Nasri could have blasted in a hatrick from the penalty spot had the referee spotted Vidic’s tug back on Nasri’s shirt

What a wonderful game of football at the Emirates. It is the type of game that Arsene Wenger loves. Arsene enjoys attacking, technical football and both teams provided that today.

I cannot remember such an open, end to end game.

Manchester United were bolder than they have been for sometime at our ground. Last season they sat very deep and broke against Arsenal when the Gunners lost the ball. This time they wanted to match Arsenal man for man, they wanted to take the game to a young Arsenal side that have been lacking in confidence.

The score finished 2-1 but you could have held two dice, threw them on the table and whatever the results would have been very believable.

Anyone who wrote Arsenal off before the game would have mistaken. They would have ignored the history of raising performance levels against the big sides.

Abou Diaby made very important contribution to the game, especially the first half. He brought back triangles to the Arsenal side. He dropped into the midfield along with Cesc and Denilson and passed around Anderson and Carrick, and helped Arsenal keep possession.

A very true and obvious point would be, 4-5-1 adds class to the midfield but takes class away from the attack.

Bendtner lead the line on his own, the Dane had a difficult afternoon. Adebayor was suited to that role today, his pace would have frightened Vidic and Ferdinand as well as his energy. Bendtner is not a lone front man, he looks like a big target man but he is infact a second striker that needed Vela running off him.

Sami Nasri scored the goals and was much better than he was against Fenerbache. He kept the ball well and was direct. Nasri could have blasted in a hatrick from the penalty spot had the referee spotted Vidic’s tug back on Nasri’s shirt.

Invididually our defenders done well, especially Gallas but the problem was (as it always is) the space between the back four and the midfield was too large. Berbatov, Rooney and Ronaldo were enjoying that space. They could have scored 3 in the first half alone.

What does this mean for Arsenal?

Very little if they continue to play against lesser teams with a slower tempo and desire. Nothing will change. But what this will do is breed confidence. Nasri will be on a high, Denilson has had two back to back outstanding games. Gallas is back in the side with a great performance under his belt. The Arsenal players will suddenly feel less tired after this afternoon.

Arsene will pray that his side can stop fluctuating and find consistency. The big four will continue to take points off each other so it will be a case of which team can keep grinding out results against everyone else. For once none of the big 4 have massive confidence.

Chelsea have just lost 3-1 to Roma and were beaten by Liverpool. Liverpool were beaten by Tottenham and scraped a draw at home against Athletico Madrid. Manchester United are conceding goals and have only 1 point against Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea so far.

We are only in November, don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that the league is over.