We won! Hallelujah! It’s all a bit too little to late though and even though Manchester United were held up 1-1 by Blackburn I don’t think there’s one single Gooner out there that thinks we’ve really made any ground on Man United at this late stage.

It was a strong line-up, as you’d expect with Song keeping his place in defence with Toure out on the right. Gilberto replaced the injured Flamini who I actually saw in his flash Mazeratti before the game, I should’ve stuck a contract under his wipers on second thoughts now. Walcott got a deserved start too.

Alex Hleb created a great chance early on with a fantastic pass through the middle to pick out Fabregas. He managed to take up the ball goal side of the defender and looked like his was charging to a one-on-one opportunity but the defender did well to get back and puts Cesc off.

Walcott was awarded a start today so he had to prove to Wenger that he’s worth playing the full 90 minutes, rather than just an impact sub. His first piece of notable action came after about 10 minutes when he got down the right well. He skipped past the defender taking it to byline but his squared ball was cut out, good play to gain that position though. From the resulting corner van Persie picked out Adebayor who had a free header but didn’t get it anywhere near on target.

Theo was in action again for our next chance, he made a surging run and played a great one-two with Gallas but one again Walcott couldn’t complete the squared ball.

We were looking threatening and were pushing for the opener. Hleb was also having a good game so far and his charging run through the middle earned a free kick when he was tripped outside the box. Van Persie stepped up and whipped it right around the wall sending it low to the far bottom corner but it just sneaked past the post. For some reason the ref gave a corner, which van Persie picked out Song but he couldn’t find the target.

We were getting closer and after half an hour the goal finally came. Theo took the ball up on the wing, and passed it to Toure. Kolo crossed it in early for Adebayor, his great first touch enabled him to wrong-foot the defender and calmly slotted it into the bottom corner. Great goal by Adebayor, showed great skill to finish that.

It only took another 8 minutes for the second goal to come. Gilberto picked the ball up in space outside the area and let out a shot, he slipped over in the follow-through but his shot deflected off the back of a defender which just diverted it into the top left corner. At the time it looked like a wonder goal from the Brazilian but the replay showed that he got lucky with the deflection. All our players ran to him for the celebration, a player loved by all but that is likely to be his last goal in an Arsenal shirt. Shame really.

We had a good chance to make it three just before the break, Ade charged through the box and made it to the byline and cut it back for van Persie who was coming in from distance. Robin made an okay connection with it but it was a decent low save in the end. Should’ve really scored from that chance though, he was in loads of space. We were still 2-0 up at half time though and looking comfortable.

Early into the second half there was a challenge between Alex Hleb and Graeme Murty. The Reading captain went down clutching his face but I didn’t see anything. He got up and was shouting and pointing at Hleb but the ref saw nothing. Seeing the replays back today, Hleb clearly slaps him across the face for no clear reason. The FA will almost certainly award Hleb a three-match ban ending his season. To be honest, I think Hleb is a bit of an idiot for doing that, it seemed quite out of the blue so I guess something must have gone on before that.

Kolo Toure came off after an hour with an injury; Eboue replaced him at right back. I’ve heard nothing yet about Toure’s condition so I suppose I can only take that as good news.

After a first half of good football and total possession, the second 45 promised goals, however we were finding it difficult to make it 3-0. Our best chance since the re-start came with about 20 minutes to go when Walcott was tripped outside area after some good skill weaving through the defence. This looked like the perfect position for a Robin van Persie free kick, he hit it brilliantly and Marcus Hahnemann could only stand and watch it go over his right shoulder. However, the ball came off the crossbar and then onto the post. A minute later, Walcott hit the same part of the bar after Cesc just managed to squeeze the ball to him out on the right hand side of the box. It looked like we just weren’t going to be allowed that third.

The frustration got worse though; Fabreagas’ shot was saved off the line when the ball was squared to him in the box in loads of space. We really should’ve scored in the 2nd half but in the end Reading held on to and it finished up 2-0.

We completely dominated the game but you have to say Reading did not show one bit of interest. They made 6 changes or something like that and played the game very negatively. That was a great time to play Arsenal: just lost out of the title race and haven’t won at home since February. They should’ve gone for it but they came expecting defeat before the whistle had even gone.

It was a good day out watching the Arsenal, which was all I was hoping for. The morning of the game I played a 5-a-sides tournament with the people from Arseblog. My team came third and Gunnerblog’s team won, lucky bastard…they had one player who was miles better than everyone else and was just unplayable. One positive we can take though is that Arseblogger’s team came last. Ha! It was a bit of a reality check personally though, I hadn’t played football for about 3 years and just expected to turn up and play…it didn’t happen. I turned out to be the Pascal Cygan of the blogging world and my legs are still killing me now. A lot of work has to be done before next season’s tournament.

Right I’m off people, thanks for reading. Speak to you tomorrow.