Reading 1 – 3 Arsenal

0 – 1 Flamini (44)
0 – 2 Adebayor (51)
0 – 3 Hleb (77)
1 – 3 Shorey (86)

Only three? With one forward? Good grief. And to think that there was an outpouring of gnawing of fingernails when Arsene announced a team with a 4-4-1-1 formation. For the first time this season, there was real pressure on the team going into a match, requiring a certain margin of victory to return to the top.

It was comprehensively achieved and Arsenal are back at the top yet the feeling remains that the team played within themselves. This morning’s media make the yellow card received by Fabregas out to be a negative but he misses Wigan at home, which is infinitely more preferable to him missing any of the games immediately after that.

The manner of scoring goals is almost predictable this season, leaving you to ponder if managers and players actually take note of any scouting reports they may receive. The truth is that Arsenal are just very difficult to defend against; almost requiring a change of attitude at the set piece to leave as much cover at the back as attacking force. Whatever the solution is, Reading were the latest victims, unable to prevent the opening goal. Almunia started the move, releasing the ball quickly and in the blink of an eye, it had travelled to the Reading area before Alex Hleb squared for Flamini to add a simple finish. It was no less than Arsenal deserved, a lead that could have been taken earlier had Adebayor’s shot been a couple of inches inside the post rather than striking the upright.

If the hosts thought they could frustrate Arsenal and nick an equaliser in the second half, that plan went out of the window quickly when Adebayor extended the lead early on. Rosicky cut the ball firmly into Fabregas whose lay-off enabled the Togolese international to place the ball past Hahnemann. If Adebayor thought it was going to be his night to get back into the scoring groove, he was wrong as the Assistant Referee unfathomably disallowed a goal minutes later, proving that even the officials do not understand the offside law.

The third was inevitable and Alex Hleb’s twinkle toes danced through the Reading defence stumbled around Hahnemann and drove the ball home between two defenders on the line. 3 – 0, the contest long over and changes were rung by Arsene within minutes, presumably to protect those players who had worked hard to establish the unassailable lead.

The Reading goal is a grudging consolation given. Perhaps Long deserved it for a thumping header that came back off the post but the feeling is that the ball should have been cleared and begs the question as to where Shorey’s marker was, given that he had a simple finish.

Three points was the objective, it was achieved and more of the critics’ questions were answered. The bookies still have United down as favourites, which works in Arsene’s favour, stopping overconfidence from growing but you have to wonder what this team has to do to be taken seriously as title challengers?

It proved a good day off the pitch as well with the Club getting their own way and Michel Platini got his first real taste of how little power the President of UEFA really has with his plan for Cup Winners to go into the Champions League going out of the window. You have to give his organisation marks out of ten for inviting honesty though for in a questionnaire sent out via email, one of the questions asked the respondent to choose the ‘top three words that come to mind when thinking of UEFA as an organisation’. The list includes the usual platitudes of ‘Leader’, ‘Ethical’, ‘Visionary’ but also ‘Aloof’, ‘Uncaring’, ‘Amateur’, ‘Unethical’ and my own personal favourite, ‘Myopic’. ‘You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth’….

’til Tomorrow.