Until the defending is resolved, we’ll get nowhere. Match report and player ratings.

THE only real question that seems salient to me right now is: “Have we sorted out our defending?”

As long as the answer remains “no”, we will continue to bob along, winning a few, losing a few more and frankly doing nothing. When there are signs that the defending is coming together, then we can start looking forwards.

Sadly, on the evidence of the North London derby, we’re no nearer sorting things out. There are real basics that we’re simply failing to do. Stopping short corners, tracking runners at throws, challenging properly on the edge of the box, marking in the box. I could go on and on.

As is almost always the case in these situations, the problems are exacerbated by misfortune. We are unlucky to have three of our four central defenders injured, unluckier still that with Song moving back to cover, his obvious replacement in the defensive midfield role (Wilshere) is injured too. And yes, we were unlucky on the first goal. Television can do a lot but it can’t yet clear up the question of whether incidents such as it were handball or chest ball. However if you look where the ball landed, it would have taken one improbably pert pectoral muscle to drop it right into Rafael Van Der Vaart’s path quite like that.

But overall we can have few complaints. We always appeared liable to concede. Even in our purple patches letting one in always looked plausible. And while Szczesny will readily admit he should have done better for the winner, it is also the case that a great deal of shabbiness had gone before it, from the midfield failing to track the run from the throw and Gervinho’s meek attempt at a tackle just before Walker let fly.

As for an answer to our defensive woes, I wish I had one. They clearly go way beyond simply saying we need to do a bit more of this and a bit less of that. Instead they appear entrenched and endemic. How one gets out of them I don’t know.

I did think our efforts at 2-1 fairly poor. Time and time again we attempted to rewrite the rules of football by knocking straight balls through the middle of the pitch. It never worked and yet we just carried on with it. And why was Mertersacker up front? It appeared ill thought out and if anything only added to our lack of shape.

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