It may not be the best way to discover the result of a match (or even try and "watch" the game's last 20 minutes) but persuading my wife to let me use her Blackberry whilst waiting to board a flight at Gatwick will suffice with a game like yesterday.

Of course I claim all the glory as I could only play 2 of my 3 strikers in my fantasy league side and with the psychology of "I'd rather he scored and we won than get points for my team", l left out Robin and the rest, as they say, is history. I'll need to remember this policy.

I've seen the highlights and a few things come to mind, yes Van Persie's first was offside but that has happened to us too many times against Chelsea so I'll take that with no feelings of guilt. Secondly, the EBJT (copyright The Fiver) and his so called tackle on Sagna. Apparently Sky refused to show it  despite spending hours on Eboue's tackle last year (cheers Arseblogger) and MOTD didn't talk about it after the game as per usual. What is it about England captains that gives them complete Carte Blanche to do what they like!!! Arseblogger also mentioned the Chelsea fans copying the United fans with their P#####hile chants (yes everyone knows it) and the Guardian did print a story about it today but didn't seem too keen to take it any further. It comes to a sad state of affairs when the only person speaking out about it was Alex Ferguson (even if it took him 10 years too many to say it!).

What's next - well we all know that is an impossible question. Our kids will have a tough game at Burnley this week and that's a team that is doing well and playing good football too. After that the first team will return against Wigan though after the last round maybe we should play the two teams in reverse this week!

Oh and we've got Plymouth in the cup which is fun as my wife comes from there and I'm in Plymouth Argyle for christmas where I will see their Boxing Day game against Southampton. I did also see the last game between the two sides in the cup when we won 6-1, I'll take that with a Jack Wilshere hat trick.

..or something along those lines.

I think many Arsenal fans struggled to get through last night's game, it was an odd one indeed. From the continuing coverage on Arsenal's very own "The Truman Show" that is "The Billy Show" to the 59,500 (cough, cough) pairs of eyes watching the new captain take to the stage plus the various side shows - it was an "interesting" evening.

In essence we struggled, unsurprisingly, to play with any fluency or pace and it looked, from the first 5 minutes, that this was always go to be a long evening. During the 90 minutes there were little flashes of potential equally mixed with minor scares but sometimes it seemed that it was like watching an Arsenal game on a dodgy internet stream. Our passages of play never quite got into focus and the players seemed, somehow, to be out of sync with each other on numerous occasions. 

However, for all our flaws in our play last night there was (just) enough effort and concentration to make up for the lack of confidence and experience. That and, for once this season, a little bit of lady luck saw us go through after one real alarm (yet more thanks to Almunia) when Cesc made the most of a (rightly) uncontested drop ball (It WASN'T a free kick Mr. Pleat!!!) to put our own Puss in Pink Boots through to score with a superb finish.

So, as the boss remarked afterwards, we got through and we can hope the recovery has started though with our injuries and a game at Stamford Bridge this weekend we need to hold on to some of any luck going. The Champions League can be left out of our minds until February and we ask our new guy from the Soccer League to sort out one or two additions in January. BUT....

You know what I will take from last night's game, not the sight of Cesc in charge or Willie Gallas's face after he nearly let them into score but the 10 minutes or so of Jack Wilshere. 16 years old and as composed a European début since a young Spaniard probably! He looks too young to be on the pitch with the big boys but that his very appearance is what makes Arsene who he is and what he stands for. Whilst the world of football tries to eat itself with money grabbing agents and even more greedy players there still is an innocence of a young kid wanting to just play. It may not last but the memory will still be there.