Ever since the Villa fans serenaded Eduardo with references to Heather Mills a week after breaking his leg, I’ve had a special place for them. A special place where I’ve wanted to beat them properly for quite a while.

Yesterday, it happened thanks to an inspired Arsenal performance. Make no mistake, Villa were very, very tough opposition and as a football match this was as good a one as we’ve seen at the Emirates all season.

The easy explanation is that the introduction of captain Cesc Fabregas after 57 minutes changed the game. A huge impact he certainly had, but I think that’s a little disingenuous to the 11 who had started the match.

The first 45 had been very competitive and fairly tight, albeit with Eduardo himself missing a glorious opening very early on after great work from Abou Diaby, who had a second consecutive excellent game.

Whereas Match of the Day chose to focus on Villa frustrating us, I think most Gooners in the ground were delighted that unlike last season’s 2-0 home reverse, we were matching them physically and their openings were few.

Down in front of us Alex Song ran across to slide in and make the kind of challenge that we as football fans (simple creatures that we are) love. His name was sung longer and harder than possibly any other moment all season.

There were other promising signs. Vermaelen looked up for Agbonlahor and alongside Song, Denilson was full of confidence and Abou Diaby was having one of his ‘today, I’m keeping the ball’ games. In attack we weren’t quite clicking, with Eduardo hesitant for that early chance, Nasri OK but no better and Arshavin struggling to put a foot right.

But there was enough to suggest we’d be able to up the tempo after the break, something the statistics show we’ve been very decent at this season.

And so we did. Right from the restart when Diaby turned delightfully. The pressure was building, there was one cleared off the line and then the captain entered, to replace Denilson. It was actually a great moment because for the first time in a very long time it felt as though we had real competition for places in midfield.

None of Song, Diaby or Denilson deserved to be withdrawn, but with a player such as Cesc on the pitch, one had to go. That’s the sweet smell of competition. Shame about his injury and Song heading off, but for one day it was good.

Cesc’s introduction merely upped the anti and within ten minutes we led. My seat right down in the bottom corner doesn’t always afford the clearest of views but yesterday, it could hardly be faulted. I’ve got a brilliant side on freeze frame in my mind of Friedel leaping in mid air but the ball already bulging the net.

And then we got the captain, who looked as if he’d had one of those mornings where he’d shampooed his hair and then realised he was out of conditioner, run right over to us in a state of high excitement. As were we. Great stuff.

Villa then pushed forward a bit more, but created absolutely sod all and before you knew it, it was two. Traore’s very decent sand-wedged through ball after a flagging Milner gave it away, a cool headed Theo and an onrushing captain fantastic. We enjoyed that one too.

Was it worth the ensuing possible injury? Only time will tell. But make no mistake, this was an important win.

There followed a carbon copy of Agbonlahor’s clincher at the Emirates last season, except this time after being initially out-muscled Gallas recovered superbly and Almunia was sharp to turn the loose ball away. Small, but important, differences.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve little time for the Villa fans and was particularly baffled by their rendition of “We shall not be moved” five minutes into the game. If by that they meant they had no plans to screw up fourth place quite as spectacularly as they did last season, then I suppose fair enough, but I couldn’t help thinking they’d missed the point of it really. Surely it should be sung after 85 minutes of a performance in which you’ve confirmed yourselves as potential champions/cup winners/relegation escapees?

Then on 90 minutes they sang it again. At this point I was most confused because when you’re 2-0 down in injury time, you have quite clearly been moved. While they were still singing it, Diaby waltzed through and guided home number three, as if really to emphasise the point.

While I’m on one, I swear I also heard “2-0 and you still don’t sing” from the other end. It’s a song that I think sometimes has some resonance when you see supporters sat on their hands at the end of a comfortable victory. There are times when it certainly happens at the Emirates.

The only thing is that for the song to work, it requires the home support not to be singing. The clue is in the lyrics. And we were singing. So that was equally odd.

But anyway, great performance and in a sense I think it was our season’s best because while victories at Everton and Liverpool and against Spurs were perhaps more spectacular, I think for a long while Villa were playing a lot better than any of those three did.

Also a nice way to sign off the decade at home. And in a funny sense it felt a little bit like our last game of the last decade – a 2-0 win against high flying Leeds, ten years ago today. Anyone else notice that?

If you didn’t see it then in a nutshell: after a dodgy opening five minutes that saw Almunia tip a Vermaelen header onto the bar we went through a purple patch that saw Cesc score, Arshavin hit the post and a few other chances go begging (not necessarily through poor finishing). Burnley crept back into it and a silly Vermaelen challenge gave them a penalty, which they scored. The excellent Cesc went off just before the break and for a long, long time after it we were limited to half chances but not a lot more. At the other end they had what looked like an onside goal ruled offside and could have had another penalty for a handball, albeit an innocuous one, by Silvestre. They also hit the post.

Most disappointing was the failure of a number of our players to raise their games. Sure, Burnley are tough at Turf Moor. Five wins, three draws and one defeat is proof of that. But that makes it all the more vital that players really lift themselves.

Cesc Fabregas did. Until he went off he was excellent, winning everything driving forward, scoring and generally leading like a captain should. Andrei Arshavin was making a decent fist of it too. But around them Samir Nasri, Abou Diaby and Theo Walcott were passengers, joining the game when it came to them instead of showing initiative and making things happen.

Cesc was replaced by Ramsey, who failed to rise above the mediocrity around him and Theo was eventually replaced by Eduardo. Yes, Walcott was having a shocker. But the move robbed us of what little natural width we did have. We never made a third sub, which I found odd given Eboue, Wilshere and Vela could all have given us that width and it wasn’t as if there weren’t a couple of candidates to come off.

Does this result put us out of the title race? No, of course it doesn’t. For a start, if we win our game in hand, we’re five points behind, which in a normal season is nothing. In this season of hiccup after hiccup for everyone, it looks even less.

The fact is that after a set of back to back away fixtures for us and back to back home fixtures for United and Chelsea, we have ceded no points to Chelsea and gained one on United.

Sadly, that is not to say we look like potential Champions. Right now, we clearly don’t. We’ve a goalkeeper in dreadful form, a defence who don’t trust him, a decimated attack and a midfield that is not supporting as it should.

So what did I think? Pretty decent overall apart from the finishing. In fact very decent given we were away to a side chasing Champions League knockout stage qualification and backed by fanatical support. Very, very decent in fact when you consider we had two players making their first team debuts. In defence!

Our early work was good but characterised by an inability to create clear goal scoring chances. Our later work was even better but characterised by our inability to take clear goal scoring chances. Even right at the end, Olympiakos were thankful to having a man on the line to clear Ramsey’s effort.

It’s hard to go into too great a tactical analysis in games like this because the players you want to judge are not playing next to the players you would want to judge them with. Either way, this was very decent and player ratings are below.

WHEN wheeling out an Invincible for a wave to the crowd before a game, it’s all to easy to whimsically think “how we could do with him now”.

With Freddie Ljungberg yesterday there was never any danger of that. Don’t get me wrong, he was a very good player for us. But truth be told we’re hardly gagging for a slightly built 5ft 9ins attacking midfielder blessed with trickery rather than pace and the instinctive urge to drift in from the wings.

There were certainly no shortage of potential Freddie’s against Stoke. But crucially we had Comrade Emmanuel Eboue too, who offered welcome pace and directness down the right.

Not that he was the star of the show though. That was an honour shared by Thomas Vermaelen and Andrei Arshavin. The former decided he was the man to take charge every time Rory Delap took a long throw and because he did Stoke were utterly nullified.

The latter gave by far the most convincing audition we’ve seen to replace RVP as the lone front man. The irony was that despite his excellent goal, Arshavin’s finishing was actually uncannily off. Twice – once early on and once late on – he was played in only to be let down by the most untypical of heavy first touches.

The manager correctly noted that the chance he did take was probably the hardest. It was classic Arshavin, deliberately bouncing off the defender to give himself a tiny new angle with which to play with and slide the ball in off the post.

By then our number 23 had already won us a rare penalty. Cesc’s miss from 12 yards capped a frustrating afternoon for the captain, who often came off second best in midfield tackles.

But we can hardly complain about our captain taking responsibility from 12 yards. Just as we could hardly complain about a lack of midfielders in the box when Eboue blocked Cesc’s goal-bound effort on the line after Traore’s cross had deflected off the post.

There can be few greater strokes of luck in football than being spared conceding a goal by an opponent blocking a teammate’s effort on the line. Arshavin did it against Liege the other week and Bendtner painfully in the CL quarter-final against Liverpool two years ago. Can anyone remember us being the beneficiaries?

The second goal was classic Aaron Ramsey. Yes, he’ll give the ball away sometimes, but he’ll make things happen too.

All in all, this was no bad performance. Stoke didn’t get a sniff up front and while our finishing could have been better, we were a little unlucky not to be three up at the break.

In the pub after the game it was like pantomime. Chelsea scored. Boo. People realised it was an Adebayor own goal. Cheer. City equalise. Cheer. It’s Adebayor up the right end. Boo.

All good anyway and suddenly their lead looks a lot less big. But it’s Liverpool next week and then in one of the cruellest ever quirks of the fixture computer the extra round of games sends us to Burnley on a Wednesday in December. Great.

Still, this weekend was a good weekend where we did the important things well.

- Having seen the replay, Sagna on Anelka is a penalty if he chooses to go down, but he didn’t and took the chance on instead and it was blocked. Still, he might have given it.

- Absolutely nothing wrong with our goal. Eduardo’s foot kicked the ball into Cech’s shoulder, not his head, so by definition there was no danger to the head.

- The ref was still crap. Not necessarily biased massively either way, but crap. Typified by when Anelka was played through, Almunia swept up and passed to Sagna and Marriner called it back for offside. Hopeless.

- Irrespective of the officialdom, the Match of the Day highlights reinforced the fact Chelsea were undoubtedly the better side.

- On TV the first goal looked like worse defending than in real life. Arshavin looked too far away from Cole and Gallas in no man’s land.

- Nasri, Gallas, Almunia and Vermaelen should all shoulder blame for the second.

- Some of Arsene’s comments this morning seem somewhat odd. Though it does annoy me when people analyse a game when one side are winning 2-0. Of course they’re going to look more comfortable on the ball.

- The time to judge is 0-0 and unfortunately we just didn’t get stuck in enough early on.

- It’s obviously very crude to divide our squad’s attributes into trickery, height and pace. But without height (RVP, Bendtner and even Diaby), it seemed a bit odd to rob ourselves of pace (Theo and Eboue) from the beginning too. It felt like Chelsea had to generally contend with just a lot of the same.

It’s something like a decade now since we failed to do that and it’s fair to say most of us take it for granted. Liverpool’s woes and those of many other so called giants in the past ten years tell us it isn’t necessarily.

So, what to say of this one? Well for a start I haven’t seen TV replays of the contentious incidents, so apologies if I call them wrong. The second thing is to say the night probably won’t live that long in the memory.

I think the mood of the Standard fans summed it up rather nicely: boisterous in the first half (apparently they’d been boozing on the Holloway Road en masse since 10 am!), they were largely quiet once Denilson added our second.

Both the goals came from errors, but in both cases Nasri and Denilson exploited them well. We missed five chances in ten seconds, they hit the bar very neatly and should have had a penalty and that was the first half.

The second half was nothingy, where they seemed to consider success to be either injuring one of our players or trying to get our captain sent-off. They succeeded on the former right at the end, with Kieran Gibbs now laid out again after breaking a bone in his (other) foot. Twats.

Team wise Eboue came in for Sagna as is usual on these home European nights. Denilson partnering Song and Cesc works OK but I’m just not too sure what exactly it is the Brazilian brings to the midfield other than an extra body truth be told.

Up front I personally thought Vela’s audition was not an awful one by any means.

All eyes turned to Chelsea round about the time Denilson’s goal went in but anyone professing to know what team we can expect to see is probably bluffing at this stage. The good news is Arshavin and Gallas, after crashing into each other, are apparently OK.

But that doesn’t answer questions such as:
- will we go with the same trio in midfield as last night?
- why wasn’t Ramsey even on the bench? Injured? Dropped? Rested for Sunday?
- will he go for Rosicky or Nasri as the third midfielder? The former made a subs appearance in that role, the latter often floated into it.
- does Theo start? He loses the ball more, but is a unique outlet.
- who gets the nod up front?

My hunch is Eduardo, Arshavin, Song, Cesc, Rosicky and either Walcott or Denilson, with Rosicky’s position dependent on which of the latter two start.

But I did catch all of it, save for a couple of minutes when screaming erupted upstairs meant I was called upon.

The long and short of it is that we were as you were. We’re a joy to watch going forward. Seventeen years ago the fact we managed 92 goals in a season (with four more league games) prompted the end of season video to be titled in honour of that feat (92 for 92 it was called.

At the current rate (51 in 18) we’ll shatter that record sometime around the new year. At home it’s played ten, won 10, scored 33, conceded 7.

Last night the attacking carousel was in full swing again. Off stepped Bendtner, on stepped Samir Nasri. He added a beautiful second before the break. But before that Cesc had broken the deadlock with a shot that made up for what it lacked in power with accuracy. Still the keeper might have done better.

That Nasri goal followed a wonderfully precise slide rule pass from Arshavin, a quick footed turn from the Frenchman and a very decent low finish.

The third after the break came from another Arshavin pass and Cesc went as if he was going to sweep the ball across the keeper, before sending it high into the near post. Lovely.

The carousel did it’s thing again. Eduardo and Tomas Rosicky both climbed aboard. I’m not going to lie, the return of Rosicky, who I think has been moonlighting in a Beatles tribute band, was something of a relief. I hadn’t wanted to say anything but the vagueness of his injury situation had left me fearing the worst. I don’t think I was the only one.

But it was Eduardo whose brilliance set up the fourth with a backheel that travelled straighter and more accurately into the path of Arshavin than many a player’s pass would have done. He set up Diaby who converted.

A word on the tiny Russian: give him a break. Yes, in an excellent team performance against Spurs, his player rating was at the lower rather than higher end. But can we stop over analysing everything? The guy’s a genius and when he needs to step up, he does.

As if to offer a truly accurate picture of where we are at the moment, there was the obligatory goal conceded too. And in keeping with recent trends it wasn’t particularly the fault of the back four – can you see where I’m going here.

In fairness to Manuel Almunia the toe-poked finish from 18 yards that beat him was unorthodox and unexpected, but nonetheless he’d left an absolute chasm at his near post.

All in all mind, it’s looking decent right now and I just love watching us attack.

GREETINGS from North London.

It’s pouring down outside, my head is hurting, but nonetheless, what a beautiful day it is.

Just when you thought we had squeezed every last little bit of joy from the north London derby fixture, along came yesterday.

This was magnificent to behold: Spurs (from whom there had been a bit too much chat in the week) humbled as Arsene notched up an incredible perfect decade without defeat to our nearest rivals.

On the premise that losing these games is a painful experience (which trust me it is) then I think everyone should raise a glass to Arsene for sparing us such pain for so long. To put it into some context, United have lost five times in the league to City in that same period.

Last night on Twitter I called for a statue in recognition of Arsene’s achievement half way between our ground and theirs. According to Google Maps, the turning into Berkeley Road on the Seven Sisters Road is exactly the half way point and so there I propose it should go.

So, yesterday. Arsene plumped for Bendtner on the right wing. I thought it the wrong call at the time but actually until he went off he was our best player.

The atmosphere, I should say, was very decent indeed, despite the 12.45 kick-off.

I’ll make no bones about it: with Spurs swamping the midfield, we were somewhat turgid for 42 minutes. Indeed, I’d even go so far as to say Tottenham looked in some senses, the better side.

For our part Diaby was having one of those days. The fans who got on his back were hardly helping matters. Equally, he was very frustrating: not for me so much when he lost the ball, but more the way he seemed to spend most of the first half ambling passively while Spurs passed around us.

This is what Harry Redknapp thought of that first half:

“On 42 minutes I felt the crowd were getting onto them, they weren’t creating anything worth talking about, and I felt very comfortable. I’m looking up at the clock with three minutes to half time and thinking we’ve done our job. I could see us certainly getting a big result.”

The half way spot where the statue should go

Spurs had put together a few decent passes but by and large their only tactic seemed to be to hoof it in Crouch’s direction and play off his knock-downs. Yes, they were missing their pace in Lennon and Defoe, but we were missing Walcott and really I thought they’d have a bit more ambition.

They did have one 40 yard Bentley volley. Sitting at the side of the pitch, I can’t tell you the sense of relief I felt when the first fans behind the goal cheered because they realised it was drifting harmlessly wide.

And then Harry’s fatal mistake was exposed: sitting at the Emirates feeling very comfortable. How can you sit there feeling comfortable playing a side who have knocked an average of four goals a game at home this season?

We’re chock full of players who can score from nothing and sure enough, we did.

Harry can bemoan slack marking at the throw in that allowed the excellent Sagna to swing in a cross and he can ask whether Gomes might have saved it, but there can be no doubting the way RVP got ahead of the deified Ledley King to turn it viciously towards goal with his right chocolate leg.

Great stuff and seconds later the Emirates was going absolutely crazy as Cesc exploited a sloppy ball from kick-off, slalomed his way through and finished magnificently for one of the great derby day goals.

Classic Arsenal.

After the break, I really thought we were excellent. Not least because at 2-0 you actually looked at it and thought in one sense for the next 25 minutes or so we needed a goal more than they did because come the 70 mark they’d probably settle for 2-0 and we’d feel a tad twitchy given recent events and last year’s game.

But we played it perfectly: rock solid in defence and midfield but still creating chances for Diaby and Eduardo. Almunia saved from a Bentley free-kick and then it was three. It was great refereeing from Clattenburg to allow play to carry on and when Sagna crossed, they screwed it up and RVP tapped home.

Clattenburg really was very good I thought. Yes, Bentley was lucky early on, but by and large the ref read the game perfectly and realised that getting card happy would probably only make a clean game dirtier.

It’s funny because even after 88 minutes of last year’s game I said to the people I was with that I wasn’t at all comfortable. Yesterday, was a completely different story. The back four were rock, rock solid. Sure, Crouch was winning headers, but our positioning was excellent and helped by the excellent Song and Cesc and even Diaby, Spurs really didn’t get a sniff.

With a birthday to mark too, the celebrations went on long and late and got to the stage of drunkenly trying to recall every Spurs v Arsenal result since 1988. By and large we did.

Arsene Wenger, I thank you. My head is hurting less now.

IN A nutshell, this was great fun for a tenner.

It could have gone either way, but we got the second goal and despite a few Liverpool chances I never really feared they would equalise (and believe me, I’m a pessimist on these things) and we got a well fought for win.

The team was not too disimilar from the one I predicted on Twitter a few days ago, with Arsene allowing Nasri, Eduardo and Bendtner’s returns to proper first team football to coincide with a Carling Cup tie where in his heart he would have been wary of sending out just kids. The memory of 0-5 to Chelsea a few years ago comes to mind.

Equally, he could still claim to have stuck true to his principles of using youths, reserves and those in need of a game. Unlike Benitez, who cheatde when he brought on proper players as late subs.

The first chance went their way but was dragged wide after a neat backheel. Senderos, who can’t be too heartened to be behind Silvestre right now, had followed the ball rather than his man.

Bendtner had a bit of a Bendtner moment just in front of goal but in fairness the build up play with Eduardo had been excellent.

And then two minutes later Fran Merida hit a debut goal that I’d liken to a cross between Dennis Bergkamp’s second goal for the club against Southampton and Jose Reyes’ first. Talking of that Reyes goal against Chelsea in January 2004, someone who spent years living on Highbury Hill told me the other day the loudest noise she ever heard come from the ground was for that goal. So there you have it.

But back to the Merida one. Either Eastmond or Gilbert tackled well, found the Spaniard and in one motion he turned and smacked a first time left footed shot that flew like a rocket that flew like Reyes and smacked off the near post before flying in a la Bergkamp’s.

The poor fella was put onto a pedestal by a) having someone compila a YouTube video of him aged seven or something, b) being Spanish, like Fabregas and therefore expected to defeat the world age 17 and c) even sharing the same first name as said Fabregas.

They were soon level and though there was probably nothing Bendtner could do to stop Insua getting there, he could perhaps have looked a little more bothered. As it was, the left-back strode on and hit a corker that Fabianski had no chance with.

Ramsey, who had some very good moments and some where he dwelled on it for too long, hit a beautiful ball for Merida whose clipped shot over the keeper was cleared. A lovely move, even if Liverpool had looked the stronger side going into the break.

And so at half time we agreed that Bendtner had been so bad that he was bound to score. He hadn’t actually been that bad. It was just that he’d had a Bendtner of a first half. You know what I mean.

I should probably tell you about the midfield. Nasri was playing the Diaby role and was quietly effective if definitely unspectacular. Ramsey was in the middle of it all and Eastmond doing the Song thing and doing it very well in fairness.

I’m always intruiged to see how a young player deals with the ball when he is under pressure as I suspect Arsene holds a fair bit of store by that himself. And Eastmond was coolness personified. He also tackled well and used it impressively too. Admittedly things passed him by for a few minutes on occasion but that’s only to be expected.

Our second arrived from such ball from Eastmond to Merida whose slid it across the edge of the box, inviting attacker and defender alike to go for it. Around two of each did before Bendtner held off his man and slammed into the roof of the net. Nicely done.

At that stage I thought there no chance in hell of us holding on to 2-1 and was happy to see us commit forward.

We had chances and so, if we’re honest did Liverpool. There was a handball shout up the other end against Senderos and it was one of those where so many of their lot appealed, you suspected there was something in it.

There was another chance missed and a terrible Ramsey ball that basically put them in on goal.

But equally there were long periods in the last 10 minutes where they were struggling to do anything at all. Nasri’s ability to retain the ball at all costs came in handy in injury time.

It really was great entertainment. End to end stuff at times, some delightful football from us and even some nice football from them and a bit of a backs against the wall effort to get the win.

A techinical hitch caused by my laptop being in hospital means I can’t put Eastmond in the player ratings section, but he gets an 8 after the very impressive performance described above