It is nice and rather unusual to see Arsenal causing all sorts of problems from crosses. It was a cross that finally broke Cardiff City two minutes from time. Nacho Monreal swung in a deep cross at the far post, Bacary Sagna is one of the few players who could have won that header. The keeper could only parry the ball into the path of Nicklas Bendtner to rifle into the roof of the net from close range.

This isn’t the first time Nicklas Bendtner has made a decisive late impact on an Arsenal match, in fact he has done so more than a couple of times in his Arsenal career. As soon as he replaced Lukas Podolski late in the second half, Arsenal looked a better team. This is no slight on Lukas Podolski, it just means or at least looks like the German cannot play as a centre forward in the way that Arsene Wenger would like.

One of Bendtner’s first contributions was to win a header from a longer ball to one of his team mates, this was greeted by a loud cheer from the home crowd.

Arsenal had been knocking on the Cardiff City door without being able to apply the needed bit of quality when it came to it. Either our final pass was too straight or too heavy or our finishing had been tame.

The first half seemed to be all about trying to get Theo Walcott in on goal without much other variation but we couldn’t quite get it right. It was typical that we would use this game to focus on getting Theo in behind, a game that the best through ball passer in the league was unavailable due to injury. Theo Walcott was asked to make very central runs in the first but was then asked to stay wide to stretch out the pitch which is why we didn’t see as many Theo darts in behind during the second half. Poor Theo was screamed at to play closer to Bendtner from both Wenger and Bould before the opening goal and then told to go back wide.

The first half was pretty poor, the poor weather conditions may well have contributed to that as it may have done against Chelsea but the second half was much improved if not spectacular.

Rosicky had come on along with Bendtner in the place of Flamini who didn’t give Arsenal the creativity needed to break down a well organised Cardiff City side.

Per missed two very good chances, he had scored a similar header for Germany against England. Not much has been made about Walcott’s excellent cross from the right, arrowing a cross perfectly onto the BFG’s head but his header went wide when it looked easier to score.

It is nice and rather unusual to see Arsenal causing all sorts of problems from crosses. It was a cross that finally broke Cardiff City two minutes from time. Nacho Monreal swung in a deep cross at the far post, Bacary Sagna is one of the few players who could have won that header. The keeper could only parry the ball into the path of Nicklas Bendtner to rifle into the roof of the net from close range. That was the last thing he would do in the game as the keeper had landed on his ankle as he struck goal wards.

Theo Walcott played as the lone striker for the remaining minutes and got his customary goal, Wilshere’s neat jab into Walcott’s path was cute and clever and with the pressure off Walcott was able to dink the ball over the keeper via his outstretched finger tips and into the net for 2-0 and game over.

Jack Wilshere was head and shoulders our best player on the night, it was the best he has played in a while. Creating chances, hitting the post following a dribble past two players. With Aaron Ramsey out injured and Mesut Özil having a break we will need that version of Wilshere over the next few weeks, hopefully even over the season.

It wasn’t vintage but the three points total up just the same. Feels like I have been saying similar in recent weeks. We have too much talent not to find our best attacking form soon so hopefully we keep grinding out results until then.

10 points out of 12 over the festive period is fantastic especially at a time where we usually struggle to deal with the lack of recovery time between games.

Top of the league. Have a happy new year.