He was horrible on Tuesday and I really question why he started ahead of Djourou. Of course I understand Wenger wanted a bit of stability at the back since Song-Silvestre finished the previous game

WHAT WENT RIGHT……………

Diaby: Abou was back from injury playing his second game of the season- and what a game it was from the lanky guy whose name sounds like Abu Dhabi. He did most things right. Tactically, his role was to link creative midfield play with attacking play. This meant he had to be clever around the box, initiate play in midfield, as well as to be an additional option to receive passes in midfield. He needed to be able to take two, three quick clever touches to win time for attacking players and midfield players to get into place. He had to be a Hleb.

He did all those things and more. His physical presence, good shooting and pace meant he also could be a goal threat.

4-4-1-1: Wenger has often adopted this approach in Europe and the results have been mixed. Last season, Hleb was often quite effective in that role, especially in Europe where he had the biggest impact. (The San Siro game comes to mind). The problem with Hleb though was his famed aversion to shooting and transferring his cleverness with the ball to cleverness on goal. We have often played Robin Van Persie in that role as well. Robin plays the role well but the fact that he’s a striker/winger means that 4-4-1-1 often turns out to be 4-4-2. Diaby might be the perfect man for this role. If he keeps fit that is.

Pace: The pace we have upfront is scary. Many don’t realize that Adebayor is actually faster than Theo Walcott. He’s just a poorer runner, and he perhaps doesn’t have the same turn of pace since he’s so long-legged and awkward. Those two men, if given space to run will ruin any defence. That’s going to be a very important weapon for us in Europe. I however suspect that Walcott is right and wrong about what takeaways defences in Europe will take from this game. I think he’s right that they’ll fear us, but I am sure managers across Europe watched that performance and would have concluded you can’t have an open game of football with Arsenal. We’re likely to see more games like the one against Sunderland in the Premier League than games like the one against Fenerbahce. Whichever way it works, the model of speedy Walcott bursting upfield faster than most people blink, and Adebayor being one of the few players who can match that pace will continue to bring us goals. Remember Walcott’s wonder run against Liverpool at Anfield, and his run at the San Siro which both led to Adebayor tap-ins? You can expect many more of those.

Almunia: The English-feeling Pamplonian was awesome. He did everything right. He was even good on crosses. But crucially he turned out to be an excellent sweeper, dashing up quickly to block or clear when our back four was breached. He is also very good with the ball at his feet and distributes well. Manuel is doing well.

No Nerves: We had a young team out there. Not many teams in the Champions League have an average age of 22. For our kids to come out as they did, and not be overawed by the daunting atmosphere at Fenerbahce’s home ground, it means they’re ready for prime time.

Squad comes through: I just want some of those brain-dead pundits who pin everything on squad “strength-in-depth” to admit that Arsenal do have a strong squad. See who didn’t play for us on Tuesday: Sagna, Gallas, Toure, RVP, Eduardo and Rosicky. There is no evidence that we could have had a better result if those 6 had played. That’s significant.

WHAT WENT LESS WELL………..

Silvestre: I never did rate him as a footballer. I have always regarded him as one of those players who have long fulfilled careers at the top level with just average skills. When he played for United against us, I was always glad to see his name on their team sheet.

He was horrible on Tuesday and I really question why he started ahead of Djourou. Of course I understand Wenger wanted a bit of stability at the back since Song-Silvestre finished the previous game. But his positioning was off, he lost quite a few battles in the air, and has no pace left whatsoever. His strength, for the sake of objectivity, is his willingness to put his body on the line. Unfortunately that doesn’t help much if he doesn’t have the positional nous, the pace or the footballing brain to be at the right place in which he can throw his body on the line. I was also appalled at his booting the ball into row Z from the 3rd minute upwards.

I sure hope Wenger wouldn’t play him as full-back in place of Clichy because we’ll get killed.

Defending: We have had a problem at the back this season according to most watchers. Most of it was our inability to deal with set-pieces. We still had only conceded 3 goals from open play, two of which were quite random wonder goals. At the Sukru Saracoglu in Istanbul we were not only poor on defending set pieces we were alarmingly bad at defending from open play. Alex Song’s focus was off, and Clichy often completely vacated his position. Not in one instance did we successfully hold the line. But it wasn’t all the defenders’ fault. Denilson, Diaby and Fabregas did not do enough to close down Fenerbahce players in midfield after the home team decided to throw four men upfront to match our high line. This was an unusual tactic akin to rolling the dice by pumping the ball over our back line again and again banking on the probability that their players will be onside one time and get a goal. It worked because our midfield 3 shirked their defensive duties. But it wasn’t only that. Song and Silvestre did not look like either had much pace. It wasn’t clear that they were even talking to each other at all. Our organization on set pieces was even worse than usual as was evidenced by their first goal in which two of their players were completely free in the box and Adebayor did not even go back to defend.

In the final analysis I don’t see much to panic about in that defensive performance. It wasn’t that bad if you consider that Fenerbahce really went for it and had a pretty good set of attackers. Our back four had never played together in this combination. Silvestre was playing only his second game for the club and Song was playing maybe his 7th game as Centre Back. But there are takeaways. The way we play, we need pace at the back and that’s even more important than having an aerially dominant defender. Song-Silvestre doesn’t look like a pacey enough duo. The other takeaway is to learn to widen the game more in instances like this. If Fenerbahce have four men upfront, then they’re lacking bodies on the flanks, and it might be useful to go wide and play keep-ball on the flanks.