A mate text me, "must be nice to get a penalty when you need one", they say that your luck evens out over the season, so when it does its going to be great. In the first leg Hleb was clearly fouled in the box by Kuyt, a definite penalty.  The Babel penalty looked far dodgier, Perry Groves called it a Kop penalty, they asked for it, and the referee gave it to them. Frank Mclintock was also definite it wasn't a penalty.

Afterwards Rafa said he didn't see the penalty. I can't wait to hear the jokes about that in the press. Ha ha he didn't see it. Senderos and Toure got yellows for doing very little; but Mascherano was given a licence to foul all night without punishment. Quite rightly Flamini refused to shake the dirty little creep's hand.

Luck and Bacary

To win anything you need a little luck, but Arsenal are no longer lucky, maybe that's partly because you make your own luck. Wenger is not wrong about the lousy refereeing decisions, but he has also contributed to his own downfall. On Sunday 23 rd March Bacary Sagna was injured, up to that time Arsenals first choice defence was doing ok, conceding only a goal a game, punctuated with the occasional clean sheet.

When Sagna went off against Chelsea Arsenal conceded two goals, another two against Bolton, and seven in three games against Liverpool. Seven!!! (correction 6 in 3 games, and seven over the four matches played in total) The fault has to lie with Wenger's team selection, Toure is not a right back and it shows. Yet Wenger has no faith in Eboue at right back, and none in Hoyte, come to that nor do the rest of us. So it's hardly surprising that Wenger has not been able to reorganise the defence.

The reason Arsenal lost the game at Liverpool wasn't just down to a dodgy penalty decision, it was also down to a lot of dodgy defending.

Wenger's luck went with Sagna; I don't believe he should have bought that many players in January, but a class defender would have made sense. We only have two class defenders now, Gallas and Clichy, the rest are washed up, apart from Sagna who cannot recover quickly enough. Toure might recover back in the middle, but he and Gallas don't exactly work well together.

I think Wenger made a mistake on Saturday, never cash in today for the future, because you don't know what the future will bring. Arsenal could have beaten a poor Liverpool on Saturday, with a stronger side, and three points in the bag. Instead that was traded in for a possible CL win, but in fact it has ended with neither, but what will be hard to recover is confidence.

Positive note

What a fantastic run and cross by Theo, I wrote after the Birmingham game he had arrived. Wenger must now use him far more, he is becoming an impact player.

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