Jim'll Fix It - Or Will He?

Well, have you got any fingernails left? Once again we contrived to concede an early goal to an average side, and the pattern for the night was set, or so we thought.

Robin Van Persie’s cool finish from Cesc’s astute through ball sparked a surprising show of bravado from Hamburg as they substituted a striker for their left-back, thus creating the opportunity for Eboue and Walcott to open them up in the last ten minutes.

Full marks to Arsene for the substitutions. Adebayor, Baptista, and little Theo just overpowered tiring opponents in the closing stages. Has Walcott done enough to earn a starting berth soon? The trip to Fulham next week appears a good opportunity to rest one or two players for the trio of massive games that follow it. Hopefully the teenager will be in the frame.

In the other Group G encounter we saw the worst possible outcome as Porto won in Moscow. Now the conspiracy theorists are out in force as both Porto and ourselves only need a point from the encounter in Portugal in two weeks time. Do you not think Porto would love the opportunity to put last season’s beaten finalists into the UEFA Cup?

I have also heard a nonsense theory that Chelsea may not try too hard to beat Werder Bremen tonight so that Barcelona could struggle to get through. If you are Mourinho, and you know you have games against Manchester United and Arsenal either side of your final group game, do you really want to leave certain qualification for matchday six?

Time to do some research on Saturdays opponents for my preview piece. Anybody got a spare copy of Cloggers Monthly?