When Martin Atkinson started his 50 yard sprint towards the Arsenal penalty area just before half time in the game against West Ham, you could just smell disaster. His hand was in his pocket faster than he could blow the whistle and long before he even got to the incident.

It was like he had an itch and it needed to be scratched. To hell with what actually happened, a West Ham player going down in the box is good enough.

I suppose one way of looking at it is that we can thank Atkinson for the opportunity of creating another unforgiving test by reducing Arsenal to 10 men. Of course the boys passed with flying colours, so for what it’s worth, it was a good thing to face and overcome that adversity.

The flip side is that we get to miss the services of Vermaelen at St. Andrews this weekend. Someone in the legal team at Highbury House clearly feels it’s worth an appeal seeing as the referee was trigger happy.

You’d think that if Gazidis and his team can squeeze the UEFA chuffers and arm twist the European body to back down on Dudugate after the Crozilian’s 3 match ban, then the crisis laden FA is a walk in the park.

I’m one of those who think that perhaps Wenger should work on the basis that Vermaelen will be listening to Saturday’s game on Talk Sport radio from his gated mansion in Hertfordshire. Optimism about the appeal is good, but pragmatism is more useful.

This of course leaves the bemoaning Arsenal community with a sense of injustice as match officials seem to take matters in their own hands.

All season, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who was comfortable with the fact that Silvestre and Senderos were Arsenal’s centre half understudies. I can’t remember the number of times I heard the quote ”we’re only an injury or suspension away from a defensive crisis”.

Well, we now have both an injury and a suspension to our first choice defensive pairing. The only argument I have is that I don’t think it constitutes a crisis.

For one, Wenger executed a masterstroke by bringing in Sol Campbell to plug in a hole until the end of the season. It was unrealistic to expect Arsenal to get any competent centre half willing to warm our bench in a world cup year, just in case something happens.

So do we have a crisis as is made out elsewhere on this wonderful blogosphere of ours?

I guess it depends on your disposition in life. For some people, the easier option is to take the view that anything that doesn’t work according to the script is a crisis.

Sometimes in life, we need to stop our propensity to look for negatives in any situation. The way to look at it is that we’ve been dealt a lousy hand and rather than moan, we need to use it to play a damn good game of cards and get us out from between a rock and a hard place.

I believe Wenger has several options in Arsenal’s defence, that stops this from getting anywhere near a crisis. Appealing Vermaelen’s red card is not a bad start.

My sense is that the options revolve around whether Sol Campbell and Thomas Vermaelen will be a more solid defensive pairing against Barcelona in 8 days time, or whether we will have to do with Alex Song and Vermaelen.

Campbell can’t physically play more than one game a week, but then again, who would have thought it was possible that he’d be still playing for Arsenal at 35.

Last Saturday, Wenger decided to use Song in defence, and I thought it was pleasing that Song took to the role like water off a duck’s back. It was like he’d been playing in Arsenal’s defence even before they built the Piccadilly railway line in 1902.

Song‘s performance against West Ham in defence makes it easier for Wenger to leave out Silvestre at Birmingham, if he chooses to play Sol Campbell. It’ll require another ’energizer’ bunny performance from Denilson, and a midfield of the Brazilian, Fabregas and Diaby are very capable of holding the fort at St. Andrews.

My sense is that since the stakes are very high, Song will be relieved off his midfield duties this weekend and asked to join Silvestre in defence on Saturday against Birmingham.

I suppose one way to think about this is to ask yourself whether you’d be more comfortable with Messi running at Silvestre with the ball or whether Campbell is a better bet. It’s the lesser of two evils and someone, glad it’s not me, has to make a decision about what risk we can live with.

The alternative is to play Song and Vermaelen in defence against Barca, but I think Song will be more useful indulging in the dark arts of the defensive midfielder in the game against Barca.

I get the sense that Barcelona are cursing the Champions league quarter final draw against Arsenal. Contrary to popular belief, Arsenal’s game has a lot of respect across Europe, and the game a week on Wednesday will be one of those where the team that wins is the team that has the balls to score more goals.

Before we get excited about the football spectacle though, there’s a small matter of navigating past the unsavoury characters at St. Andrews on Saturday.

We know what happened last time, and Arsenal’s team talk is already done.