Chelsea defeat is no big deal – but Liverpool and Arsenal have real problems

Well it had to happen, didn't it? Chelsea have lost, as they were always going to. Newcastle is always a tough place to go, Jose just can't win there. Sometimes that just happens in football. We could have won it, we had chances, but Newcastle played well, you've got to give them credit for that.

People might say that the defeat is a blessing in disguise, as it means people will stop talking about the unbeaten record now. I wouldn't go that far, but, like most Chelsea fans, I'm quite sanguine about the defeat.

We're still in a great position, particularly when you think that we've got most of the hard games out of the way now. Liverpool, Everton, City, United, Newcastle – Chelsea have been to all of them, and we've come out of that run of fixtures with a three-point lead. Oscar was ineffective on Saturday, and Fabregas and Costa weren't at their best. When those three get back to top form, Chelsea will start blowing teams away again.

Elsewhere, though, some of Chelsea's rivals have real problems. Liverpool look bereft of creativity at the moment; yes they beat Stoke and Leicester, but they needed a late goal and quite a bit of luck to beat Mark Hughes' team, and Leicester are bottom of the Premier League, which puts Liverpool's victory at the Walkers Stadium in some sort of context.

Elsewhere, Arsenal are really struggling. It's the same old story; Wenger has great attackers, but he can't seem to sort his defence out. He's always been a brilliant coach of forward players, but he seems to regard defending as a chore, and pays lip service to the back four rather than giving it his full attention. His big-money signings are invariably attacking players, and they just don't seem to learn from their mistakes.

The defending at Stoke was appalling, particularly the first goal, the time and space they gave Peter Crouch. People ask why Wenger passed up the opportunity to sign Cesc Fabregas, but the player they really should have bought back is Alex Song. Fabregas wouldn't have given them anything different, he'd just have added to their glut of short, slight creative midfielders. But Song would have given them some extra steel, the sort you need to beat Stoke.

Will they get rid of Wenger? As I've said before, I think they should stick with him, at least until the end of the season, but he has to be accountable; the club has responsibilities to the fans and players and that goes for everyone, even a manager as respected as him. Arsenal's directors should also start drawing up a shortlist of possible replacements, in case something happens. Arsenal are still a huge draw, a fixture in the Champions League with a fantastic stadium, and I'm sure plenty of managers would be interested in going there if the chance arose.

Jason was a hero at Stamford Bridge as a no-nonsense centre-half during the early 1990s. Today he presents the popular Sports Bar radio show on TalkSPORT, and you can find out more about his work with the station here.

He also commentates on Chelsea games for Chelsea TV, working with fellow IBT columnist David Chidgey, and is a prolific member of the Twitterverse.