His 1st goal was exquisite. Gervinho got the ball on the far side on the left, drifted in field and made a simple pass to RVP who dropped his shoulder shifted the ball to the other side with his right foot, beat Turner and fired home from just outside the box with his right foot to give us the lead.

A win against a Sunderland side that has troubled us in recent seasons is a welcomed boast. We struggled to make our dominance count and had to wait till the 81st minute to be sure of all 3 points.

I won’t be going into details of the match rather all I will be doing is looking at the players that most impressed me in the game.

1. Szczesny

In as much as Szczesny has down played his massive contribution in the game, electing to praise RVP’s star performance, I on the other hand can’t help but wonder what our fate would be like had Szczesny not made that WORLD CLASS save to deny Cattermole and Sunderland from taking the lead at the tail end of the 1st half.

That save alone was the difference between winning or losing. Szczesny has grown in stature, commanding in the box and also a great talker. His confidence is very telling and it transmits to our back line.

2. Jenkinson

Jenkinson has become an easy target for Arsenal fans to hit on forgetting he is a young player that was bought from a League 1 side.

Whilst agree that he isn’t ready for the big time, we can’t take away his top notch performance against Sunderland.

He was defensively sound and shut out the advances of Larsson, we should also note that Larsson was substituted and was poor and only had 1 moment of magic which was from his well struck free kick which left Szczesny for dead.

Offensively he was a livewire, he and Walcott did well to peg Richardson back. He also had a fair share of crosses into the Sunderland’s box.

According to @arsenalreport on twitter, Carl Jenkinson made 2 key passes, had 89% passing accuracy, attempted 8 long balls (8 successful) and 7 crosses (1 successful).

Its just so sad that some supporters have written him off so early even though he is a player that is young and has the potential to improve his game massively.

3. Song

If not for the 2 goals RVP scored, Song for me would have been my man of the match.

Song was at his monstrous best, won almost everything, strong on the ball and tracked back the oppositions runners. He also helped in the final third and linked up well with Arteta and Rosicky.

I’m liking the fact that he and Arteta are striking a formidable partnership and games together would only make them a UNIT.

All in all he was impressive and allowed us to keep knocking on the Sunderland’s door in the 2nd half.

4. Rosicky

If Rosicky stays fit and I hope he does, getting into the side for Ramsey becomes a lot harder.

In the 1st half , Rosicky didn’t really stamp his authority on the game but he showed a couple of times if he gets going he can be a threat in the attacking’ third.

On came the 2nd half and on came the Rosicky that I’ve admired for a long time. The 1st 15 – 25 mins , Rosicky was at his very best. His technique showed, burst of pace on the turn and ability to make that telling pass.

Our play went through him and his quality was glaring. Its time for him to do it on a consistent basis because at the moment he his key to our attacking play.

5. Robin van Persie

Two Words : Captain Fantastic.
His quality is a beautiful sight to behold, he took his 2 goals beautifully and set us up for the 3 pts.

His 1st goal was exquisite. Gervinho got the ball on the far side on the left, drifted in field and made a simple pass to RVP who dropped his shoulder shifted the ball to the other side with his right foot, beat Turner and fired home from just outside the box with his right foot to give us the lead.

His second goal was something we don’t see often even though he is capable of doing it consistently. The free kick was from his doings, inviting Wes Brown to trip him just outside the box. He picked himself up and fired home the resulting free kick to hand us the lead and the win.

RVP has been in a rich vain of form in his last 32 games, scoring 27 goals. I really do not know where we would have been without his goals.

He has less than 2 yrs left in his current contract, Arsenal and Wenger must do all in their power to make him commit to us.

A win against Sunderland is exactly the tonic we need to keep pushing for near perfection.

The pace of our passing was up a notch on Sunday largely because our midfield worked well and were industrious.

Sunderland’s Collback had a couple of nice words to say about our play after the game;

“Obviously we played Chelsea at home but I don’t think they move it around as quick as Arsenal.

They make the pitch really big and they’re constantly rotating so you don’t really get a chance to have a breather.”

All in all we get back on track which is a big positive. Attention now shifts to Marseille in the Champions League, a positive result at the Velodrome is what the team needs to build on the low confidence.