Gallas is pretty bloody good

First Champions League match proper at the Emirates last night (and my first visit inside the stadium) and a very welcome three points and solid performance against 2004's winners FC Porto. We started very well for the first ten minutes, suffered a lull for the next ten minutes, and bossed the game from then on.

Man of the match last night: William Gallas. What a player. The more and more I see him the happier I am about the deal which saw him and Ashley Cole swap clubs. He was fantastic on the ball, great first touch, tidy and consistent distribution and brought the ball out of defence with intelligence and poise. He was a both a comforting force at the back and a driving force going foward, and his burst from our own half to the Porto penalty area, beating three players en route, was the major assist for Arsenal's second goal. The only problem is that he picked up a hamstring injury towards the end of the match and will be missing for at least three weeks.

We played a 4-5-1 / 4-4-2 formation with van Persie drifting from wide left to wide right and occasionally through the centre, and RvP should have netted after being played in by Thierry down the right of the penalty area. With the keeper at his mercy Robin blasted over on his weaker right foot, and you could tell he was gutted. It was a sitter. He had about five strikes in the first half, most from distance, including a looping header that almost beat the keeper, but all in all he didn't have a great game and I fear for his starting place on Saturday.

We finally broke the deadlock on the cusp of halftime, with Eboue (I still think his final ball isn't good enough) sent a quite spectacular whipped ball into the box and TH14 headed down and across goal to make it 1-0. We deserved it.

Our second came almost straight after half time, with the aforementioned Gallas carving through the Porto team, passing square to Henry who played in Hleb, who, instead of looking for someone to play the ball backwards to, actually had a shot, and quite a good one at that, spanking it into the bottom left corner. 2-0, game over. I really hope Hleb starts shooting more, because in that position he's dangerous.

We should have scored more, Fabregas missed a good chance and had a decent shout for a penalty when he was literally shoved two-handed off the ball, but it was a solid performance in a game we controlled. Special mention also goes out to Justin Hoyte who had a good game at left back, some of his distribution inparticular was fantastic, and to Tomas Rosicky.

This boy is a player, boy is he a player. Always seems like he has time on the ball, quick to move it on when needed, holds it up when appropriate, can ghost past defenders like they're not there and, perhaps surprisingly (and to quote my father who was at the game with me last night) is rather tigerish in the tackle. He was an all-action midfielder last night, and got a ridiculous booking for one particularly fantastic tackle. His size belies his strength and I'm so happy we snapped him up for what looks like a bargain £6.8m.

In other news Cashley Tweedy's complete bastard of an agent Jonathan Barnett has been banned for 18 months (nine months suspended) and fined £100,000 for his role in Ashley-gate. I wonder if Cole will demand Chelsea pay his lawyer's fees. It's just a shame that the ban isn't longer. The slimy bastard.