WELL, I flew out the country exactly three weeks ago just minutes after the final whistle of our bitterly disapointing draw with Boro.

Little did I imagine then that as I collected my bags at Heathrow this afternoon Robin Van Persie would have seconds earlier fired the goal that would seal a fifth win on the trot. I’ve seen the goal on my mobile (using the very handy highlights service from Three) and it was truly an absolute peach. It’s beauty lay not simply in that he smashed home a left footed volley from the edge of the box.

It was more the way he did it three feet in the air and from a position that looked for all the world as though he could only divert the ball over the bar. Simply stunning and his first was a great finish after fine work from Hleb and Henry.

So all in all, we look in fine fettle at the moment. Irrespective of the £5 million, swapping Cole for Gallas appears a masterstroke. We have lost a guy who could only play left back and gained one who can operate across the back. And that seems symptomatic of Arsene’s signings at the moment. The likes of Rosicky and Baptista offer versatility that someone like Reyes never did.

What it all means is that for the first time in a couple of years you feel that we at least have the squad to be able to succeed in the league. Whereas previously, important roles were filled by either the ageing (Dennis), the too young (Cesc), the muddled (Campbell) and the not good enough (Cygan), the recent spate of departures, arrivals and maturing young players means things look far brighter.

Many of them are part of the quiet but brutal revolution that Arsene has gone about in the last three years. Of the current squad of roughly 24, just seven were part of the invincibles of little over two years ago.

As for the balance, how does this sound for a second team? Almunia, Lauren, Senderos, Djourou, Hoyte, Flamini, Diaby, Ljungberg, Baptista, Abebayor, Walcott. Not bad I think.

A very quick update from an internet cafe in western China. The game was not on local tv so we had prepared for 90 minutes of Football365 text commentary and the famous Arses. Then in an act entirely not in keeping with his general competance my brother somehow, miraculously downloaded one of those dodgy streaming programmes (all in Chinese, of which he knows none) and hey presto, we had the game.

A truly bizarre way to watch the game - but what a truly fantastic, brilliant performance. Bed time calls so I will say not much more but it did strike me that five days before today’s game Ashley Cole was running his mouth about the team spirit at Arsenal and tearing into members of the squad.

See the funny thing as I remember it is that it also so happened to be five days before a United game that Cole famously yook tea with his now employers. We lost 4-2 that night and had any of his then team-mates known of Cole’s meeting that night I wonder whether they would have wanted to go into battle with him?

Me thinks not.

The performance was utterly superb today, so good that for the sheer thrill and tension of it I would have to say it was up there with almost anything I have seen in 17 years of watching Arsenal. For all the joy of sending Real Madrid and Juve tumbling out of Europe, putting one over United at Old Trafford remains a unique source of enjoyment.

And to play them almost off the park at their place with such key men missing was just incredible. Special mention should go to Adebayor, who though he was hardly faultless did a lot of crucial donkey work long before he scored. Cesc had looked a little shy of his normal self at times but he seemed to find a second wind late on and did it when it mattered.

But huge mention must go to Djourou and Toure who utterly nullified the threat of Rooney in particular. The camera spent more time on him as he came out for the second half and was eventually subbed than at any time in between.

However the biggest mention must go to Jens. Fans and pundits are typically awful at distinguishing the truly great saves from those that look good but should be made. That late stop from their Nou Camp fella was truly great.

That really is just about it. It’s a wonderful victory and all that is left is for me to try and publish this and hope it makes it’s way smoothly into cyberspace…

I’m heading away for three weeks, meaning updates are likely to be irregular if at all.

I depart as one international break comes to an end and return literally right at the end of the Charlton game - when another one starts. So it’s seven weeks without an Arsenal game in the UK for me.

But I leave on a good note - for the first time in a while we look well covered throughout the squad. Sure, until Clichy is fit we’re short at left-back. But most importantly we have enough central defenders, midfielders and strikers. We have some really important games coming up and how we deal with them could have a huge bearing on our season.

But at least we go into them with a well resourced squad. The team today is: Arsenal
01 J Lehmann
27 E Eboue
05 K Toure
20 J Djourou
10 W Gallas
13 A Hleb
04 F Fabregas
19 G Silva
08 F Ljungberg
11 R Van Persie
14 T Henry
Substitutes
24 M Almunia, 07 T Rosicky, 09 C Julio Baptista, 16 M Flamini, 25 E Adebayor

Not bad at all and a strong bench I think you’ll agree.

A Boro preview later but first I’m going to indulge myself in one more dig at Ashley Cole. (I’m away next week so will likely be unable to join the bashing over his book serialisation).

Firstly, he tells the Chelsea web site that his new club are “very ambitious”. Sorry, but ambition is not spending huge wads of cash that have simply landed on your lap and whose spending is completly risk free because ultimately howerver successful or unsuccessful they are it is their oligarch owner who will dictate their fate.

I’d say ambition is more akin to taking an incredible punt by getting into millions of pounds of debt, leaving your near century old home and building a whole new 60,000 stadium that you need to fill. That is a risk - taking it is ambition.

He adds in today’s Evening Standard: “I have come here to win things. I would say Chelsea have a better chance than Arsenal of doing that.” What ambition! If one of his reasons for swapping Arsenal for Chelsea was a better chance of winning things then good riddance. We were 11 minutes from the big daddy of all prizes last season - you don’t get much closer than that. And despite operating on what is relatively speaking a miniscule budget, we can now genuinely look at ourselves and say we have a squad that should be well capable of challenging for the league - more on that in a later post.

Were he, say, a Watford player, you could understand. But an Arsenal player? If there are any others with that attitude still at the club, then good riddance. The reality is his chances of winning the Champions League are not massively incresed by being at Chelsea. And if he wins the league, well so what? Will it ever have the excitement of doing it unbeaten, or scoring in every game, or playing great football, or doing it on a minute budget. Can’t see it myself.

And over on the BBC he says he just sat there and the transfer happened. And yet he says that after ‘everything’ that happened he couldn’t stay. Does ‘everything’ include meeting Chelsea five days before a United game?

Cole goes on about how he is not a greedy person and has not come to Chelsea for money. It’s amazing how easy it is not to do it for money when the choice is between £60,000 and £70,000 a week. He says he can wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say he’s not a bad person. Fine. But is there not even a shard of regret for your behaviour in meeting Chelsea? Apparently not.

He went on to say how Arsene “has always been great for me and always on my side through everything that happened.” Dig up that infamous NOTW interview and you get him saying very different things. He also mentioned in that interview how many of the players at Arsenal were supportive of his cause.

And here in lies the problem. Surrounded by other footballers and incredibly leniant coaches such as Arsene, this can do no wrong attitude festers. They egg each other on, strengthening their own sense of right and wrong. But then they become completely detached from the fans and unless we see some unexpected self-criticism, then Cole’s book will be the perfect example of that. Criticise Dein by all means, but don’t portray yourself as Mr Innocent.

In fairness to Cole, I suspect that as a strong willed boy he has left Arsenal to prove a point - the point being that he would be prepared to leave if need be. He’s gone to Chelsea because it lets him continue his life in London, playing at the highest level and with a few pals. Watching him, nobody can doubt his determination to succeed. But genunine excitement? He couldn’t have looked less excoted if he’d tried.

Finally, he adds: “I saw on the internet Arsenal fans saying, ‘Boycott the book’. I say read it first because you don’t know the whole story. They are exactly the people I want to read it. When they have, I hope people can understand why I was so angry, upset and disappointed at how I was treated. How I ended up having to leave the club I joined as a 9-year-old kid when I thought I would spend my whole career there.”

Why an expensive book? Why not just tell us for free?

IT’S fair to say that if Peter Hill-Wood, who shall we say is what you could call ‘old school’, is running verbal circles around you, the PR battle is well and truly lost. And with a few well chosen and seemingly off-the-cuff remarks, our largely seen but not heard chairman (and his is an example many a chairman could follow) has put the Chelsea ‘family’ right in their place.

Brilliantly, he said we were not going to get involved in a spat before adding: “It’s certainly not something I or anyone at Arsenal would have done.” Ouch.

As for Gallas, he would be wise to follow a similar lead. By that I mean categorically deny the claims again should he so wish and leave it at that.

ps, I’ve finally made a start on the links page. It’s in the top menu. (more will follow)