Blackburn given the spanking they so richly deserve

Well, wasn't that bags of fun? The only annoying thing is that I was about half an hour from getting tickets to yesterday's game, and what a game to miss.

I don't much care what Mark Hughes had to say in his post-game interview, that the final scoreline flattered us and didn't bear a true account of the game. Yes, we scored three goals in the final ten minutes. Yes, Blackburn pegged us back to 3-2 and gave us a nervy five or ten minute period. However, we should have been 6 up before they scored their third, let alone after.

It is absolutely no exaggeration to say that we could have made double figures in goals scored yesterday, and quite comfortably too. Rosicky missed a good chance and had one cleared off the line, and I can't emphasise what an impact his attitude, passion and exuberance have on the rest of the team when he plays. Hleb should have scored a second, Fabregas could have had at least two, and despite bagging a brace, Dobin should really have taken a hat trick from the game.

The goals we did score were fabulous in their football and in their variety. After David "you can tell I'm not good enough for Arsenal, can't you" Bentley won a dubious penalty after Toure fell/was pulled over by Bentley and landed on the short arse Blackburn forward, Shabani Nonda stuck away the resulting spot kick. We equalised through a fantastic header by Gilberto from a very well struck corner from RvP. Blackburn had no one on the far post (and for some reason didn't remedy this at subsequent corners) and that was 1-1.

Hleb scored the next in what was quite simply a beautiful interchange of passing between him, the remarkably improved Adebayor, and the mercurial Fabregas. Once into the penalty area Hleb took two beautiful touches to beat his man and calmly sidefooted it past a stranded Brad Friedel. 2-1.

The third was a penalty, won by the impressive Robin van Persie and converted by the equally impressive Manu Adebayor. It was the lanky Togolese forward who put Robin in with a delightful flicked pass after receiving the ball from Fab, and after taking a touch and waiting to pull the trigger, van Persie was clipped by Neill and went down. I think it was a penalty. There was definite contact, enough to alter van Persie's stride and ability to strike the ball, even if his tumble might have been excentuated. Adebayor calmly slotted the spot kick. 3-1.

Then, at the start of the second half, we peppered them. We tore them apart. We should have had ten, as mentioned above. But we didn't, and after going to sleep at the back a header from Derbyshire came back off the bar and Nonda scored an overhead strike from close range. 3-2.

We then endured an anxious passage of play, during which RvP blazed over a relatively easy chance and a rather more difficult one, before he took possession of the ball in the right hand channel, moved inside into the penalty area, dummied to shoot on his left, dummied to shoot on his right (leaving Ooijer in a heap) and then curling a lovely left-footed daisy cutter into the bottom left hand corner. It was no more than he deserved from an outstanding performance in which he linked the play so impressively and seemed to be able to bring even the most wayward and overhit passes under his control. 4-2, but he wasn't finished there.

Some more lovely interplay between Adebayor and Cesc let the young Spaniard into the box, and instead of shooting, as he had done earlier in the half when he had an irate van Persie waiting for a pass, he found the Dutchman with a simple square ball and Dobin gratefully put away his second from eight yards. 5-2.

But the boys still weren't done. Cesc took a pass into the left hand channel, and proceded towards the corner flag, kicking out a few stepovers and body feints on the way. Robbie Savage obviously thought that Fab was intending to run time down in the corner, and wasn't having any of that, so he made a beeline for Cesc and looked like he was going to remove his left leg from it's socket. Seeing him coming a mile away, Fabregas simply stepped inside to his right whilst playing the ball through Savage's legs. It was a moment of beauty and a fantastic visualised metaphor for the different approaches to the beautiful game, one obviously being more beautiful than the other. Cesc then feinted inside another Blackburn player before taking the strike he was certainly entitled to. Friedel made a good save, but the ball fell to goal machine Mathieu Flamini and he put it away for his fourth of the season.

It's this kind of performance that makes an Arsenal fan so hopeful of the promise that this team holds for the future, but which also makes days when we don't perform so frustrating. I don't think it's possible to argue, even from a Man Yoo fan's perspective, that we don't play the best football in the Premiership, when we play. However our consistency is our downfall and we can only hope as the kid's progress and gain experience, they'll learn to grind out the wins, and not the draws, that you need when you're not firing on all cylinders.

It was a great display of what we are capable of, and with Watford on Boxing Day, I can only hope we get another emphatically won 3 points.

In other news (because I havn't posted for so bloody long) Mourinho is going to get away with what Arsene was punished for when he called van Horseface a cheat, Middlesbrough are looking to take Aliadiere on loan, Stokes, Bendtner and Lupoli all havn't scored in bloody ages, we're not going to buy anyone in January even though the papers won't stop talking about who we are going to sign, Paul Scholes scored the goal of the season yesterday, and Chelski seem like they have magical last minute goal-scoring powers. A deal struck with Satan no doubt