did that well. Yes, he missed a couple of chances, but he was in the right places. And he nodded one in at the end, despite the oil slick on his head.

The amazing this about Blackpool was…
Their complete lack of physicality. While we should be celebrating a team not trying to kick Arsenal off the pitch, two fouls from the visitors in 90 minutes does speak of a job not properly done frankly. By contrast, we committed a far more healthy nine. And it wasn’t just their approach to us: there were times too where they would stop expecting a foul to be given their way when really there was little hope of that happening.

Theo…
Was undoubtedly given the time and space that he thrives in. But equally Theo has often been given that time and space and delivered a lot less than yesterday. All three of his finishes were excellent and by and large his crossing was much improved too. The great thing about having Chamakh in the team is that there can be no excuse for poor crossing and Theo, Sagna and even Clichy all upped their game in that regard.

One defensive wall of ours…
Featured Theo, Wilshere and Arshavin. Which is all very well when Samir Nasri is taking the free-kick in training but perhaps a little short otherwise.

Talking of Wilshere…
It struck me that in getting played in central midfield by both Bolton last season and us now, he is perhaps getting the bit of a footballing education that Joe Cole missed out on at West Ham. By that I mean by being played so deep he is learning a lot about when you release the ball, when you hold it, when you do something flash and when you don’t. I really hope he keeps his place in the side and with no slight intended at Denilson, it would be a great shame if the Brazilian slotted in straight ahead of Wilshere once fit.

Look at the boots on the sending off incident…
and you will see it was definitely Chamakh who got the touch on the ball. I also think that the part of the foul that took Chamakh down was probably just inside the box. So a penalty was the right call and obviously a red had to follow under the rules. My feelings on this are quite clear: if the ref thinks a defender has in any way deliberately tried to foul the attacker then send him off by all means, but in incidences such as these (where I think the challenge was genuine), surely a penalty suffices?

And why not, if the ref judges an incident to be a clear goalscoring chance, let him give a penalty irrespective of whether the incident was in the box? Then the cards can properly be used to judge intent. The retort is always: “you will get different refs making very different calls on whether a foul outside the box should be a penalty and so it wouldn’t work”. But the point is that they already make such a call when determining whether the same incidents warrant a red card or not.

On which note…
Without the red card I think it would have ended up around 5-1 rather than 6-0.

The emphatic nature of this victory…
Must not cloud the fact that we still need more players at the back and a new goalkeeper. I’m not saying for a second that if we get them we will be shoe-ins for the title, but the point is I just can’t see us doing it without them. More defenders simply because you need four proper central defenders at least and a new keeper because over 38 games I think Almunia and Fabianski will lose us points we can’t afford to lose.

On which note…
The Gallas transfer is only annoying because we seem so adept at losing defenders and so inept at signing them. That a guy we signed from Chelsea has gone to Spurs matters little to me. I realised over the summer that despite being one of his bigger defenders during his spell at the Emirates, he really meant very little to me emotionally.

Player ratings…
Almunia (6.5) had very little to do, Sagna (7.5) attacked well and was full of running, Clichy (7) equally so, Vermaelen (7) very comfortable and Song (6.5) fine but obviously less at home at the back and occasionally positionally suspect.

Diaby (7) got one or two groans mainly because this being Arsenal someone has to. But overall he was fine and took his goal well, Wilshere (7) was very efficient on the ball and saved the fancy stuff for the right parts of the pitch. Rosicky (7.5) was very bright before the break and will be pleased to get 90 minutes, Andrei (7) set-up the first, scored the second and generally had the look of a brow beaten minimum wage worker.

Theo (9) fails to get top marks only because of the level of opposition, while Chamakh (7) looks an ideal fit for what we need. A year ago I thought his arrival unnecessary. In hindsight I was wrong: with Bendtner and RVP missing for key games, his presence would have avoided the sorry sight of Eduardo or Arshavin toiling away on their own up front and may just have got us a few vital points.

RVP (6) and Cesc (6.5) were feeling their way back into action and Carlos Vela (6.5) came on for a kick about and was destined to score a fantastic goal until he had to use his right foot.

Final thought…
Blackburn away next week is our first real test: losing at Liverpool would have been no disaster, winning yesterday was obligitary and expected. But Ewood Park is the first of what I’d term our “swing” fixtures.

Overall, 1-1 at Anfield is not a bad result…
… Irrespective of how long they played with ten men.

But…
… We would do well to note that for all the platitudes for our first
half performance from the likes of David Pleat, we created absolutely
zilch. Liverpool at least could point to Clichy clearing off the line
and an Almunia tip over. While it is preposterous to think you can go
to Anfield and create a hatful of chances, it is worth asking why we
didn’t create any.

Red cards often make life no easier…
… Just remember how we were galvanised by Adebayor’s dismissal in
the same fixture two years ago. I thought Cole definitely deserved to
go. Whether or not so and so is that sort of player is utterly
irrelevant except from the point of view that it is now abundantly
clear that you don’t have to be that kind of player to make that kind
of tackle. Koscielny’s leg was crunched between both of Cole’s and it
was only good fortune that prevented a serious injury.

The decision seemed the correct one: a red card and a suspension seems
a fair attempt at deterring such reckless, if not ill intentioned,
tackles. That Liverpool are appealing the red card really is pretty
incredible.

While we’re on that subject…
… At the current rate I’d be surprised if Jack Wilshere survives
until Christmas without a red card of his own. None of his tackles
yesterday were particularly bad but he seems to get away with being
minute and young at the moment when referees dig their cards out.

Talking of Wilshere…
He now looks like a unique football breeding experiment between
Arsenal and Bolton. One moment he’ll be shifting the ball
Arsenalesquely in small triangles, the next he’ll be hoofing it clear
60 yards when defending a corner.

It was the former description of Wilshere…
That saw him gift Liverpool possession in the run up to their goal.
Still though, it should never have been fatal. Manuel Almunia clearly
got something wrong with his positioning from Ngo’s shot and to be
honest, it was no great surprise. The thing about the goalkeeping
situation is that not even Arsene has been trying to convince us he
has two outstanding candidates for number one who he is struggling to
pick between. It is basically the battle of who he considers the least
shit and I can’t believe the saga has done either of the keepers much
good.

So we simply…
Have to buy someone. Frankly almost anyone so long as they come with a
clean slate. You only had to see Sagna’s unnecessarily panicked late
header to realise just quite how little the defenders believe in the
man behind them.

Our fight back…
Was pretty poor frankly. It was hard to argue a single player was
really pulling their weight, even if I was able to correctly call
Eboue and Wilshere as the subs. Should he have pulled Sagna instead
and put Eboue at right-back? Quite possibly.

One player who did make a difference…
Was Tomas Rosicky interestingly enough. By far and away our most
direct and driven player he should take a hefty dose of credit for our
belated fightback that in the end yielded a draw.

There was nothing lucky about the goal…
Until the final act in which Reina palmed it over the line. What went
before was ugly, but exactly the kind of goal many teams forge from
somewhere when they are in a pickle. It is worth remembering too that
this was far from the first time that we have found a late equaliser
when not exactly looking likely to. We have a knack of doing it that
is more than pure luck.

And so to the player ratings…
… Almunia (5) struggled and not just for the goal. One moment caused
that tightening around my heart quite unique to watching Arsenal and
absent for the past three months of my life (even when getting
engaged!) Sagna (6.5) was fine on the whole I thought, Vermaelen (7)
too and Koscielny (8) really rose to the occasion on his debut,
looking calm and confident but never too calm or too confident. We
will come to his red card in a minute.

Gael Clichy…
… Didn’t have a particularly great game (6) going forward and I want
to dwell a little on this. SKY were yesterday pushing the same idea
that what hope is there for Kieran Gibbs when he has Gael Clichy ahead
of him? The answer, which you’d have thought would come fairly
naturally to SKY, is that it is all about competition. If Kieran Gibbs
can do something Gael Clichy can’t he will get his chance. And the
point is he is very arguably a better attacker than Clichy. If he can
improve defensively in the same way Clichy did while Cole’s
understudy, Gibbs has a very decent chance of ousting the Frenchman by
the end of this season or perhaps next.

The midfield…
Wilshere gets a (6) – he did well enough but looked a little green,
Abou (6.5) was a mixed bag, Nasri (7) was good but ineffective
ultimately in the first half, Eboue (6) had his moments but faded and
Arshavin (5) was frankly hopeless. He looked knackered, but then again
he looked knackered in those photos taken on the first day of
pre-season training.

Chamakh (7)…
… Gets a good mark for fashioning a goal at Anfield on his debut.
Otherwise, he still looked like he was getting used to his new team.

Theo Walcott (7)…
… Offered more zip and urgency. And in his time off over the summer appears to have learned the rare skill of side footing a football.
Expect to see it repeated often. Rosicky (8) made a big difference in
the business end of the match, crossing for the goal and drawing an
excellent save a minute or two earlier. RVP (6) had little time to
make an impression.

Koscielny’s red card…
… Really was absurd, if for no other reason than it wasn’t even a
deliberate handball. How Martin Atkinson can make such a call (in such
an innocuous area of the pitch) is beyond me. Especially given the
utter inconsistency with Ngo’s one that both ref and lino saw but
chose not to card. But of course we can’t appeal because it was a
second yellow. Ridiculous.

And finally…
… Arsene arguably broke all records with his formation at the end:
two strikers, one forward, one winger and two attacking midfielders
were his front six. Brilliant.

Uncertainty of any kind never does anyone any favours and the news will reassure the players we have and the players we might try to sign.

His committment is welcome and his place as one of the greatest figures in the club’s history rightly secure.

That said, even total loyalists would admit it is impossible to conceive any further extension beyond 2014 being agreed before silverware of some sort has been landed.

- A squad that conceded 41 goals last season has lost three central defenders and gained just one. The manager admits we need to buy at least one more and there is realistic expectation he will do so. But he hasn’t yet and that means that with Djourou injured, we are forced to start Koscielny at Anfield, whether we want to or not.

And while for all the world you would think we will sign a centre-back, it is perfectly plausible we won’t, because as we all know it’s better to have a whopping great hole in the squad than a player who conforms to anything less than Arsene’s idea of technical perfection.

- An already dire goalkeeping situation has been made worse. The best goalkeeper at the club was Manuel Almunia and yet his already shaky confidence has been done few favours by two things: the first is the fact that we want a new keeper and the second that even among the four we have, he is battling it out with Fabianski to be number one.

Of course, there should be upsides to Almunia’s pain. That upside would be firstly if we had actually signed someone and secondly if Fabianski looked in any way ready. Neither is the case. As it is, our chances of landing our main goalkeeping target depend on a favour from Mark Hughes.

In the meantime, it is hard to believe a defence who appeared to have already lost confidence in the keepers behind them will be greatly inspired.

- Whether Cesc Fabregas will deliver us a rip roaring season is pivotal to our chances and yet has never been less certain. These things can go either way after the kind of summer he has had and what is abundantly clear is that for all the talk of Barcelona, his displeasure at what was going on at Arsenal contributed to his desire to leave. Given the problems I have outlined above, it is hard to believe the captain will have been greatly reassured by his manager’s dealings in the transfer market this summer.

That said, he is a model professional who will pride himself on giving his best.

- We are side coming up off an appalling collapse at the end of last season that I am not really sure has been addressed.

And now the plus points:

- Chamakh in and Eduardo out should be a step in the right direction. The former looks better suited to playing the lone front man role and frankly when Bendtner and RVP were missing last season we struggled for goals in what is a very specialist position.

- Watching us in pre-season you are reminded that we do have an extraordinary array of attacking talent, who despite one or two sticky spells last season, generally do turn up with goals.

- We were right up there until three four games to go last season.

Conclusion:

I am someone who will never predict the outcome of a single Arsenal match for fear of jinxing it but am happy to be far more candid at this stage of the season.

This year, I would far rather make my prediction when the transfer window closes and we know whether we have signed a keeper and a central defender.

But I will make a prediction based on what we know now: the best case scenario in the league is a repeat of last season. But I can also envisage (and this is the first time I have said this in all my season previews) us dropping out the top four.

I make that judgement on the premise that a squad that were not good enough to win it last year looks, on balance, no stronger.

In a fortnight’s time Cesc may be firing on all cylinders and those signings made. I hope to be more optimisitic then.

Sadly, certain people who you’d think would welcome Arsenal finally contributing to England have found something new to moan about.

Bemoaning the lack of regular Premier League and Champions League football played by the likes of Gibbs and Wilshere, Alan Shearer says:

“It is the age-old problem of foreign imports taking priority over home-grown talent and I cannot see it changing because the pressure on managers to deliver instant success is greater than ever.”

Jack Wilshere is only 18. He first played Premier League football and Champions Leaugue football at 16. He played almost an entire second half of the season for Bolton in the Premier League last season, signing four weeks after turning 18. Ok, so Rooney and Fabregas started a year earlier, but hardly a late starter.

Kieran Gibbs is 21 next month but actually his football career stalled nine months ago when a frustrated Standard Liege player kicked him out of the season. When he resumes it he will fight it out for the left back berth with current France international Gael Clichy. Quite a few people think that within a year he will have won that fight and will be the Arsenal left-back.

What is there to argue about?

Commenting coincidentally after seeing four of his own players dropped from the squad, Harry Redknapp said: “It’s unusual that players not in their club’s team are in the England squad.

“‘Wilshere is a good prospect but I thought England were supposed to be better than than any club side. Maybe Arsenal are better than England.”

One of those was Peter Crouch. He was fit to play apart in every one of Tottenham’s 38 league games last season. He started just 21 of them.

Nice one Arry.

On Cesc, the quotes that I think really matter are buried at the bottom of his roughly £10,000 a pop interview with yesterday’s Sun. The vast majority of it is the same stuff from the statement, but right at the end we get:

“The boss is convinced we can mount a strong title challenge this season and I will do everything I can to help make
that happen.

“I had lots of heart-to heart talks with Arsene Wenger throughout all of this. Some of them on the phone, some of
them face-to-face.

“They will always remain private but it is fair to say that he really believes Arsenal will make a strong challenge for
the title this year. I really hope he’s right.

“I’m an ambitious person and I have only won one trophy in my seven years at Arsenal — and that was the FA Cup.
That’s not a good enough return and we need to address that and urgently.”

Put bluntly he’s saying: I don’t honestly think we have any chance of winning the title.

It is a theme I havbe touched on a few times this summer: for all the talk of returning to the club and city he loves, the major distinction between us and Barca is that they win things and we don’t.

Cesc Fabregas is far too respectful of Arsene Wenger to explicitly question his direction. But those quotes above are thinly veiled. They say: “I didn’t believe we could win this title at the end of last season and having seen the signings thus far, I don’t believe we can do it now.” You can well understand the sentiment.

For me this really is the big issue: not whether he will be thinking about Barcelona but whether he will be believing Arsenal can do it.

(An apology – pointedly not for wanting to leave but instead for the uncertainty. A good, clear start though.)

“I cannot deny that joining a club like Barcelona was not an attractive move for me.”

(Leave aside the fact that the above sentence gets so tangled in negatives that it appears to suggest he had no interest in Barcelona. It is an honest admission, admittedly one that could hardly be denied, but honest nonetheless.)

“This was the club where I learnt my football, it is my home town where my friends and family are and a club where I have always dreamed of playing. There are not many players in this world who would not want to play for Barcelona.”

(This is the explanation that suits both Cesc and Arsenal. Put crudely, he doesn’t have to say we were crap at the end of last season and we don’t have to acknowledge that same point.

My major question is: does Cesc believe in Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal project? Nothing in Cesc’s statement indicates that he shares the optimism of teammates such as RVP and Thomas Vermaelen. This is no criticism of Cesc: after the monumental effort he put in last season it must have been heartbreaking to watch from Barcelona as we simply gave up.)

“I have had many conversations with Arsène Wenger both in person and over the phone over the last few months and although the content of those conversations will remain private, the conclusion is that Barcelona have had two formal offers rejected by Arsenal.”

(Interesting to note how for all the chatter and the supposed leaks, nobody appeared aware of a second bid being turned down. We now know through Barca’s web site that the second bid was £33 million. Simply not enough in my book and the player would do well to reflect how Barcelona were happy to see him express his desire to leave but seemoingly in no position to make a bid that stood any chance of success.)

“I am a professional and I fully understand that it is Arsenal’s prerogative not to sell me.”

(This, for me, is a crucial point. While my instinct is that freedom of labour is very important, Cesc signed a long term contract with us not very long ago and as he himself appears to admit, his desire to leave is borne purely out of preference rather than any great change in personal circumstances that might make a desire to leave more understandable.)

“I owe a lot to the Club, manager and the fans and I will respect their decision and will now concentrate on the new season ahead with Arsenal.”

(This is a really crucial point. Keeping Cesc will count for little or nothing unless he is able to concentrate fully and recapture the desire that so drove him last season. I do worry that it could be easier said than done.)

“I can assure all the fans that now the negotiations have ended I will be 100 percent focused on playing for Arsenal.”

(For how long? He should rule out the possibility of a January transfer and guarantee he will be at the club until next summer.)

“I am an Arsenal player and as soon as I step out on to the pitch, that is the only club I will be thinking about.

“I am looking forward to the start of the season and putting this speculation behind me.”

(While this hasn’t been much fun for us as fans, I suspect it’s been no bundle of fun for Cesc either. I can’t imagine he would have expressed his desire to leave unless he really believed a transfer was going to happen. That it hasn’t has left him in an awkward place.)

Conclusion:

Can a guy, who everyone knows doesn’t want to be at a club, captain a club? Can a captain impress on the youngsters at a club what an honour it is to wear the shirt when they know he wishes he didn’t have to?

Those are hard questions to answer I think.

Arsene faces a big challenge to get Cesc’s head right. Cesc faces an equally big challenge to get his head right.

In one sense, it will be the biggest football challenge he has ever faced. But he will be conscious too that Barca’s interest this summer was on the back of an excellent 2009-10 season and that any future interest is unlikely to be unconditional.