Review: West Ham 0 - Arsenal 2

Now that is the kind of victory we need more of, if we are going to be championship contenders. Not anywhere near our best, had to deal with our fair share of bad luck and super goalkeeping, but somehow managed to find something to pull us through dogged opposition. The 4-0 or 5-2 strolls will always be there, but increasingly, I don't think we're going to find much more of them in the Premier League. Player ratings first:

Almunia 7 - Good show. Made one crucial save, and was generally reliable at all other times.

Eboue 6.5 - Defensively, acceptable. Going upfront, was nowhere what Sagna offers us, and had his fair share of wasted passes, runs into road blocks, etc. On the Eboue scale, it could've been worse.

Mohawk Billy 7 - Apart from a few dodgy moments, was acceptable too. Funniest moment was when he fucked up on a back pass to Alumunia, but had the gall to give Manuel the cheesiest cheesed off look. haha. What an idiot.

Silvestre 7 - Slowly getting into it. Can see where the experience lies, but still has some rustiness. Once he gets over it, he should be excellent alternative for either MB or Kolo.

Clichy 7 - Not great by his own high standards, but did alright at the back.

Theo 6.5 - Not one of his best performances. Did have his moments - like hitting the bar early on - but looked like he needed a rest and more imagination.

Cesc 6.5 - Probably the main reason why we were particularly poor in the first half. Not enough imagination - but stepped it up in the second half.

Song: 7 – Always gives a pretty good show of himself when not in defence. No complaints.

Nasri 6 - A bad day at the office. Tired? Perhaps.

Bendtner 7 - Occasionally irritating, and took a while to settle in. After 30 minutes, though, seemed to be involved enough. Played his best with Ade and RVP both on. Super pass to set up Ade for the second.

Van Persie 7.5 - Had a couple of great chances, and thwarted either by an excellent Robert Green or the bar. Always looked a threat.

Diaby 7 - Becoming a really useful dude. You could tell the difference immediately after Nasri and Walcott (the two worst performers) came off. He's gonna prove to be a real irritating thron for defences here on in.

Ade 8 - OK, I admit it, he did make a difference. Involved in the first own goal, and scored the second. The Ade-RVP-Bendtner threesome does look quite useful when needed. Especially with RVP on the right with the freedom to cut back in a cause problems with his left foot.

As with many recent performances, the first half was crappy-ish, and the second was more like it. I suppose it has always been that we're best when after tiring out the opposition for 70 minutes, we hit them during the last 20. But that's no excuse for sloppy stuff in the first half.

All in all, great stuff, and I'm looking forward to Wednesday and Spurs, who now have 'arry in charge. I'm trying to figure it out. Who're the idiots here? Spurs or 'arry Redknapp? He says he'll quit if Spurs are relegated. By then, who'd giving a flying F, and he'd be sacked any time it comes close to that anyway. Spaz. As I said earlier, quite glad they won against Bolton. Give them something to hope for. They had to win sometime, and now that they've done it, they can get back to losing a few more again.

Finally, finally, finally - AT LONG BLOODY LAST, we can stop hearing about Chelski's friggin' home record. Thank bloody god. It just goes to show that we could've done it ourselves last season, but at last someone has done it. It's also bloody poetic that Chelski go out and lose their next game after idiot Scolari goes out and says something about Chelski emulating our Unbeatable season. Yeah, right. If the season lasts 8 games, you stupid moron. I think Benitez knows better than to say anything really daft now.

While much will be decided by the games between the Big Four (and Pool of course look really good after beating both Man U and Chelski), methinks it's in fact going to be the games against the likes of City, Villa, Fulham, Everton, etc. Pool have not had an easy run so far, but have done manificently. Hats off. But we all know Pool. There's a long long way to go.