Wilshere's first half display down to his left position, he has had some very good games in that position this season. In my opinion he lacks simplisticity. Or at least knowing when to be simplistic and when to try and make something happen. It is this reason why I enjoy watching Tomas Rosicky so much. As with Ramsey and other players like Hleb before him, this issue is a temporary issue rather than a longer term problem. Match fitness and playing games will sort this out. In that first half especially, Wilshere would try and dribble past one too many players, get tackled and stay down holding his ankle. There are times when Wilshere's burst past a couple players and then pass makes chances out of nothing but often the early pass to one of the floating Özil, Ramsey, Giroud etc is the better option. Credit to Wilshere

Arsenal colours Forget about Giroud's goals for a second, as impressive as the return has been. His all round game has been a joy this season. His awareness of others, his ability to flick the ball perfectly into the smallest of areas is fantastic. I am sure that side of his game is a big reason why Arsene went for him. Is there a better passer with his head in the Premier League than Giroud? When watching long kicks heading towards him you wonder what is going to happen next then the next second he has flicked the ball off to a player in space that I hadn't seen a second ago.

Serge Gnabry started the game in pragmatic style as he did against Stoke but just before the half time whistle, he zoomed up the gears and drove at the heart of the Swansea defence in his bustling style of his, he had the awareness to slip the ball to Giroud who was clean through but the Frenchman

Bacary Sagna is very strong in the air and it is somewhat of a surprise that he has not been used in the opposition penalty area as often as his strength in the air suggests. Safety of the counter attack may have been put ahead of trying to score. With Özil's expert delivery, I want to see Giroud, Sagna, Mertesacker and Koscielny up from the back

Aaron Ramsey seems to have enough to spare at the moment after yet another goal this season.  Following Walcott’s opener, the Welsh Wizard secured the victory with a driving run and shot that took the slightest deflection to zip past Steve Mandanda in the Marseille goal. It’s safe to say that this was not the kind of run the Aaron Ramsey of 12 months ago would have made and his improvement since then has been astonishing. 6 goals (from just seven shots on target this season apparently) from midfield as well as his overall performances suggest he is going from strength to strength and will hopefully only get better. It’s been well documented how poor he has been in the past and while I will argue that a lot of the criticisms of were warranted, the vitriol he received from certain quarters was just bang out of order. Ramsey’s

Ramsey replaced Cesc Fabregas in the team, he ghosted into many goal scoring positions but lacked the composure to finish time and time again. Hi Aaron Ramsey, meet confidence and development. Ten minutes later it was Ramsey once more who got on the end of a sweeping move to slide the ball between the keepers legs and into the net. Ramsey's 5th goal in 6 Arsenal games this season. Long may that continue I say. Unfortunately it was not all plain sailing for us though, we should have been comfortable at half time but that is not a problem because Walcott will score goals even if he is going through a slight sticky patch. What was an issue was us shooting ourselves in the foot. Regular readers of this blog will know how much I love Laurent Koscielny, one of the best centre back's in the league for me without a doubt but he really has to learn when he should attempt to go for a tackle in the box and when not to. We've seen so many fantastic last ditch stretching tackles that we almost take it for granted but whether Johnson dived or not, there was no need to take the risk. Johnson was heading away from the goal on his weaker side, Gibbs

And as all hope faded, their frustrations got the better of them. Rather than trying to play football, Fener players, led by Raul Meireles, seemed hell bent on trying to see who could score the most points by hitting the apparent bullseyes Jack Wilshere had on him. Thankfully, he doesn't appear to have suffered any lasting effects but for someone who we were still led to believe is fighting his way back to full fitness, the slightest touch is enough to cause the rest of us

Arsene made a selection change before kick off. Resting Jack Wilshere was not a shock given his recent injury history and bringing in Podolski seemed to be Arsene's only real option but due to our shortage of players due to injury and current lack of new signings we started a midfield trio that hadn't started before. Aaron Ramsey, Tomas Rosicky and Santi Cazorla are all excellent ball playing midfielder's but could be seen to lack a bit of defensive quality, because of this Arsene tweaked the game plan. Although some may tell you that he never changes no matter what.

Although we couldn't find the breakthrough or even create enough top quality chances, I really enjoyed the first half. We were tigerish in the tackle, took the game to the home team and played some wonderful interchanging football at a nice quick tempo. Rosicky, Wilshere, Ramsey and Cazorla gave our attack a nice spark. We were missing the final bit of quality with the end pass or shot though. There was a point during that half that I thought that having a player like Wayne Rooney would take this team up another level. He would be the type to assist Walcott or hit a first time shot to put us 1-0 up. Oliver Giroud had a hard working game. His little flicks outside the penalty area to team mates are impressive as is his ability to win long balls but there are times when our team could do with a piece of individual brilliance. We have that in midfield but not in attack. Walcott, Giroud and Podolski all need supply.

Then Sky showed Gareth Bale's standard screamer and blimey it was a fine strike. The margin for error had been completely erased so it was down to maintaining that clean sheet. Given all the nerves and fear when I think back, we were relatively in control of the game. The Geordies may have had spells of good ball possession but they really did not test Szczesny anywhere near as much as you'd think. Theo Walcott had finally managed to get that pass where he would be set clear, his foot work to turn the defender was actually quite good but his finish only found the base of the post rather than the net, with Bale's goal still fresh in the mind, the fear of the late sting was a concern. Sky television wanted to let us know every couple of seconds that a Newcastle goal would send heroic mighty underdog Tottenham into the champions league.