Wenger's dodgy defensive selection costs Arsenal at Goodison Park

As loath as I am to doing this, I feel as if I can do nothing but rant against Wenger's very odd team selection in the 1-0 defeat to Everton at Goodison Park today.

All of Arsenal's problems stemmed from the back-four that Arsene chose today. It's very hard to escape the fact that three of the four defenders were playing out of position. Hoyte, a right back, was playing at left back. Touré, a centre-half, was playing at right-back. Gilberto, a centre midfielder, was playing centre half.

I always think that you should keep the amount of players playing out of position down to the bare minimum to prevent confusion. I think Arsene decided against this today - and it showed.

Gallas is first and foremost a centre-half; but he is also a very competent left-back. Why not start the French man on the left and allow Hoyte to play at his natural right-back where he is far more comfortable? Touré would then be allowed play as a centre-half, where his performances are always of the highest standard.

By my reckoning that would be only one player out of position - Gilberto. Having said that, why couldn't Senderos start in centre half? Has he been dropped? Is he injured? I agree that he has put in some dodgy performances of late, but I'd rather see four players playing in their natural positions.

Gallas has made it clear that he prefers playing at centre-half; but he is a damn good left back. I can only hope that this stated preference did not affect Arsene's selection today.

The consequence of that defensive selection was that we were lacking any sort of attacking option from the full-backs. With Toure a natural centre half and Hoyte on the wrong side, it looked like we were playing with four central defenders.

I think that both our wingers ended up getting sucked back into more defensive positions. This meant that both Aliadiere and Baptista looked more like wingers/midfielders as they constantly dropped back to receive the ball. They were involved in the build up of every Arsenal attack. Ideally you would hope that your strikers are at the end of an attacking move.

Aliadiere really should have done better with a great chance in the second half; but he knocked it over the bar.

Arsene then made a crazy substitution by replacing Aliadiere with a winger whose shoulder, we were told days before, regularly pops out in training. Sure enough, moments later, Walcott was clutching his shoulder in agony.

My firm belief is that if you are chasing a victory, you leave as many strikers as possible on the pitch, Having said that, Aliadiere looked like he was playing as a midfielder due to defensive problems mentioned earlier. No doubt the French striker will take the blame for today's defeat.

Sorry Arsene, but for maybe the third time in ten years, I think you got it seriously wrong today. Having said that, I was too lazy to get out of bed to write a preview. So who am I to talk?