Here's a question to get you thinking over the weekend:

The significance of this team, please?

Bob Catlin

Paul Holmes

John Frain

Dean Peer

Paul Mardon

Trevor Matthewson

Ian Rodgerson

Simon Sturridge (substituted, Louie Donowa 82 minutes)

John Gayle

Paul Peschisolido (substituted, Paul Fenwick 67 minutes)

Paul Tait

Answer on Monday . . .

It was one of those familiar sinking feelings at Fratton Park.

Blues began slowly, dug themselves a hole, yet played well in the main, and bossed the second-half. However, they lost.

And that's been a familiar pattern this season.

From the opening day at Chelsea, to Manchester United at home, Everton, Villa, Bolton away, Sunderland . . . the list goes on.

There is not that much wrong with Blues that eradicating defensive errors and refusing to allow their minds to go a wandering every now and again can't put right.

They are not getting bashed like Derby County, and their superior goal difference to rival clubs around them is testament that they at least fall fighting.

But they continue to walk that fine line between success and failure, which is mentally as well as physically draining.

They just won't let it lie, will they?

First Sepp Blatter reckons Martin Taylor's tackle on Eduardo was an 'attack' and he was seeking to 'destroy' him.

Then Carlos Queiroz, talking about Manchester United's defeat by Portsmouth and bemoaning referees (with some justification) took up the baton.

Chuntering on about a lack of protection he said 'this is why the Taylors of this world can survive and the best players are out of the game'.

Excuse me, Carlos, did you see Wayne Rooney's lunge at Niko Kranjcar on Saturday? Had he connected, he could have done serious damage.

There has been speculation that Eduardo might sue Martin Taylor if he fails to make a full recovery after that tackle.

I doubt it very much. Eduardo has told Taylor, face to face, that he doesn't blame him.

And the noises from various experts and observers is that Taylor did not intend to inflict such damage. So in a court of law, the case would be thrown out.

Interestingly, Eduardo himself knows exactly what it is like to be portrayed as the 'villain'.

This has slipped under the radar

It's been a question plenty of Blues fans have been pondering: who scored our last hat-trick at the highest level?

David Geddis some went for. No, that was the season when Blues were promoted.

Keith Bertschin? Close. He scored hat-tricks in 1979-80 but in the old Division Two.

Got to be TF then? Almost. Trevor Francis, in 1976-77, scored trebles when Blues were indeed in the top-flight.

That season there were four hat-tricks in fact. Kenny Burns got the other two, including four goals versus Derby County in the October.

But the person who netted three goals at the highest domestic level for Blues before Mikael Forssell was . . . Tony Evans.

I suppose it was just a little too much to ask, wasn't it?

Yes, I, Arsene Wenger, apologise to Martin Taylor for what I said about him and I apologise for my team's general behaviour . . .

Dream on. Wenger's first meeting with the media since Eduardo's leg was shattered and ankle left askew tells you everything about a brilliant manager, but a flawed person.

He may not care, Arsenal may not care, some of the London media may not care, but Wenger and his side have lost a lot of respect in these parts.

Today, at his weekly pre-match briefing, Wenger should have been man enough to categorically accept that calling for Taylor to be banned and banging on about murderers and violence was a major mistake.

Instead he, and the media at large, continue to glibly trot out the fact that he retracted his comments of post-match last Saturday.

No he hasn't if you analyse it.

He said he was now giving Taylor the 'benefit of the doubt' . . . 'if he was genuine'. Oh, merci, Arsene.

Taylor broke his silence on the whole affair today and came across as the sort of person he is: decent, genuine, intelligent, caring.

Blues will get to see another of the ones who got away this Saturday.

Spurs' Teemu Tainio was targeted by manager Alex McLeish soon after he took over.

Due to having to spread his money around, and Gary Cahill's snub, it wasn't until the 11th hour of the January transfer window that talks took place.

In the end, Blues withdrew from a £4 million - £5 million raid.

Tainio perhaps won't have been too disappointed as he collected a League Cup winners medal last Sunday.

Centre-half Cahill was another who slipped through the fingers of course, and the Georgia schemer Levan Tskitishvili, a cheaper alternative to Tainio (free, in fact), was denied a work permit.

Had anyone seen the pale, dazed look on Martin Taylor's face after the Arsenal game, then they would have realised exactly what sort of person he is.

Taylor was walking round the tunnel areas in a state of shock as the full extent of Eduardo's injury sunk in.

A genial, intelligent man, Taylor might be 6ft 4in but isn't your typical, cynical clogger of a centre-half.

He has been booked only six times in 234 career appearances and sent-off once before, nine years ago.

This is the man who Graeme Souness once remarked was ideal son-in-law material.

Judging from the back page headline in tonight's Birmingham Mail, you could be forgiven for thinking that Alex McLeish has gone all Barry Fry.

Attack! Attack! Attack! It says.

Nice sentiment, but McLeish won't quite be telling his side to perform with complete abandon against Arsenal in the lunchtime kick-off at St Andrew's..

Yes, Blues do need to be more productive in the 'goals for' column.

But equally, they have to improve on their clean sheet record, which stands at just three for the season.

McLeish, in his pre-match press conference, asked that his attacking and creative players step up to the plate.

But they will have to do so within a structure, as is his way, and as they know.

He said: "If we leave ourselves open against a team of Arsenal's quality we would be asking for trouble.

"We will go for it in controlled and measured way.

"If the strikers can hit form in the last third, there's no reason why we can't upset Arsenal."

For the uninitiated, Blues AGM is a wonder to behold.

You don't get supporter and shareholder pressure groups trying to hound out the board, you don't get arguments from the floor or even the manager presented on top table to have questions fired at him.

Last night's might have been different as an EGM was held straight after to vote on Carson Yeung's ill-fated plan to put Steve McManaman and Fan Zhiyi on the board.

But it wasn't really.

There was plenty for shareholders to get stuck into, what with the whole mess of the Yeung saga, Steve Bruce's departure and the commitment of the current co-owners.