West Ham 0 - 1 Arsenal

Robie Van Persie (13)

I was up at 6:30 am, helpless cos FSC was not showing the Arsenal match, delayed or otherwise (they showed the Chelsea - Fulham and the Man U - Birmingham matches instead, wankers!) Logged on to my computer and was pleased to see that Man City was winning 2 - 1 against Newcastle in the 83rd minute. Correct I called a 2-1 win so my 3 pts were practically in the bag (I was very pissed when Elano scored, 2-1 is afterall a win, why did he feel the need to score another goal? did he not know I also had 3 pts at stake? Over-eager son-of-a- ....) For some reason I started messing about with the streaming application I installed last month or so (God bless U Chxta) and lo and behold I heard the in studio commentator ask viewers to hang on for the live broadcast of the Arsenal match! Yes!!! I quickly got my head phones out.

We don't exactly have a stellar record against West Ham, certainly not away to them, and we did lose to them twice last year so Understandably I was quite nervous. The fact that we have been playing quite well, winning two of our matches so far coming from behind (truly indicative that our goal and fold attitude was surely a thing of the past) did calm my nerves a bit, but then again this IS football.

You could tell that West Ham came to this match secure in the knowledge that the 3 pts were theirs for the taking. The first 10 mins was quite hectic, and Adebayor's failed attempt at goal in the 3/4th minute had me clutching my pillow. 8/9 mins later Adebayor held on to the ball and made a quick pass to Hleb on the right who crossed it across goal. Van Persie intercepted it with his head and we where a goal up. That seemed to calm down the Hammers a bit. Although they did take their revenge via a rather scary tackle on Hleb by Noble which left Hleb clutching his knee howling for his mummy (slight exaggeration). He had to be stretchered off and Arsene not wanting to take any chances (the guy just came back from a knee injury) broke the 70 min rule and subbed Hleb out for Eboue in the 31st min. Van Persie would have made it 2-0 soon after but for the interception Greens fingers provided. I think the goal line would have been very different if not for Robert Green who made many an impressive save during the course of the game. He was really the man of the match for the Hammers.

I was quite impressed with Flamini (contract renewal please), he effectively choked supply to Ashton and Camara. This is not to say the English man didn't have one or two impressive shots on goal, I am happy to report that Almunia was on hand to receive everything he had to dish out.

Freddie Ljunberg was on the prowl to score against us and 9 mins into the second half he did manage to slot one in although (thankfully) it was ruled offside, why? I don't know perhaps the Big G was a Gunner on Saturday? I like Freddie and all that, even after all the smack he was talking about the club about the time he left, and I want him to score against us, just not when said goal woulll mean us sharing the points or worse leaving empty handed! I was amused at the 83 minute substitution for the Hammers (L Boa Morte for L Bowyer) perhaps flooding the pitch with ex-Arsenal players would do the trick? Na final whistle signalled the 3 pts in the bag, We still reign at the top of the tables. Of course we have Man u and Man City (interesting) nipping at our heels, but I think we have everything under control.

We will be away to Steaua Bucharest tomorrow as per our CL champaign and we will be meeting Roy Keane and his lads on Sunday.

How could I forget to mention the rugby, basketball, volleyball, handball, american-football … amazing score line that Portsmouth achieved against Reading? I was as usual multi-tasking (watching the Arsenal game on my laptop, watching the Chelsea game on on mute on tv, keeping tabs on the score lines for all the other games via soccernet) I didn't really pay much attention to the scores from the Portsmouth/Reading game until like the 81st minute when my jaw promptly dropped at the scores (at that time it was 6-3). Only for me to blink and see 7-4, wonderful! Apparently that game set a new record for number of goals scored in a premiership match (the prior record was 10 goals)

Also all I can say re: the 2nd yellow card against Drogba is, haba! The guy seems not to realise he is not in the chorus line for a broadway show. That was a very high kick, if for nothing else for the sake of the 'family jewels' he shouldn't be kicking like that o!