I like many had not given us much of a chance before the game had kicked off but the dream had flashed in my head a number of times during the last few days. In those day dreams, we had scored an early goal so when Santi and Rosicky combined outside of the penalty area to free Walcott down

At the final whistle I felt a sense of pain very similar to how I felt last year against AC Milan but today I am brimming with pride at a steely, organised and intelligent Arsenal performance.

I should slap myself for paying any attention to the media pre match. We were told that Arsene Wenger would select a make shift side, resting key individuals for Swansea City on the weekend, this was clearly not the case in fact with Szczesny and Vermaelen dropped to the bench, it could be argued that Arsene had played his strongest available players, on current form at least.

I like many had not given us much of a chance before the game had kicked off but the dream had flashed in my head a number of times during the last few days. In those day dreams, we had scored an early goal so when Santi and Rosicky combined outside of the penalty area to free Walcott down to the right who then whipped in a low driven cross to the feet of Giroud to finish high into an empty net, it made everyone associated to Arsenal think ‘hang about’ maybe this is possible after all.

Clearly we had worked hard on a game plan, keeping tight defensively and working all over the pitch to deny the home team passing options. We looked like a proper unit and it reminded me of how we approached games early this season.

One of my favourite moments of the game was when Arjen Robben burst down the left with Carl Jenkinson back pedaling, Robben also had his left back in close attention, making it almost a two on one situation but Carl just stood up to him, matched his pace and dispossessed the Dutchman and came away with the ball.

I said pre match that Arsene’s game plan could be to defend well and deep then assert pressure late in the game, I got part of that correct I’d say but we couldn’t quite apply enough pressure on their back four. With Rosicky, Cazorla and Arteta in the side I was hoping for a good spell of dangerous attacking possession but it didn’t really materialise which is a shame. Easier said than done I guess against one of the strongest sides in world football at present.

Theo Walcott should have had a clear run on Manuel Neuer goal but he was wrongly flagged for offside and that is a huge regret today. If Theo had converted and made that two at that stage then time would have been on our side.

It took a Laurent Koscielny header with minutes to go to plant that seed of doubt in the heads of the Germans. When the corner was awarded, I thought back to Reading in the league cup and screamed ‘do it again Kos’ I now wish I shouted that 20 minutes earlier, because we all know that these things make a difference or something.

Like previously stated, we didn’t really force Bayern backwards enough after that, partly due to the referee allowing the game to go into stop/start mode, blowing for everything including some German gamesmanship.

We needed Santi Cazorla and Tomas Rosicky closer to Giroud and Walcott but it didn’t happen. It wasn’t Rosicky’s best game which isn’t really a surprise given  the limited amount of games he has played and the fact that the team had defended deep for the most part.

Laurent Koscielny was fantastic and I still see him as our best defender by some distance. Our whole defence played very well individually along with Lukas Fabianski who made one world class save from a Robben power shot inside our penalty area.

The Pole is still trying to shake off his error prone tag I think and that may well be a little unfair. A few seasons Fabianski was making error after error, some quite big ones at that but before the emergence of Szczesny he had his first consistent run in the team and showed his quality putting in some big performances at Wolves, Manchester City and others until his shoulder injury. In came Szczesny and the rest was history. Szczesny has lost form and his lucky he has good will from the Gooner faithful because had his compatriot made similar mistakes to Szczesny then he would have been castrated.

Both Koscielny and Fabianski deserve to keep their places going forward but Arsene will have to look at that from now until Saturday because some changes are more than likely going to have to be made with only two days recovery time.

We can take heart from this and use it for our run in but I am not quite sure that it can be a template for the rest of the season. It is one thing playing the way we did against Bayern Munich but it is another thing playing against lesser sides who defend deep themselves forcing us to play an attacking game. A balance needs to be found between scoring goals and keeping clean sheets.

What this might do is bring the fans and the team together for this final push for the CL places. Let us hope it spurs us all on and we finish where we need to for what is hopefully the final part of our rebuilding job.