ARSENAL had to bounce back with a good result on Tuesday night and they did – but that Hull defeat is still going to take them some time to get out of their system. Saturday was one of those days when people were wandering into the ground talking about w

ARSENAL had to bounce back with a good result on Tuesday night and they did - but that Hull defeat is still going to take them some time to get out of their system.

Saturday was one of those days when people were wandering into the ground talking about whether it would be five or six-nil, and that is always a very dangerous atmosphere for the players.

Added to that the Carling Cup win had got fans talking about all the young players, and the older ones just took their eye off the ball for 90 minutes.

They paid the price for it as Hull were really up for the game and stunned everyone with that result.

A lot has been said about Arsenal conceding from corners and I think you just have to accept that the way Arsenal play, with so much emphasis on attacking football, they are going to concede bad goals from time to time.

They do lack height in the team - neither Kolo Toure or William Gallas are what I would call aerially dominant centre backs, and you need one of them to be like that.

In the last Arsenal team I played in we had Tony Adams, Steve Bould, Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit, who were all six foot plus and could be relied on to win headers at set pieces.

Only Emmanuel Adebayor has that kind of height and as a result they will get caught from time to time.

Two defeats from the first six games is not a great start in the league - but they are only two points off the top and so it might not be as bad as it seems.

And they were back to their best on Tuesday, even if Porto did give up the ghost a bit after going behind.

Now Arsene will be desperate for his side to make sure they head into the international break with another win behind them at Sunderland on Saturday.

Two weeks is a long time to be looking back on a bad result, and they will need to show the battling qualities from Bolton the other week to win again.

Until next week,

Nigel