Clearly, it was a good comeback.

On the refereeing issues, I’d say this:

- Dunne simply had to get a straight red for the Ramsey penalty incident. Once you’ve ruled his contribution illegal, the question is whether Ramsey would have had a clear goalscoring chance had he not been there. Of course he would have.

- I don’t get the fuss over the RVP incident. The top part of his arm is near enough vertical. Had it been horizontal and had he properly swung it then fine. But he didn’t.

I don’t think you can stress the importance of the FA Cup to us. We’re not going to win the league. And we’re not realistically very likely to win the Champions League.

Come the end of season reckoning, the FA Cup, or lack of it, could make all the difference.

So I’ll leave it at that.

CREDIT first of all to Swansea. I’d say this defeat was 60% the product of their excellence, 40% the product of our ineptitude.

To me it felt as if today was the day when the paper that had covered our cracks finally gave way. I felt Swansea deserved it. Again we failed to capitalise on a lead – in our last seven league games we haven’t once scored two successive goals. Yes, we were potentially unfortunate on the penalty but there was still more than enough time to regroup, improve and win the game.

So on the penalty, the first thing to say is that whether or not the decision was right, it was certainly reasonable. I’ve long believed that reasonableness, rather than right or wrong, is a better barometer for measuring decisions. And on this occasion I don’t think any objective person, on first glance, would have said the penalty decision was unreasonable.

Now, on much closer inspection, it appeared that perhaps Dyer had caught Ramsey, rather than vice-versa. But (and I realise some of you will ridicule what I’m about to say), I think those super close-ups may have been misleading and that actually Ramsey had indeed got into Dyer’s space, rather than vice versa and that the first glance was actually correct.

Anyway, that’s my take.

So a few personnel thoughts:

Szczesny – that was very, very, very poor for the third goal. He just started off in a woeful position and it gifted them a goal (it was very unlikely to go in had he been properly positioned).

Full-backs – we’re really suffering at the moment. Miquel is trying gamely but is not one, Djourou is even less of one.

Arteta-Song-Ramsey is a nearly acceptable midfield. Benayoun-Song-Ramsey clearly is not. Nor was the replacement like for like either: the injured Coquelin or the unwisely loaned Frimpong would have better impersonated Arteta’s role in the team.

This may sound harsh and reactionary but it is what I’ve thought for a while: we should be very open to finding better options than Ramsey, Arteta and yes, even Song. I’m not saying they are not good enough, just that they are not in the class of player who you just wouldn’t waste your time thinking of an improvement for. Wilshere, for example, falls into that category.

The friend I watched the game with asked “what is Ramsey there for?” I think that harsh but the fact is his record of one league goal this season is poor. It is also true (and this is Wenger’s rather than Ramsey’s fault) that he never actually won his place in the team. He didn’t oust anyone to get it. Instead, it became his by default when Cesc and Nasri left and Wilshere got injured. I do think he has promise, but whether, at 21 he should be starting every game for Arsenal, I’m not so sure.

Our wingers: Yes, I know Theo scored today (nice finish but would have been poor not to score) and yes, I know our wingers haven’t had proper full-backs behind them for ages. But the fact is they’re not performing. And yet still Oxlade-Chamberlain can’t get a game. In fact, I almost wonder if it would be easier for him to get one were the likes of Walcott and Arshavin playing well. At least then Oxlade could be drafted in without it appearing either of the other two had been dropped for poor form, which in the sometimes hierarchical world of Arsenal seems to be an issue.

Henry: People will have all sorts of opinions on him, usually based solely on whether or not he has scored. On Monday I thought he looked rusty but took his goal very well. Today he looked sharper I thought and what failings there were in his appearance seemed no greater than the team’s in general.

Wenger: I’m afraid that today we saw the bad Wenger of the past few seasons return. The one who, when his team is struggling, seems to become a hindrance rather than a help. The one who gets obsessed with minor issues of whose throw-in it is and who reacts to refereeing decisions in an embarrassingly extreme fashion. No manager likes losing, but when we need inspiration he too often appears like the last man we’d want to turn to.

It was as if he knew the cracks he had papered were being exposed.

Over and over again it has replayed that moment. And why not? It was one of those moments that would have punctured any normality, even one where we were in the middle of a title scrap. A Chelsea supporting colleague said that it would have been like Zola returning and while a part of me wanted to point out that I considered Henry’s legend a little greater, I took his point.

It was the stuff of childish fantasy. The kind of story so many of us would have written in English classes at school had the teacher been naive enough to prescribe an essay subject sufficiently ill defined that Arsenal could be brought into it.

But there ain’t nothing more likely to bring one back down to earth with a jolt than the realisation that Spurs are nine points ahead of us. Now, nine points may sound like only a very mild Aprilesque collapse by our recent standards but generally speaking it is a fair whack.

In fairness to Spurs, they’ve done very well and being behind them perse is no great disgrace. It should also be pointed out that because of their failure to qualify for a second successive Champions League campaign last season (Arsene has managed something like 14 on the trot), they haven’t had to balance their league challenge with a serious assault (the Europa League does not count) on a European trophy.

That we are still in the Champions League should at least warrant some degree of credit when that nine point gap is looked at.

But the point is, I think, that we’re very obviously lacking goals at the moment and I can’t see any great reason not to bring in another striker if one can be found. He’s hardly going to “kill” Thierry Henry, to coin that horrible Wengerism most famously applied to Denilson.

In fact, from what I can see there is no player, young or otherwise, who is just a few games away from striking maturity and could be damaged by the arrival of another forward. Said arrival could hardly make Chamakh’s form any worse either.

So go for it Arsene. Handbrake off.

FROM GOODPLAYA AT THE EMIRATES

WHO knows how the cameo will end. Perhaps he will be found out against United or in the San Siro. Perhaps he’ll see red – possibly for two bookable glares. Or maybe the whole circus will implode on itself.

But on this night, it was beautiful. And not because we’re half way through a season of few competing highlights. No. For any club the sight of their greatest ever player returning to assume his former majesty would evoke scenes as wild as we witnessed last night.

Really if you were a Gooner who didn’t enjoy this, I’d suggest you’ve forgotten what it is that first drew you to the game of football. For this was the stuff of a million children’s dreams. From his departure in May 1992 right up until his tragic death nine years later I always held out the vaguest of hopes that the wrong that was the selling of David Rocastle to Leeds would one day be righted and that he would return to where he belonged.

I arrived, deliberately, unusually early for this game. I’m going to be missing from the Emirates for the United and Blackburn games and I figured that if he’s still not still around for the Spurs game, this was the only time I’d see him and even then it wasn’t guaranteed he’d get on. So I decided to get there for the warm up. And it was odd, almost moving really. I hadn’t, if I’m honest, until now come close to being moved while watching Arsenal this season. But now I was.

On the pitch, we weren’t up to much. In Chamakh, Arshavin and Chamberlain we had a front trio with no form whatsoever to draw on. And at the back we were missing Sagna, Jenkinson, Gibbs, Santos, Mertersacker, Vermaelen and Djourou. And before long the energetic Coquelin too. Only in central midfield were things normal.

Early on Arshavin was presented with a not dissimilar chance to the one Robert Pires lashed in when he opened the scoring against Leeds in April 2004, a game Henry scored four in. But the Russian fired wildly over. Other presentable chances came and went and while the oles from the Leeds fans seemed (even if intended ironically), somewhat premature, we were toiling.

We cranked it up in the second half but too often decision making was poor. Too many a shot headed for the near post or just wide of it, while others from range were hit with the player in such a position that he had no hope of finding the target.

The Leeds kit was a right eyesore, not helped by the clashing referee and by the Leeds subs warming up on the touchline standing stationary three in a row in front of us whenever anything interesting happened. Warm-up or siddannnn.

I called the double sub correctly. Chamberlain was unlucky to be withdrawn and really only was because it would have been too great a slight on Theo had he been kept on the bench while Henry was brought on ahead of him. So in the event we got a double sub. Clearly, it was not too great a slight on Park, who seems to be somewhere in between Kaba Diawara and Cliff Bastin in the current pecking order.

And then following one offside run, one successful lay off, an overhit through ball he couldn’t get and another moment when the Emirates crowd gave a hearty “man on”, it happened.

Right in front of us.

Song’s perfect ball, the kind of first touch that Theo Walcott aspires to and then the finish perfectly placed across the keeper.

Cue pandemonium. I make no bones about it: this was hug thy neighbour stuff.

And you know it was a really, really good finish. Not some tap in from a yard out.

The game finished with us again apparently incapable of keeping the ball and running down the clock. Not surprisingly given the state of our defence, Leeds fashioned a couple of chances too.

There was just time for a slightly frustrated kick out from Henry (no more than a yellow) but not before he’d picked the ball up and briefly turned on the burners as he headed for the corner flag. That brought back memories.

All in all, dreadful game, poor performance (midfield tried hard in fairness), fairytale story.

When he left in 2007 I remember mournfully writing of my sorrow that we’d never again see the finest specimen to (in my view) ever wear an Arsenal shirt. I doubted if we’d ever see another as consistently good as him.

Even when he re-signed, I told myself we’d be getting the same man but a different player.

And he is different. But in that vintage finish and the run at the end, he was there again. Perhaps, in my case as I’ll miss the next two home games, for one night only. But he was undoubtedly there. It was unmistakable.

Odd but exhilarating, it felt almost as if either he or we had time travelled.

Either way, a memory that will endure for a long, long time.

Assuming he makes at least a cameo appearance over the next six and a half weeks, Thierry Henry will join the likes of David O’Leary, John Lukic, Tony Adams, Lee Dixon, Martin Keown and Nigel Winterburn in enjoying an Arsenal career spanning three decades.

When your second, third and fourth longest serving players are John Djourou, Abou Diaby and Theo Walcott, then (with all due respect to those three), there can feel something a little transient about the squad, particularly for those of us who grew up thinking Arsenal careers that lasted well over a decade were the norm. So the resigning of Henry – who played alongside Adams, Dixon, Winterburn, Keown and yes, even Lukic – at the very least should make many of us feel that little bit less old for a few moments, at least until we’re reminded of the fact that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s mother gave birth to her son in the hours after that unforgettable opening day 3-0 defeat to Coventry at Highbury in 1993.

Going back to Henry, I was reminded yesterday that if he plays Leeds, it will be the first time since he personally stuck four past them one magical night nearly eight years ago. I was in the West Upper that day and as he surged through the Leeds defence again and again people just looked at each other in wonderment. That night was classic Invincibles: in some senses it wasn’t a great performance but we could just up it at any moment.

So what of the current Henry? I said on the Arsecast last week that were it just about any other Premier League club, there would be none of the agonising over whether or not the signing was the right one or not. They’d have gladly taken him.

We can’t expect the old Henry. But his game was always about a lot more than mere pace and one would hope he has adapted suitably. His ego will have to adapt a little too.

It should be interesting.

NO COMPLAINTS here. We got exactly what we deserved and the closest we came to misfortune was the fact that we rode our luck for so long that when it finally went we no longer had time to regroup and try and claw our way back into the game.

As someone who has spent the last few months arguing against the oft trotted out view that we are over reliant on Robin Van Persie, I’d now like to admit that I am wrong. I say am wrong rather than was wrong because if you look at the stats (and frankly I don’t have the time right now to go over them in fine detail), we were scoring a fair few goals from other sources just a few short weeks ago.

But they’ve dried up of late, in no small part because the wingers, who should be chipping in plenty, have been woeful. Gervinho’s decision making has been dreadful. Yes, he should have had a penalty yesterday. But he managed to fall in such a way that you could see why the referee didn’t feel confident giving it. Theo must surely be testing the faith of even the most devout Theoists and I’ve barely mentioned Arshavin’s terribleness of late because it seems to be a point of so little disagreement that it has hardly warranted discussion.

Yes, that last paragraph is harsh. But true I think.

In recent seasons you could look at defeats like this and question the commitment of the players. Thankfully, I don’t think that was the problem yesterday. It was not so much a lack of effort, but a lack of end product.

There was also a significant failure in the second half to stem the tide. It was something we saw against QPR, where we appeared incapable of slowing the game down and keeping possession. We need to learn to do that.

And clearly we need to invest in a couple of positions and get a lot more out of some of our players.

From Goodplaya at the Emirates

The games are coming fast at the moment and this one already feels a while ago. In part that is probably because it was quite unremarkable for long patches.

We weren’t great really. Midfield was a bit slow and the wings were frankly poor. They have been of late. Gervinho finished very poorly from a couple of yards wide very late on. Before that Theo Walcott had pulled his shot very poorly wide when one on one. Far be it for me to lecture on how to finish a one on one, but one thing the best strikers (such as Henry) seem to be able to do is to allow defenders to get very close to them but then to simultaneously fend them off while finishing the chance. Theo seemed to feel his only chance of scoring was to shoot before the defenders got anywhere near.

RVP looked the most dangerous but was off target on a couple of occasions. But not when Arshavin (who I must put on record has of late been as poor as he has looked disinterested) weighted a very nice ball through that the captain slotted home.

And that by and large was the sum of it. I should say I thought Coquelin did well and again there were no real qualms to be had with our effort, even if at times late on we really struggled to keep the ball late on.

All in all, this was not one to linger long in the memory but it was crucial to win given results elsewhere both yesterday and today.

Onto Fulham.

But first I need your nominations, which you can make by clicking on “comments” below. Please list the player and the game (including a date if possible) and in around 100 words wax lyrical about why it should be considered as one of the greatest ever performances by an Arsenal player.

Of course, you can vote for great goalscoring feats. But it could also be a great midfield, defensive or goalkeeping performance. The quality of the performance is of course paramount but do think about the stage and the occasion too. It can be from any year and should be one performance from one player in one game.

I’ll draw up a long list from the suggestions, which I’ll then open to voting.

Nominate away!

FROM GOODPLAYA AT THE EMIRATES

ONE of those days this. Yes, you can blame us for not killing the game off at 1-0. But really 19 times out of 20 we’d have still won this game. It wasn’t the making of chances that was a problem – it was the taking of them.

And on that note one can lash out looking for explanations but that can only get one so far when it becomes apparent that the most obvious reason for us failing to win the game was Robin Van Persie failing to take any of a number of very presentable openings. I mean I could very well sit here and tell Robin Van Persie what he should have done when pulling down a Tomas Rosicky through ball but frankly he knows what he is doing there and he just had an off day. It was the same with Henry. He’d occasionally side foot a presentable chance wide and people would start trying to tell him how to hit the ball across a goalkeeper.

While I’m on the subject of RVP, I’d just like to ask frankly who cares about this calendar year record? Football is not played over calendar years, it is played over seasons that run from August to May. A player who plays well from January to December but is poor either side is frankly little use. Or to give a more practical example, Samir Nasri. Except that his good period was in fact only really August to December and didn’t include the end of the previous season. So that is not such a good example. In short, this is football statistics for the sake of football statistics, not as an actual arbiter of the brilliance of a particular player but just a statistic that means nothing.

And breathe.

Our opener was lovely. Fast play from Rosicky, then Benayoun and finally Gervinho. Nothing to argue with there. Wolves were enjoying possession without looking like scoring and we appeared content to pick them off when they left gaps. Wolves were giving it everything but we were matching them physically.

And if you look at their goal, I’m not sure we did that much wrong. We headed out the corner, Rosicky got a decent toe to the ball initially and then when Hunt shot, two Arsenal players threw themselves in the ball’s way. Were I to be pernickety and to indulge one of my obsessions, I’d point out that one of our players (Koscielny?) jumped side on to block Hunt’s shot, making it a little more likely that it would ricochet off in a random direction.

Even then, we were unfortunate. It flew straight onto the head of their man, who thanks to some fine reactions and a bit of luck put it into the only part of the net Szczesny couldn’t get to.

As I said above, I’m not sure we did a whole lot wrong in the second half. Yes, you looked at bits of our play and thought that this player or that player would have helped but ultimately we created the chances and outstanding keeping and poor finishing from a surprising source in particular was to blame. And luck too: the keeper didn’t have a prayer for Arshavin’s effort that flew just wide.

It is also worth noting that by and large we avoided the temptation to play too narrowly. Amen to that.

Now, onto the controversy.

I should start by saying that I actually thought Stewart Atwell took a lot of unfair stick for the red card (subsequently rescinded) that he recently doled out to Bolton’s Gary Cahill for a foul on Scott Parker a long, long way from goal. For me Cahill had no other intention than to deliberately stop a very promising Spurs attack and so I couldn’t understand why he warranted any sympathy.

Today, Atwell struggled. I haven’t yet seen replays of the alleged penalties so can’t comment. I think Song was pretty lucky to stay on the pitch because really both his tackles were little more than frustrated hacks at his opponents dressed up as attempted tackles. It was poor on his part.

And then there was their red card which looks particularly bad given Song stayed on the pitch. I don’t think it was the worst decision ever because in a sense Arteta getting out the way of it made it look less bad than it potentially could have been. But nonetheless, it was no more than a yellow.

As I said, I can’t comment on the penalties. But I was baffled by other decisions, for example the refusal to book one of their players when he grabbed RVP (I think) round the chest as he ran at goal outside their area. And he really let things go on the time wasting, spending far too long talking to the players and not realising how much time was being wasted. The red card alone took up two minutes and there were loads of other incidents that merited more than six minutes being added on.

I’m not saying that with more injury time we’d have won the game (we probably wouldn’t) but there is something staggering about Atwell booking Hennessey for time wasting in the middle of six minutes of injury time and then playing exactly six minutes of injury time and so by definition not adding on any more time for the time wasting. Baffling frankly.

But then the whole thing of added on time is just another example of the arbitrariness of football’s rules. This is what FIFA’s rules have to say on the issue:

Allowance is made in either period for all time lost through:
• substitutions
• assessment of injury to players
• removal of injured players from the fi eld of play for treatment
• wasting time
• any other cause

The allowance for time lost is at the discretion of the referee.

If you compare the first and last sentences you’ll see that they’re entirely contradictory.

But anyway, I digress and I guess I really should talk about Thierry Henry.

Hard as it is, one needs to try to remove sentiment from any decision about whether to take him back. And by that I also mean any fears that his legacy could be affected by him returning. Football is about the now, not the past. In short, on balance, I’d say I can’t see a great number of better options so I’d probably go for it.