Grabban frustrates Gunners

Lewis Grabban's equaliser left Arsenal forced to settle for a 1-1 draw at Norwich and also denied the visitors the chance to move level on points with leaders Manchester City.

Arsenal are in fourth position and two points behind Manchester City but what was arguably more frustrating than the result was the Gunners picking up yet more injuries at Carrow Road. Laurent Koscielny lasted just 11 minutes before leaving the field with a hip problem, while Alexis Sanchez and Santi Cazorla also sustained injuries. Hopefully they are all only minor injury setbacks and not much game time will be missed but the trio will need assessed before the extent of any damage is known for sure.

What is for sure is that Arsenal cannot afford to pick up any more injuries. The squad is already being tested to the limit with injuries previously sustained and there isn't too much depth to call upon so we need to hope that the trio are all back in time for the next league match against Sunderland.

Arsenal started the game in dominant mood and early signs looked encouraging, with Mesut Ozil seeing his effort cleared off the line. The visitors continued to push forward and only an excellent save from Norwich goalkeeper Ruddy prevented Sanchez from opening the scoring.

The Gunners did finally break the deadlock on the half hour mark when Sanchez took advantage of a poor clearance from Ruddy to set up Ozil, who beat Norwich's number one with a precise chip.

Norwich hit back to level the scores two minutes before the break when Grabban latched onto Robbie Brady's fine pass to score from close range. The Canaries almost added a second goal soon after but Wes Hoolahan sent his effort over the bar.

Petr Cech came to Arsenal's rescue with a fine stop in the second half to keep the scores level. A header deflected off substitute Gabriel on its way to goal but Cech made a superb save down to his left to tip the ball wide at full stretch.

Both sides tried to find a winner with Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud and Norwich's Jonny Howson both wasting opportunities to score.

Norwich will undoubtedly be delighted with a hard-earned point but it definitely feels like another case of two points dropped by the Gunners.

OPPOSITION VIEW
Norwich fan Adam Edwards was pleased with the efforts shown by his side and felt a draw was a fair result.

"It was an end to end match with both teams squandering good chances with poor last minute decisions," said Edwards. "Arsenal may have expected to perform better but a draw was a fair result based on the game.

"Norwich definitely gave Arsenal a game when they could have played for a draw. With a little luck Norwich could have won."

MY FINAL THOUGHTS
Realistically our chances of winning the title are slim and this result is another example of why. Although at times this season we have been brilliant, we haven't take advantage enough on other occasions. After Manchester City's slip-up against Liverpool the other week we failed to win and couldn't capitalise. Manchester City beat Southampton recently and had we beaten Norwich we would have moved level on points with them. Instead, it was another missed opportunity. Obviously we are still well and truly in the title race mathematically but we need to be mentally up for it as well if we are to have a chance. Manchester City aren't going to slip up too many times so we need to make sure we focus on ourselves and stop dropping silly points.

Manchester City face a tough trip to Stoke next time out and, although we can't guarantee a slip-up from them, we need to make sure we do better in front of goal and make sure we get nothing less than maximum points from the visit of Sunderland. Without being disrespectful to West Brom, Norwich and Sunderland we should really have been looking at getting nine points, or at worst seven, from those three games. Instead we have only one point from two of the games, which isn't good enough.

On the plus side, Ozil again showed glimpses of the top class player that he is but we need more options up front to take the pressure off Giroud. But before we start worrying about the transfer window, as it's not even open yet, let's focus our attention on making sure there are no slip-ups and that we beat Sunderland....and beat them well!

COME ON YOU GUNNERS