Steaua Bucharest 0-1 Arsenal

So I picked the game up at about 61 minutes – stuff got in the way before – and it’s safe to say the second half was close, even if we looked the better footballing side by a distance. The vowel-heavy Steaua had an excellent 10-15 minute spell, culminating in a spooned effort past Almunia’s left post by Iacob, at which point I thought a draw would not be the end of the world by any definition of the phrase.

Oh me of little faith: arch-gangler Emmanuel Adebayor strolled past the Steaua defence and laid it back to Fabregas (who was a few inches too many away), then to van Persie, who booted it into the top of the net. Game over.

All of which means at the end of Matchday Two (sounds wrong, but sadly isn’t), we are three points clear at the top of the group ahead of a double face-off against Slavia Prague.

Let’s stay with the stats: that’s nine straight wins, and we’re now unbeaten in 19 games, stretching back to 7th April. Pretty bloody impressive, isn’t it?

Without wishing to count chickens prior to their hatching, we now have two league games in a row against two sides, Sunderland and Bolton, who we should beat given the correct performance and a healthy rub of the green.

Le Double Crunch starts on October 28th with Liverpool away, and ends the following Saturday with Man U away, so all we can ask ahead of those tests is to have gathered as many points as we can. If we could have 25 from nine games (that’s to say just two dropped from 27), then we will be in an absurdly healthy position.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Great win tonight.

Looking forward to Sunday.