A heartening one nil to the Arsenal

That wasn't relaxing but it was a massive win, especially in the context of Chelsea and Spurs dropping points, we are now in a strong position in fighting for 3rd place, not something some of us would have believed a few weeks ago.  Arsene made the interesting move of dropping the Ox to the bench, with Rosicky moving forward into the front three and Aaron Ramsey into the midfield three.

We hammered Everton early on and it was frustrating that we didn't go more than the single goal ahead, Ramsey squandered some great chances, as did others, the football was so slick and fast, probably amongst the best twenty minutes of football we have played all season.  Everton did come back into the game and we were extremely lucky to see Drenthe's equaliser denied by the linesman's erroneous flag.  Other than that we defended solidly and well deserved the one nil lead on the balance of play.

The second half saw us drop a bit deeper and play a bit of a dangerous game, fortunately we defended well enough to keep Everton out and the hosts just lacked that bit of quality up front to convert the pressure they had into goals.  The whole defence were outstanding, we competed so well in the air, defending numerous crosses with real confidence, the offside trap was also rather polished, the annoying and gravity prone Jelavic was correctly flagged off several times in the second half alone.  The ref Mason did ok too, other than being too lenient with the nasty Cahill, he let the game flow pretty well on the whole.

We should have made the game safe, RVP missed a particularly good chance in the final ten minutes, having been set up by Gervinho's excellent low centre, but we held out nonetheless, a really good show of defensive strength and character, and another away win.  It must be said that Tim Howard was top notch in the Everton goal, two saves stood out, one from RVP's low shot in the first half and one from Ramsey's low effort in the second half, he kept Everton in the game at times.

There is a real confidence flowing through the side at the moment and hopefully this in combination with our reducing injury burden can result in the positive momentum continuing to gather in our league run-in.  Defensively we have made real strides since the start of the season, the work rate was also far better in the midfield areas, Arteta was great on his Goodison return.  I have to say I was not convinced by playing Rosicky and Ramsey in the same side, I don't think both of these players are far better in central areas.  Anyways, great win and three points, come on you Gunners!