Arsenal away. What was the score? Lost 3-0 Were we playing Brazil's 1970 team yesterday? Curbishley's strange post-match comments seem to think we were. "This Arsenal team are frightening."

It frightened me how much respect we gave them, and the ball for that matter. The biggest shock was how long it took Arsenal to score their first goal, we had offered it on plate with a solid silver knife and fork a number of times before Pires finally took advantage.

Yes Arsenal played very well, but I have seen them play a lot better against us. Yes, they are a good team, but as the table testifies, still not the same without Viera, Cole, a younger Campbell, Pires and Bergkamp. And for as much as I marvel at Thierry Henry, he had, by his standards, a quiet game yesterday.

We were awful, there was no ambition, no battle, no nothing. It was nothing, 90 minutes of nothing from us and it was no "crumb of comfort that we kept it down to three," sorry Al one shot on target and one corner is pitiful.

The team selection was what most of us had been crying out for but Rommendahl and Thomas spent too much of the afternoon chasing back whilst Kish, Euell and Hughes just chased shadows.

I don't mind getting beat, especially at Highbury but watching the game was like watching a lower league team play Arsenal. We huffed and puffed, we kicked the ball high into stands, we launched long hopeless balls forward, we kicked the ball anywhere instead of pass it simply, we were rabbits stuck in the highlights, we just wanted to keep the score down.

What happened to the flair, the ambition and the courage that once produced a 4-2 win against what ended up being the Premiership Champions or the 5-3 defeat the season before that?

Curbishley and Richard Murray talk of legacy. The game on Thursday is huge.

Reports from those that were there: BBC Sport; Observer; cafc.co.uk; Addicks Diary; All Quiet; East Lower.  ¶ 11:30