That most dignified of football managers Bobby Robson said afterwards that “Some people here do not seem to be able to cope with losing”, which sums up Arsenal to this day.
Davide Ginola was absolutely flying and there was clearly a pre-arranged plan to take out the French winger as both Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn kicked him off the pitch whichever wing he was on.
Looking for positives from the Emirates, maybe those late goals that made for an embarrassing final score will be the extra push Ashley needs to finally back his manager’s judgement.
I think it has to be credit to Alan Pardew for the way he set his team out but the individual mistakes let him down and surely point to a lack of quality in his players and not his system.