The first 45 minutes was a thing of beauty, a 90% game of football from the Arsenal team. The missing 10% being lack of clinical finishing. Our fullbacks were fantastic last night

Arsenal 2 Olympiacos 0 – Champions League

The saying ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try ,try again’ rings very true when relating it to Arsenal’s performance at the Emirates last night. Since the double defeat in Manchester Arsene’s boys have shook it out of their system, dusted themselves down and started again, winning football matches. The Greek giants were next on the list and Arsene selected a bold looking side in an attempt to pin back the Greeks and kill the game off. Well the pinning back part worked a treat but unfortunately the latter did not apply. It could have been a different game had Cesc’s left foot half volley dipped under the crossbar instead of bouncing off the woodwork that is probably not made of wood whatsoever.

I was almost totally correct in my line up prediction, Eboue coming in for Sagna, Rosicky starting the game. My only mistake was not knowing that Eduardo was still suffering from an injury which meant a place for the Croatian on the bench, which is actually a seat.

Abou Diaby continued in midfield alongside Cesc and Alex Song with Tomas Rosicky playing on the right of a front three.

Cesc Fabregas has not been his self since the opening couple games of the season, injury and International duty interrupting the playmakers flow, but he was back to his imperious best last night. He was the orchestrator behind a vest majority of our attacks. I was watching him carefully from the stands, moving towards his team mates when they were in possession, spinning his head from left to right before receiving the pass, already knowing his next move like a master on the chess board.

Cesc Fabregas could have changed the pattern of the game in the opening minutes, had his early effort found the net, but it was not to be.

The first 45 minutes was a thing of beauty, a 90% game of football from the Arsenal team. The missing 10% being lack of clinical finishing. Our fullbacks were fantastic last night, Gael Clichy has endured plenty of murmurs from the Gooners this season due to a lack of form but he put that well and truly away with a performance that rightfully earned himself a place in the Premier League best left back of the season in 2007/2008.

Andrey Arshavin is clearly not match fit as yet, I don’t know if it was shown on the television cameras but quite often in the first half an hour you could see the little Russian squatting down trying to catch his breath back or being the last one to get back into position when Olympiacos were preparing for goal kicks. It does seem like he has been chasing peak fitness ever since he joined Arsenal.

What I loved about Arshavin’s performance last night was even with an apparent lack of fitness he continued to sprint back and nip the ball off the opposition to start an Arsenal attack. Arshavin seemed to be running at the opposition more than he has done in a while and I think this is a valuable quality to have especially without the services of Theo Walcott. Arsene Wenger has spoken about his ability to play in short spaces and I would tend to agree with that, his bursts of speed and ability to thread passes into small areas is a massive bonus against teams who come to the Emirates with one goal in mind and that goal is to protect their own.

My only gripe with the performance and perhaps our approach in these kind of games in the amount of risk we take. When I say risk I mean almost having too much faith in patience. Arsene is a firm believer that if we stay calm and keep passing then the goals will come and last night Arsene Wenger is proved correct as he has been on many occasions when we win by late goals but this is not always the case as shown by our run of goalless games last season.

Personally I would rather we kept the patient approach until the final third and then showed more urgency around the penalty area. Quicker passing and combinations, committing more players into the penalty area when the ball is in wide areas. We had enough chances to have won the game in the first half playing the way we did but I feel with our dominance we could have created even more opportunities for ourselves.

We have been in the position where we are controlling the game from start to finish only to miss chances and when it gets to 70 minutes our players are panicking trying to find the opening which never comes. Former Wenger teams used to kill off games in the first half and then relax in the second half. Funnily enough I used to complain that we didn’t score more goals in the second half, that is a football fan for you I guess.

Alexandre Song reminds me of an Ox in midfield. I forget how powerful he is. He really looks like he has beefed up over the last 12 months. He looks like a more confident midfielder now and not just a defensive player doing a job. I would hate to play against the wall that is Song. Powering around the pitch winning the ball or making sure that the opposition midfielder does not get past him, he will pick up plenty of yellow cards over the course of his Arsenal career. A friend of mine who was sitting with me at the game turned to me and said ‘Song is a monster’ moments later a Gooner who was watching on the television sent me a text message with the words ‘Song is a monster’

The majority of Gooners including myself is now taking notice of a player who is transforming into a top top player. At merely 21 years old the levels he can reach is very exciting.

Arsene Wenger reverted to 4-4-2 to give Van Persie some company in attack. Eduardo came on for Tomas Rosicky who contributed to our good football but perhaps didn’t get to impose himself on the game as well as he could have done, we know that will come because we know that Rosicky has the class.

Carlos Vela replaced Abou Diaby who had a good game in the midfield engine room and a minute later Eduardo was freed down the left and his cut back was fired in from close range by Robin Van Persie. Relief, it took longer than perhaps it should have but the all important break through was made. From where I was seated I could have sworn the assist was from Carlos Vela, even after watching the replay on the screens I thought the young Mexican played the final pass.

I wondered how a team full of attacking players would play the rest of the game with the lead, they kept the lead by continuing to attack and keep the ball.

Emmanuel Eboue was superb at right back. Probably his best all round display at right back in my opinion. He made interceptions, won challenges and was electric going forward. One outrageous flick to Van Persie late on was fantastic.

Andrey Arshavin’s goal was offside but the move before it deserved the ball rolling around in the back of the net. The movement and awareness of Arshavin and Cesc was wonderful, football that you would expect of two players at their level.

So all in all it was a great game of football, if the same game was played again it could have been 6 or 7. Mannone playing his part in that with one great save from close range but in truth the young keeper was a spectator on the night. Five straight victories, four straight clean sheets including the Carling Cup so all bodes well.

Blackburn Rovers will not be looking forward to Sunday afternoon.