Review: Arsenal 4 - Cardiff 0

So many stories from a most pleasant evening - for a change. But first, a word for TV France 4. God bless them - for giving us free-to-air football on a Monday night. Who would've thought, free-to-air English football in this day and age. What's better than coming home from work on a Monday and watching football??

As for the stories from the game then, first, there was Gallas-Toure in defence. Then, there was a rare appearance for Amaury Bischoff. And even a start for Eduardo. Which is where our story begins. What a fairy tale. A year out, career threatened, back in his first start, and he's two goals to the good in his 60-odd minutes out. Simply remarkable. Right from the start, we could see really how we've missed his creative presence in attack, and it was a matter of time before we scored (really! A matter of time!!)

Anyway, our first two goals with headers - from Eduardo and Bendtner - which would be stories in themselves. The third, a penalty from Eduardo was simply icing. Of course, everyone was glowing about his performance, and I even found it necessary to head off to the kitchen to tell the Mrs the amazing news of the Eduardian comeback. (I like that phrase!)

Le Boss: ''Everybody is very happy for him. This is the kind of game we love to play, and it was good to see them play with the handbrake off."

''He's been extremely strong mentally. I've never seen one minute of doubt in his mind, not one minute where he said 'I don't want to do this'. He is always wanting more. This guy is small but he has the mental strength of a mountain.''

I know what he means, of course, but I wonder how someone would take it, if we said: "You're a real mountainhead, you know???!!!"

Bent Nick: "It was amazing - all the fans and players have waited for him to come back after the horrific thing that happened and it's really, really good for him to come back with two goals."

As for the player ratings:

Fabianski 8 - Had little to do, and when called on, seemed the picture of calm. (Must note that his opposite in Cardiff goal had an absolute cracker of a game!)

Sagna 8 - Dependable, solid performance. Some nice runs down the right, and one of the performances from last season we've missed this time round.

Toure 7.5 - Captain for the day, and all in all, pretty good - until he decided he wanted to romp forward, whereupon he quickly lost his way a couple of times.

Gallas 7.5 - Wonder if he ever spoke to Toure. Same as Toure. Good one - though he did seem to be, like, ultra mad on the pitch, jumping around, threatening to break legs with wild challenges. Probably because Kolo took his armband.

Gibbs 8 - An excellent show from the boy. A better performance than we've had recently from Clichy. Good on him - and proving to be worthy cover for Gael.

Denilson 6.5 - Not really inspiring, must say. Rather lightweight, and we managed to get away with it with Cardiff.

Song 6.5 - As with Denilson, the centre of our soft-centre. Throw in too many stray passes too, and he was our worst performer on a good night.

Nasri 7.5 - Another good one for his confidence. Couple of good runs, and a source of creativity where Denilson/Song failed to provide.

Bendtner 8 - A whole 90 minutes. A good header, lots of energy and I suppose based on this, he really should be in the first team ahead of Ade.

Vela 8 - Excellent Mexican show. Confused him for Walcott on a few occasions...

Eduardo 10 - Nuff said.

Of course, with RVP on as a sub, he had to score, and he did with what looked like an ultra confident finish. Yummy. A Fishy Fish Shop came on too, and looked an interesting proposition.

So on to Burnley we go. On this performance, Roma should be a nice one to watch.