What a nightmare that was. The opening of the game looked like it was going to be a walk in the park with nearly three early goals but it turned out to be a completely different story.

The first goal came after just 6 minutes. Fabregas was blatantly just pushed over right outside the box and was an obvious free kick. However, the ball came to Diaby after Cesc fell and Abou shot and scored a screamer. The referee, Rob Styles disallowed the goal because he brought the play back for that push on Fabregas. The crowd were absolutely fuming, but not for long. Robin van Persie scored an absolute bullet of a goal from the free kick. His 77mph rocket curved round the wall, hit the underside of the bar and bounced over the line and into the net. Craig Gordon had absolutely no chance.

We nearly made it 2 a few minutes later when Ade got on the end of a good cross from Sagna but our second took until the 14th minute to arrive. It came from a Fabregas corner, which went deep after some poor defending and went to Ade. He played a low ball back in which came to Senderos who somewhat clumsily finished and the ball trickled into the corner. I scrappy goal but who cares?

In the 19th minute it looked like Diaby had got our third. Hleb sent a ball in from the right wing which was heading straight for Flamini, Gordon managed to get a touch ahead of Matty but that stop went straight to Diaby who finished well. However, the linesman had his flag raised for that initial ball to Flamini from Hleb, watching the replay today it doesn’t look offside and the lino can only of thought it was if he was in the wrong position or something because the play wasn’t really moving that fast.

If that goal had been rightly allowed then we would’ve been 3 up inside 20 minutes and that would’ve been that as far as the game was concerned. There would’ve been no return for Sunderland with that score line and we probably would’ve scored quite a few more with them coming at us. However, at this point, everything changed…

A goal for the visitors would’ve meant they would only have to find one more to snatch a draw and they thought they might be up for it. In the 25th minute they got a goal back through Wallace. A great long ball set up a 1-on-1 that Almunia did well to save, however the ball came to Wallace who scored through Clichy’s legs and Manuel couldn’t do much about it.

Still winning but as I said, Sunderland would only need one more to be level. And that goal for the visitors shocked us and for the rest of our game we never really found that brilliant flowing football that we were showing in the first 20 minutes.

Just after the half-hour Van Persie found himself in space about 30 yards out and hit a powerful long-range shot. The goalie made a good save to tip it over the bar and Senderos nearly got his second from the resulting corner. The Swiss defender found himself a free header at the back post but his effort went wide.

So at half time we were still a goal up but we hadn’t looked at all confident about it since that Sunderland goal went in. We needed Wenger to have a good talk with them in the break and we’d come out with clearer minds in the second half and finish the job with ease. However 4 minutes in we conceded a second. The cross came in from the left wing and Jones finished with the header. It really was poor defending not to stop Sunderland but it was a decent cross and header, Almunia got a touch but he couldn’t stop it from going in.

Just before the hour we made an attacking sub bringing off Diaby who’d scored 2 but had neither given to him. He was replaced by Theo Walcott who hasn’t been playing great recently, but yesterday he was quite good I thought and was causing the visitors problems.

Not long after that Toure picked up the ball just inside the opposition half, he was in a lot of space pushing forward, the crowd noticed the opportunity and urged Kolo to let out a screamer. And that he did. It was an absolute belter and luckily for Gorgon it went crashing against the post, as any attempt to save it would’ve probably broken his wrist. This would be goal of the season if it went in but it didn’t, so, so close though.

There was that effort and a number of goal-mouth scrambles but we were still finding it difficult to find a winner. We were certainly piling the pressure on though and you wondered if Sunderland would hang on. They were doing all they could do to help though with all their time wasting. Gordon was especially guilty with his goal kicks and such. What was really funny though was when we did finally score watching him run to get the ball and take the kick as quick as he could.

We did eventually find that goal in the 81st minute. Eboue passed to Walcott on the edge of the box who squared to RVP. He had a great first touch which set him up for a finish into the corner. A lot of credit went to Theo for the goal but the skill by Robin with that touch and finish was also brilliant.

It wasn’t all easy in the final few minutes though. Almunia had to make a good save to tip Stokes’ shot over the bar. Walcott had a decent chance at the other end too, he hit the post after some good skill on the edge of box but in the end it finished up 3-2. Quite a scary game and at times not the best performance but we got the points and that’s what matters

After watching this and the West Ham game I think our run of form might have come to an end. In both games I don’t think we played that well to be honest, in the first 20 minutes of yesterday’s game, yes, we were excellent, but we couldn’t continue that for the rest of the match. However, both at West Ham and this game, we came away with the points and that’s all that matters. Only one draw all season, the rest wins, and we’re top with a game in hand. Beautiful. We’ve a break now for the internationals so we’ll see how we shape up against Bolton after that.

Thanks for reading.