Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has to persuade his players to do the dirty jobs again "The game was completely in our hands, especially in the second half when we scored," Mertesacker said, through his club's own channels. Then we have to play serious football and not lose the ball, but they got us on the break, and that's completely unbelievable in our situation. While Wenger and Merson feed the news snackers ("clueless," "childish") Mertesacker has pointed to the truth that dare not speak its name. The narrowing of Arsenal's ambitions to a top-four finish, financial stability and sweet midfield passing has worked as a Petri dish for a particular mindset across large parts of the side. The Chambers episode was revelatory. As Montero flashed this way and that, fizzing past the young Arsenal full-back and whipping in crosses, three remedies were possible: 1, Move Chambers to centre-back and find a faster, fresher defender to stop the scourge: 2, Withdraw him altogether: 3, Instruct other Arsenal players in the vicinity to stop viewing the mismatch as a series of bloopers they were watching at home on flat screen TVs. Number three is the most interesting. Consigning Wenger to the rubbish dump of once-great managers is certainly the temptation for many Arsenal fans, but the mind keeps coming back to the rest of the team that played in South Wales. It asks: What were they doing while a junior team-mate suffered so? Why did one young England international, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, not consider it his urgent duty to rescue another? Mertesacker identified two problems. First, the midfielders giving the ball away while bounding puppy-like in search of more goals, followed by a failure to react, collectively. A team built to be an orchestra looks too often like a collection of lone fiddlers. If we could tap into the secret thoughts of the average Arsenal player, the bubble might read: "It's not my problem, not my responsibility. I have been granted a license to entertain. The talent Jack Wilshere describes as "putting your foot in" is shorthand for a much a broader attribute. It describes players who know when to play and went to shut games down, who despise losing and will never watch passively while problems multiply. They are the mean, grumpy driven core of most successful teams. They are hard to find but pretty much impossible to live without. In single human form they are Patrick Vieira. So much of Arsenal's arsenal is sound. In the summer Wenger acquired an excellent strike partnership in Danny Welbeck and Alexis Sánchez, who has scored six times in four games and is the determined hole-puncher they needed. Arsenal have returned to the ranks of heavy spenders and reside in a beautiful stadium: a reward for long-term thinking. But while everyone hollers for this or that defender to join in January, the cultural problem will be harder to cure. To be 12 points off the top of the Premier League table after 11 games is not indicative of manpower shortages. It suggests the attitude the manpower is starting out with has been allowed to drift too far from the basic truths about winning in English football. Why Wenger expects teams to stand back and admire his team's nice moves is one of the bigger mysteries. They stopped doing so years ago. Intercept-and-counter-attack is now the preferred method for beating Arsenal. Wenger may be culpable, but his players are hiding from the dirty jobs. Shankly got it right: injuries are no excuse Report any England rugby defeat these days and the replies fly in: you ignored the injuries. Yes, and with good reason. Modern Union is so relentlessly bone-jarring and attritional that half a dozen absences are now a given. Against New Zealand on Saturday England were missing seven British and Irish Lions: Mako Vunipola, Alex Corbisiero, Tom Croft, Geoff Parling, Tom Youngs, Dan Cole and Manu Tuilagi. They fielded a debutant winger against the sport's best back division. The charitable side of us wants to pack every verdict with caveats. But the Bill Shankly in us shouts: to hell with the lame. Shankly was famously cold with injured players. He thought they were ghosts, dragging down the mood. Some of those Lions may well be back in the starting XV for the World Cup - or better yet, the Six Nations - but for now there is no point factoring them into a defeat. The world turned for England in that 24-21 loss. The development cycle was laid to rest. Results take on an extra piquancy. The team can be assessed only on who wears the shirt and how they fare. Saturday's back line will not beat the best. Changes will have to come. But "injuries" are now irrelevant. Moyes right to start afresh David Moyes is now managing the 15th best team in Spain after losing his job with the seventh best team in England. From Manchester United to Real Sociedad is a demotion for the man who made his name at Everton, but he ought to be applauded for striking out in a new direction. Moyes was clearly growing restless as his time on the sidelines stretched to seven months. In those circumstances he was bound to be tempted by unsuitable offers. Sociedad will not scale the twin peaks of Real Madrid and Barcelona. But they might restore the momentum of Moyes's coaching. Better an adventure, surely, than hanging around waiting for a Premier League manager to be sacked.