The defender re-aggravates his calf injury which means he will not only be missing against Hull this weekend but could be out for up to a month. Earlier, he was ruled out of the Porto second leg today. In his place, Sol Campbell (whose return can be counted as a success story) will see more action with Thomas Vermaelen.

Wenger on Gallas:

"We were impatient with him and we pushed him and he wanted to get on as well, that is why maybe it has happened. But there is no obvious sign as to why it keeps coming back. He has no pain at all, then goes for a little jog and then it goes again."

This weekend Arsenal meets with Gallas to discuss his contract extension. It appears that the 12 month restriction for players over 30 might be lifted in his case.

Fabregas sustained a hamstring injury in the Burnley match which saw him exit the match and replaced by Abou Diaby.

He is to be evaluated further either tomorrow or Monday and Wenger will have to make a late decision if he has to play the Porto match on Tuesday.

With the Premiership title race so delicately poised I think rushing our best player back prematurely will be very unwise.

Wenger talking about how much he admired a great technical tackle as much as a good offensive creative pass in this clip from his conference.

He was thoughtful, factual, and yet forceful. Predictably the press went after the Gallas tackle in the Bolton game. Wenger put them in their place reminding them that Mark Davies was out of the game for less than 10 days and not the 4-5 weeks that they claimed.

The most gripping part was his emotional response when asked if he was looking for more protection for his players.

" I look for nothing. You cannot say, listen, you cannot say you have a 19 year old boy who has a double broken leg like it happened to us Sunday and say that everything is alright. Do you accept that? I cannot."

Hard to refute. It was pushback against the overwhelming Shawcross is a nice lad and bears no malice punditry.

The BBC link to the larger segment >>

In some good news, Aaron Ramsey also made his first statement after his surgery vowing to return "fitter and stronger." He thanked Glenn Whelan, the Stoke player who comforted him after his injury. Ryan Shawcross was not mentioned.

His injury is not considered career ending but as in Eduardo and Diaby's case there are lingering effects that can force protracted injury time off. So there are stumbling blocks on the way to a full return to the pitch.

If the last ten minutes of the Liverpool Arsenal match were an IQ test, the Gunners would have scored brain dead.

Did Wenger never teach them how to protect the ball? The classic example was Walcott chasing the ball to the sidelines deep into Pool territory and instead of holding the ball and trying to bang it off a defender for an out, turns and feeds it tamely to Pepe Reina with no Gunner in sight. As it turns out Gerrard gets a last ditch chance to save the match with a free kick that smacked off Fabregas hand, tantalizingly close to being a penalty. You could see Howard Webb mull over that one with the Reds milling around him in protest after the whistle brought the match to a controversial end.

The Gunners needed that bit of luck and Almunia's fingetip save that pushed Babel's rasping shot onto the crossbar to give Wenger his 300th Premiership win and more importantly keep their slim title hopes alive. Abou Diaby scored the winner as he came flying unmarked to head the ball off Rosicky's superbly drilled cross. Bendtner can take some satisfaction in creating that chance as he had the presence of mind to find the Czech midfielder after his shot was blocked by a defender.

The first half saw both teams struggle to establish any rhythm with Arsenal's lack of urgency particularly glaring. Nasri was lost early after receiving a knock which left him looking dazed, Wenger replacing him with Rosicky. Chances were few and far in between, with Bendtner's touch letting him down and Fabregas ending a nice one two with Arshavin with an angled grounder that Reina easily gathered. You were left with a growing unease wondering where the goals were going to come from, if at all. Wenger's looked as frustrated as he has all season.

The second half began with Arsenal finally showing some alacrity and cohesion. The Gunners beginning to threaten the Liverpool goal regularly with Fabregas and Bendtner coming close. The match enjoying some scintillating end to end action. However it was Rosicky flubbing the best chance as his touch deserted him terribly. Minutes later, his shot flashed over a leaping Reina and just above the crossbar before finally making amends with that superb assist.

Gallas stopped Ngog in the tackle of the day, Clichy looked solid, and Song proved adept at disrupting Liverpol's flow with his tackling. Arshavin except for a few flashes, did little to enhance his reputation as Liverpool's tormentor in chief. He looked weary and dispirited. Walcott subbed him but again contributed little. Eboue came off for Sagna to consolidate the defense. Fabregas had an unmemorable game but Diaby came up big on both ends. Almunia who was torn to shreds,against Utd and Chelsea, preserved the win.with that magical save.

With Chelsea losing to Everton and Man Utd forcing a draw against Villa through another lucky own goal the Gunners close the gap. They now need to have an almost perfect record with their remaining matches and Chelsea and Man Utd to lose some to remain in title contention. This win did not just advance their hopes but it lifted their spirits. Catharsis.is very welcome.

Michael Ballack says stuff which is hard to dispute.

I think it behooves Wenger to be a bit more respectful of teams who have made beating Arsenal a regular feature. Yes, he was complimentary of Chelsea but what sticks is the "we didn't get a demonstration of football". The media is never going to put a fine point on that. For that matter, no one should.

"You have to congratulate Chelsea. We didn't get a demonstration of football but they were efficient and, at the end of the day, that is what has made the difference."

In Wenger's world efficiency has a dirty connotation. It seems to equate not playing football. But anybody with half a brain could tell you that was Arsenal needed. A bit of efficiency after all that possession. This is not a mythical gold standard. You can be Barcelona who play beautifully and are every bit efficient.

Teams counterattack, win through set pieces, play physical- these are different hallmarks of the game. If they add up to a successful system then that system has to be respected. Chelsea played their strengths and we played ours. In the end they got what they wanted. That is still football, like it or not.

"They have fantastic defenders and I believe many times they were out of position and managed to get back, especially one situation with Nasri in the second half and another with Bendtner."

I remember Nasri managing to steal the ball away with Arsenal in great position to launch a counterattack. Strangely and yet predictably, it devolved into a lateral passing game as no one raced forward giving enough time to Chelsea to fall back in numbers to defend. The moment was lost. With Arshavin a distant dot on the horizon, Walcott in decline, Eduardo injured, Clichy missing a step - that demonstration of glorious counterattacking against Liverpool last season is a distant memory. This was one occasion amongst many in the match when we made their defense look "fantastic." .

What has Hull City got that Arsenal does not?

It took just two strikes by you know who - Didier Drogba to sink Arsenal early in the match. And as was their wont the Arsenal defense went to sleep on both occasions. Song failing to box out Drogba for the first goal after Terry headed the ball down from a Malouda corner.

The defense was then caught in a footrace as Lampard booted the ball downfield which Drogba latched onto muscling his way through Diaby and Clichy and with a clinical finish secured his second goal. It came just as the Gunners were enjoying a fair bit of possession with Arsenal coming close to equalizing through Arshavin.

Drogba has scored 12 goals in 10 matches against the Gunners. It was game, set, and match.

Arsenal are now 9 points behind with 13 games to go. They meet a resurgent Liverpool this Wednesday in a match that might decide the also rans. Winning the Premiership just got beyond reach. And if the Champions League loss to Man Utd is what affected our performance last weekend then there is every reason to presume that in reciprocal fashion, these losses will have a detrimental bearing on our European pretensions too.

Lest I become the nattering nabob of complete negativity, the Gunners did not throw in the towel to their credit. In the second half there was a spell of about 25 minutes where the ball did not leave the Chelsea half as an increasingly assertive Arsenal moved the ball with ease. And the defense stood up to the task of stopping any counterattacks. Critics might interject and say that all that possession led to no result. However when a club goes through a crisis in scoring such as Arsenal in these last four games, it is good to focus on what they did right as a sort of psychological salve.

Unlike against Man Utd, Arsenal looked assured in possession and created a number of chances. At some point it looked like a rope a dope with Chelsea soaking up the pressure and relying on Cech to make some good saves. It was quite enjoyable watching the Chelsea defense looking wobbly but their experience and Arsenal's prediliction of walking the ball into goal made their task easier.

This being Arsenal it seemed no one wanted to take the responsibility of pulling the trigger. Arshavin had the clearest chance after Fabregas floated a beautiful ball but with only Cech to beat the little Russian shot it straight at the Chelsea goalkeeper. It might have been a different story with that equalizer. Diaby and Nasri also came close but their touch and moments of hesitation cost them.

In a tactical move, Wenger decided to start Theo Walcott to back up Sagna in neutralizing Ashley Cole and Florent Malouda. His defensive duties came at the cost of his attacking instincts which meant that the right flank looked inert. Nicklas Bendtner replaced Walcott bringing a bit more variety. He was brought down by Ricardo Carvalho a few feet from the box. Fabregas free kick through a crowd was denied by Petr Cech at the very last moment. Wenger trotted out Emmanuel Eboue and Tomas Rosicky as the final throw of the dice but it amounted to little.

It was left to the woodwork to deny Drogba his hattrick.

The match was also an occasion for the Stamford Bridge faithful to thumb their nose at Fabio Capello's decision to strip John Terry of England's captaincy. Signs proclaiming their support for him were everywhere. For his part, Terry conducted himself as a leader showing no signs of distraction. A big cheer went up when Terry hobbled with a second half injury and with his thigh heavily strapped went about his job manfully. Somehow all this contrived to make Capello look peevish.

As for Wenger, these matches are hopefully telling him something is wrong. We as fans can berate and tantrum all we want. Some of it is throw the baby out with the bathwater stuff which is counter productive but surely by now there must be some sort of self realization.

"When you are fighting with Manchester City, Tottenham, Liverpool and Aston Villa you cannot say that because you finished third it is a disaster."

Wenger's words smack of defeatism. This does not augur well on the eve of the Chelsea encounter. For words like these can be internalized by a young team to mean that matches now have little consequence. We have moved the goalposts from winning the title to now preserving third place. But these are the sort of words that carry over to subsequent seasons - used by players who are being courted by other clubs to inform their decisions.

The sight of Man Utd without their talismanic striker after four seasons, a patchwork defense decimated by injuries with Rio and Nemanja Vidic pairing up barely four times, players flirting with retirement like Giggs and Scholes, and an attack which has seen its share of gold diggers like Berbatov, Owen, and Valencia. Sir Alex might have been forgiven if he spoke those words. But Man Utd even in their darkest moments have managed to pull through by fighting hard and sometimes winning ugly. That is because their coach never gave them any other choice.

The pursuit of trophies might be the least of the worries. What Wenger is doing with these words is discount his own legacy. If he truly believes that the system that he set up at Arsenal with its premium on supremely talented youth was the wave of the future then he is admitting that he has failed. And youngsters are attracted to shiny, new objects like trophies - so why take away their most important motivating factor?

Something tells me that Balotelli will be next season's biggest signing. Hello, Arsene are you listening?

"He is not doing what I ask of him. In my tactics, players must always defend, even though they have a problem or got injured or even lost their contact lens."

The best thing about Arsenal's brutal annihilation at the hands of Man Utd was that it came very quickly. By the end of the match one had gone through the five stages of grief. In fact, I emerged looking forward to the Chelsea match next weekend with a sense of acceptance. At this point a 7-0 thrashing looks pretty acceptable.

Man Utd's victory came from a series of stunningly simple and yet devastatingly effective counterattacks. The powerful surging of Park Ji Sung, Wayne Rooney, and Nani running in parallel unnerved the Gunners into chasing their shadows. For an Arsenal fan, there was no more painful sight than seeing Nani spinning Clichy like a top all afternoon. Surely CERN is missing a centrifuge. Or Almunia handling the ball like a hot potato. Or Arsenal's tangential attack that ran out of passes and predictably into a thicket of Utd players. We could also point out Arshavin's blindspots, the overall poor finishing, Clichy and Sagna's pointless crosses to no one in particular, and the inept and weak tackling but that would just add to the pile on.

Behind all of this, all the debate of missing essential players to challenge realistically for a Premiership, one was left with a nagging doubt. We have so sunk ourselves into an ideological hole with our approach that we fail to adapt or prepare. We were outplayed by a team that wanted to win. Talent and skill can push us past Bolton when down but who wants to get into that position against Man Utd? or Chelsea?

There are no beautiful ways to deal with Ashley Cole's crosses or Rooney's runs, simply effective ones. But the absence of established frontline strikers also means that Arsenal's attack wears a less circumscribed look. Their goals have come through a committee with defenders turned into bands of roving marauders. When confronted with muscular and speedy counterattacking teams, this over commitment to attack can be fatal. But this is not new knowledge against teams like Man Utd and Chelsea. We have been burned badly before by the same approach.

I think Almunia's own goal, the result of a breathtaking piece of individual brilliance by Nani was unavoidable but the ridiculous spectacle of Park Ji Sung, Rooney, and Nani each holding the Sword of Damocles over Clichy during the third goal would never have taken place if protecting a vulnerable Almunia was the first priority. This would have limited damage but unfortunately because it meant compromising ideological purity, it did not happen.

Wenger needs to play smart against Chelsea by strangely dumbing it down. Limiting damage, which teams like Stoke and Birmingham have to contend with, should now be part of our defensive lexicon. The defenders get behind the ball, close down space, disrupt the passing lanes, tackle effectively, and play no other part in attack other than set pieces and we have a template to stop cheap and easy goals. From there it is left to Arshvin, Fabregas and the rest of the attack to create chances and garner goals.

On a sidenote, even while grieving as must have been every Arsenal fan, one had to empathize each time the camera panned onto a distraught Wenger. With each blowout, a new wrinkle gets etched onto his face. He has aged while Fergie looks ruddier. Winning has a way of smoothening those furrows and for Wenger's sake I am hoping we win at least one more Premiership with him as the gaffer. It is better than any anti ageing cream.