Should we get carried away by victory over Tottenham?

By Avenell Dave

Would Arsenal have won if Greedebayor hadn't been sent off?

Do we care?

As usual, social media was fascinating over the weekend and I even got a message from a 'fan' from Nigeria who last week told me he hoped we lost the derby and then proceeded to remind me that the victory only papered over the cracks.

There may well be an element of truth to that - two sides with lofty ambitions and shoddy defences and in Apeboy Bale, T*tt*nh*m had a player who could have hurt us badly if he had the wit to square the ball at 4-2 instead of shooting.

You'd have thought after Gallas 'scored' early on taht we would have sorted out our defensive line but we were all over the place and never looked robust.

People talk about drilling the defence George Graham style and I don't deny that more defensive work would be beneficial. But given the frequency of matches, we're only doing some light training between games anyway so drilling the team on being more disciplined is hardly viable. In Graham's day, we had fewer games and that's why it was possible to get the defence playing so well as a unit.

It would be unreasonable to have expected too much from Wojciech Szczesny after a long lay-off but I do wonder how fans would have reacted if that had been Vito Mannone in goal.

Defoe's shot for their first goal wasn't the most powerful and the Pole should have got hold of it while the second was powerful but a long way out. Maybe I'm being harsh but we need to know Szczesny provides a solid line of defence and I think he still has much to prove.

On such thin lines as Bale's miss are games won and lost and much as the defence still needs some work, our attacking play was, at times, superb.

The statisticans have been having a field day today, talking about Mikel Arteta being the first player to reach 1000 completed passes this season but it's no coincidence that, despite not passing to each other very much, Santi Cazorla and Jack Wilshere playing together has helped us regain our vavavoom.

They may be very much team players but both have world class skills at getting past players, playing in killer balls and superb passing and it's very hard for sides to live with the two of them.

We've got a tough run of games coming up (even though it may not look like it on paper) and this result will soon be forgotten if we start to stutter again.

What we need to do above all is use the result to boost not only morale but focus so we can push on and turn this season around.

It's possible, Addicts. Then again, anything is possible with this team.