What I found interesting is that after the match Wenger was questioned on transfers and he actually sounded like he was going to get someone in. Normally he goes on about having the a team with potential to fill the gaps with all the games.
Wilshere didnt have the best of games although you cant knock his work rate.
Diaby seems to be keeping his performances coming along nicely. Made a great impression when he came on. Im sure he was still poor in DM's eyes though.
Wilshire's workrate was fairly poor, he barely moved, the poor kid looked shattered after 10 minutes though. Hardly surprising, has he been on the bench for most of our league games so far, yet he's had a grand total of 7 minutes in the leage and 4 starts spread out very thin over the entire season so far. he's simply not match fit, he's learning nothing not playing, playing weekly in the reserves would be getting him far more experience than sitting on the bench. Its poor the amount of times he's been on the bench, we've been several goals up and he's still not been given a chance.
Diaby wasn't terrible, he wasn't great either, I think had Diaby/Nasri started and it was Merida/Wilshire that came on they'd have been as effective, we brought on two somewhat pacey players against a very tired west ham late in the game. The most effective thing was Nasri, we finally had someone repeatedly run down the wing, who was a real threat and he dragged several players out there with him the whole time he was on. More players out wide, players moving over to fill the space = FAR more space in the middle. For 60 odd minutes we barely had any width at all, we were bunching up around the middle outside the box not finding any space. Nasri came on and we had space all over the place because the defence was spread far wider, which also let Vela get far more involved in the game on the left and Ramsey came to life in the middle with a little space.
A quick list of who Diaby has scored against, 2 against Pompie, when Pompie were really bad, Hull, Birmingham before they were very good and before they learned to score, Villa after they were shattered and Fabregas had knocked the stuffing out of them and then Alkmarr in the CL, who we spanked every which way. A single assist so far, 10 awful performances, a few fairly annonymous performances even in the games he scored, and maybe 2 good performances this year.
Whoopdedoo, again I'll say he has potential, he'll have 2-3 great games a year, but he's shown consistantly over 4 years that he won't even have more than 2-3 great games a year, he's completely useless and infact scores own goals against anyone half decent, he very rarely scores against anyone outside of the bottom 3.
I was the first person to mention he's great running with the ball, is pacey, has the ability to keep the ball and might be great in the future, unfortunately for someone who recently has had so much of the ball he's still had next to no end product, creates almost no chances for anyone, never looks up when running with the ball, focuses on getting through a player with no thought on what to do next. Nothings changed in 4 years, come back and say I'm wrong when he manages more than a very very small handful of decent performances in a season, and please point out the next time he manages to perform against a top half team. Remember till his goal against Villa diaby was useless, absolutely useless, had Cesc not come on, gotten 2 and stretched Villa who went looking hard for goals late in the game he'd simply never have scored in a million years. He can't and doesn't changes games on his own, he's yet to score a winner or important game changing goal for us. You'll notice every single one of his 6 goals was in a comftable victory, surprise suprise, and when a games tight and might be won by a single goal he's entirely no where to be seen, except maybe scoring that goal at the wrong end.