Aston Villa 1 - 2 Arsenal: Three points despite abject display.

That was pretty crap, wasn't it?

The performance from first whistle to last wasn't anywhere near the calibre that Arsenal had been showing in the last couple of months. I'd say this is probably the worst we've performed for a while now.

Putting aside the fact we won for the moment, let's look at where we went wrong this evening.

To start off with, there were obvious problems down our flanks. Charles N'Zogbia, always prone to performing well against us, gave Coquelin a torried time of it. Walcott didn't come back often enough to help out his full back. On the other side, Vermaelen didn't quite have the same problems with Albrighton but still struggled to keep him quiet. Gervinho also didn't help out much. Both of Villa's wingers got good crosses in and created some trouble for Koscielny and Mertesacker.

Villa didn't score of these chances, but kept coming back. Arsenal did a poor job in midfield, both in winning the ball back and in controlling possession. Frimpong looked slack in his positioning and very poor in his passing. This highlights how much of a miss Song actually is. Song not only brings discipline to the midfield, but also doubles up as a very good user of the ball and is dependable at playing out from the back.

Arteta tried to exercise the usual calm and class in there, but both of his mates let him down. Frimpong as highlighted above, and Ramsey, who despite covering a lot of ground, was also sloppy with the ball and failed to create anything.

With the midfield failing, the attackers were always going to be isolated. Van Persie wasn't helped with his fellow forwards Walcott and Gervinho also having poor games, doing very little in both defensive and offensive capacities.

All this combined resulted in a poor display that really made Villa look better than they are. The reason for this? Well, the most likely reason is tiredness.

I thought that we would be completely sharp tonight since the City game will have taken a lot out of the team. Remember that this has happened on two notable ocassions this season: the Marseille game after the win at Chelsea, and the Fulham game after the win at home agaisnt Dortmund. Evidently, these big games are exhausting affairs and with the same starting eleven playing near enough every game, putting in the same level of performance is difficult.

Still, despite the poorness of the performance, we still managed to pull two goals out of somewhere. Both from set-pieces, actually.

Winning ugly is not a bad thing
While we're all condemning the poor display tonight, let's not lose sight of the fact that every now and again, you have to win ugly. You have to find ways of winning games when you're not playing well, or when things are going against you. Arsenal did so tonight, by scoring from two set-pieces. How often do we do that? Not very.

To win ugly with so many injuries, with such a poor display, is a hugely positive thing.

Rosicky and Benayoun should start more often
Our depth issues are well documented. However, that doesn't mean we should play the same team in every game. Consistency is nice, yes, but these guys can't play every single game without getting fatigued or injured and having their performance effected as a result.

Rosicky and Benayoun are two players who may not be of the greatest quality, but both have done well in the limited time they've had on the pitch and thus deserve more minutes, especially with Ramsey struggling a little bit and the form of Gervinho and Walcott being up and down. Rosicky looked good when he came on tonight, and Benayoun scored the winning goal. Let's give them more of a go.

Player Ratings
Wojciech Szczesny - 7. Dominanted his area tonight and made a couple of good saves.

Per Mertesacker - 6. Made a mess of intercepting the ball for Albrighton's goal, but actually had a good game overall.

Laurent Koscielny - 6. Very solid. Solid enough for the fans to sing his name.

Francis Coquelin - 6. Struggled in the first half, but improved in the second.

Thomas Vermaelen - 6. Not his best display.

Emmanuel Frimpong - 5. Was poor in just about every aspect.

Mikel Arteta - 6. As good as he usually is.

Aaron Ramsey - 5. Was quite poor, not producing anything and missing a good chance on top of it.

Theo Walcott - 5. Was anonymous despite winning the penalty.

Gervinho - 5. Also anonymous.

Robin van Persie - 6. Isolated all game, but still managed a goal and an assist. Just to more goals to go to equal Shearer's record.

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Tomas Rosicky - 6.
Yossi Benayoun - 6.
Andrey Arshavin - n/a.

I've done the analysis.

Wolves home on Boxing Day, QPR home on New Years Eve.

Provided he plays in both, I'll be disappointed if he didn't break that record.