I Believed We'd Win The Match, I really Did

A rubbish First Half - Clichy allows a cross that never should have been, Song intervenes to give up a silly corner when Mannone had it well covered, the ball is partially cleared, Mannone is screened for a near post shot that he really should have got to. Goal!

Eboue gives up possession very cheaply in midfield, Jovanovic crosses the 18, Gallas (who quite simply, like most of the side, was poor for most of the First Half) makes contact with him, he goes down when he really could have stayed up, wins a penalty which he himself slots home.

All this within the first five minutes. Terrible! The Liege faithful were in fine voice.

We were clearly the lesser side for most of the First Half. Liege seemed to be sharper and hungrier. Then just before Half Time, Diaby collects a pass near the center circle, he turns once and then again to make room for a trademark run, he delivers a good ball to Bendtner who beats Bolat with a crisp far post finish.

Standard 2 Arsenal 1 HT.

In the Second Half, Liege ventured forward enough to register a couple opportunities to make a bad day worse but it was Arsenal who dominated. It was the kind of domination that didn't provide much to show for it. And then, on Cesc's fifth attempt at getting a good ball into the Liege box - he'd wasted the previous four, lofting them directly to chrome dome Bolat - Vermaelen got on the end of one and then Eduardo another to pull out a victory that only my colleague and I believed was going to happen.

Yes, I believed we'd win even in minute number six.

We've played poorly and won. We've played without our best player and won. We've played without our (cough! cough!) no. 1 keeper and won. We played a decent team who was up for it, on their ground and won.

It wasn't pretty but those shiny three points are all ours.