Written by Ben Harrington Wednesday, 09 November 2011 12:23

GunnerTalk Blog

By Ben Harrington

When my better half Suggested a holiday abroad for her friends birthday I was excited, until I realised it overlapped a match day, an Emirates matchday.

The idea for this piece came to me when I was doing a spot of planking in a place on the southern coast of Portugal called "the end of the world" which is the feeling I had when I was told I would be missing a day out with the Gooner family.

Rather than bitch and moan about it I found a great bar to watch the game. After the drab goalless affair against Marseille I was hoping for a positive reaction from the team.

What we got was a very dour first half short of chances, but thankfully we took the only real chances on offer, a tap-in for Van Persie after Walcott's shot was saved and close to half time Vermaelen went on one of his wanders forward and lashed in the skippers lay-off.

The second half was one way traffic and we deservedly got a third courtesy of Mikel Arteta (swoon) scoring his first goal at the Emirates.

Defensivley we were very solid with Vermaelen coming in for the clearly jaded Mertesacker, but with a lone striker of Simon Cox to contend with I would have been very surprised if he caused us any problems.

Not much of a match report really, but it was an efficient and professional performance by the team, which I hope carries on after another mind numbing interlull.

Back to blighty tomorrow, catch you all then.

*Follow me on Twitter @BenAFC*